Top songs

Top songs, by user votes. Click the titles for lyrics and more song details; click the play widget to hear the song. And vote!

  1. miso

    A happy a cappella song featuring heavy breathing, chest pounding, and lyrics from the back of a condiment package.

    And a true story. Occurred and written down in spring of 1990, recorded by Andrew Rappaport in the “counting the moon” sessions in June 1992 in a few takes, while grinning madly. I never found out what “shinshu honzukuri miso shiro” means, and I hope I never will.

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    Your rating: None Average: 5 (10 votes)
  2. rainy sunday afternoon

    I improvised this while playing guitar for my daughter while she took her bath, one rainy Sunday in 2008, having just driven home from my wife’s cousin’s wedding in Vermont. I was just singing what was going on. Then it seemed worth remembering.

    It took two years to get it recorded. The rain storm recording was from last night, after I spent most of the day finishing the solo guitar and bass tracks.

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    Your rating: None Average: 5 (7 votes)
  3. every time

    Eventually, there is no experience so small that it can’t break your heart.

    This is a rough demo, and I could see doing a grander production of it, but I’m enjoying posting these quick drafts to get raw new songs out into the world.

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    Your rating: None Average: 5 (5 votes)
  4. lakewind

    A love poem about a breeze that falls in love with the lake it touches, but is (apparently) unrequited.

    She was an air sign, I’m water. It all felt symbolic. Also I was riding my bike a lot where I could see Cayuga Lake stretching out, and feeling the autumn winds. This recording took three completely separate tries over many months before it sounded good to me.

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    Your rating: None Average: 5 (5 votes)
  5. roundtrip vigil

    I wrote the first verse of this song in an online chat conversation. That may not seem very remarkable, but consider that it was 1987 at the time (~10,000 computers on the Internet, before either the World Wide Web or IRC). The conversation took place on mainframe computers at IBM, where I and my friend Betsy were (supposed to be) working.

    The first line was in response to the question, “but why would you?” I don’t remember what preceded that.

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    Your rating: None Average: 5 (4 votes)
  6. living downstream

    I wrote this when my daughter was in kindergarten, and recorded it just after she left for college.

    I had intended to write a song extolling our elementary school, to oppose shutting it down, but ended up meandering off into musings on place, names, time, and the dream I’d had the previous night.

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    Your rating: None Average: 5 (2 votes)
  7. keep rolling down river

    A hymn to the inspiration and guidance I feel from flowing water. Five-part a cappella harmony.

    I wrote this in the fall of 1995, the morning after having seen the movie Beyond Rangoon. The climax of the movie comes as a group of Burmese refugees is trying to cross a river marking the Thai border. At the time, I was spending some time every day watching the creek near my house.

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    Your rating: None Average: 4.9 (8 votes)
  8. Parasites

    Clara and I wrote and recorded this for the Fall Creek Elementary School Talent Show, and she lip synced it with friends Ava, Clare, Grace, Nuala, and Tivona. It's a parody of "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz - see the (child-inappropriate) video on YouTube. I think it has to do with the similarities between the two most virulent parasites of childhood: pediculosis and Top 40 radio earworms.

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    Your rating: None Average: 4.9 (14 votes)
  9. verisimilitude

    For Tom and Leela. Written and recorded this morning.

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    Your rating: None Average: 4.8 (6 votes)
  10. some kind of truth

    A credo.

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    Your rating: None Average: 4.8 (5 votes)