My last upload was October 8th 2019. I'm starting to realize that I am not going to be able to make new music. Not for a while. Not while my jaw won't allow it. So here's the next best thing: Time to unearth and let loose unreleased tracks. Or make videos to existing songs that never got their own feature.
Thankfully, I had one loaded in the chamber, and hadn't uploaded it. It's a good way to kick it off.
Even better? It was with some of my favorite musicians.
Storytime: One of my favorite vocalists, the absolutely wonderful Feather had given me a vocal sample she had given out to another group many years ago, and felt I could possibly do something with it. It was the Dido Chorus that Eminem used for 'Stan' but Ponified to Luna. It was haunting, quiet, and beautiful.
Years later, after she had fallen off the face of the music scene, another one of my favorite musicians 'The Combine' had helped me with 'Thunderbird' wanted to know if there was anything I had in the attic. I gave them Feather's vocal, and they created the track which you will hear as 'Stand Alone'.
This is a song about my peers in the Brony Fandom. It's about the artists, and the enthusiasts who wanted to catch the wave and either enjoy the new relationships built from the Fandom or hone their craft towards their future dreams.
More specifically, it's about those who "grew out" of the fandom. Because they stopped watching the show... or they thought it wasn't 'cool' anymore, or they needed to rebrand their image, or they felt that the work they had made was now embarrassing to show future investors or their current peer group.
I get it.
I really do. It takes a lot of courage to publicly out yourself as a Brony. It takes even more courage to do it in the face of those who've had the image tainted by media, soured by extremist hypersexualized fans, or just didn't have the open-mindedness to understand what exactly took place in those short years.
The point of "Stand Alone" was to say, even if you threw away everything Brony; even if you deleted your content... rebranded yourself. Hid away all of the fan gear, and cringe pony paraphernalia in a dark attic. Even if you pretended you were NEVER part of it, and you laughed at it with your new peer group. IT STILL MADE YOU WHO YOU ARE. It was still that bright color that changed the entire shade of your personality. It was that ingredient that gave you the courage to make friends, or those long hours spent honing your skill be it art, music, or design.
Maybe you make music for Hollywood, maybe you're the voice for an amazing new cartoon or videogame, maybe you are the member of a band that's about to go platinum, or work for a modern fashion company. Or maybe it's something as simple as you work in a lab or law firm and you're the life of the party.
Whatever you did with me and everyone else 8+ years ago, it changed you. For the better, and that's nothing you can throw away, delete, or unlist.
Now? Now you can Stand Alone.
lyrics
your royal highness, in spite of the silent treatment you binded me with
I don't mean to be defiant but like, I disagree with
Yeah I see the need to banish me. Does it have to be, so ghastly?
10 centuries it spans extreme, so vastly.
But I've had to see this through and does it please you?
To see me on my knees, to watch me plead, to say I need you?
I've seen the cities breathe, from this pristine view.
Societies span from a teen to a man, in this land, I see that he grew.
And as the sun was lifted up, and as the night descends,
I spent an endless set of it second guessing where my life had been.
And when I fight, admit, I'd like to win.
But when you pried me from my night, and sent me to the sky.
that right did end.
And as a thousand years compounded with my doubt and fears.
I found that I was hounded by the silence pounding in my ears.
And if I could take it back, damn well, you know I would.
Cause I have felt abandonment was hell - like know one should.
<Chorus>
Now let us end extended metaphors.
Let us stop pretending and address this trend that set a course.
The lunacy that I'm headed towards,
is that every fan we take in we would end up losing several more.
That's not to say it's bad but face it, it's insanely mad
As they attain a certain age, they fade away, it makes me sad.
They go to colleges, or go to work, they all adjust
Acknowledge that the fandom that they called their own was all a bust.
And all of us had our start here so what's all the fuss?
But now we have to just abandon ship cause fame ain't callin us?
*Sigh*
But that's the nature of the beast.
Call this fandom Never-Never Land, the famine is the feast.
And I can see this cease to be, but while I'm here it needs to be
And though I fear the end is near, I am sincerely pleased to be:
Your entertainer, your storyteller, the one you aimed for
And when this day will fade away, I was honored to play for.
<Chorus>
Isolated, I'm so slated, scared and fated just to become obsolete
and gone to faded, I just hated - Wait.
Instead of this heaviness that I dread I'm feeling.
I should try to rise above despise, and peel away the ceiling and remember.
It's not what you had left behind
It's what you took you while you were here that lit the way for you to shine.
You were some antisocial introverted xenophobic reticent.
But through the friendship spectrum you had grown into this dissident.
And isn't it enough, that though you let the pastel colors fade.
The elements enveloped you and gave you all you friends you.
and
It's amazing. That something so inane
could plant a seed into your soul, and form this hope into your brain.
And if you hold it and maintain it, it will set you on your way.
and many years from now, you'll probably look fondly upon this day.
So in this case, I wasn't stranded on the moon.
I was that brightness in the night to light the path to guide you through.
credits
released March 23, 2021
Chorus - Feather, Production - The Combine
I'm a hip-hop artist from San Diego with roots from the MLP:FIM Fan Music Community since 2012. I love meeting new people and collaborating with new talented musicians.
Produced on the MPC1000, “Nosthaigia” documents time spent in Thailand via regional music. Available here in an exclusive color vinyl. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 24, 2024
