Melancholy piano/vocal cover/rewrite for y’all.

(audio only)

The inspiration for this song was standing outside waiting for the bus on Monday morning and seeing ash floating through the air from the California Wine Country fires. The actual message here is less about the fires specifically and more about my place in the world in general, something I touched on before in “Colorless Sneer”, but the fires were still the prompt, perhaps because they’re the first of the many natural disasters in the US this year that’s had a visible effect on my home in San Francisco.

The original song is from RWBY, under the name “Mirror Mirror Part II”. (There’s a part I as well, which is about the same character at an earlier point in the story. The song itself does not have any real spoilers for the show.) I’ve been drawn into RWBY and wanting to do something musical to show that, but none of the songs really spoke to me as is; the message of the original “Mirror Mirror Part II” isn’t bad, but it wasn’t something I’m feeling right now. So this worked out well.

(Oh, and by the way, I’ve only finished volume 3 of RWBY, so no spoilers please.)

(Lyrics in italics are taken from the original song.)

The air around me smells like burning
The sky unnatural golden glow
The bubble burst or so I’m learning
The ash is floating on the breeze like snow

And I’ve been wondering
What should I do
When my inertia
Means that I don’t move

The hills on fire
So close to home
Am I really helping
Out on my own

Some believe in fairy stories
And the ghosts that they can’t see
Without my words turned into action
Who out there’d believe in me
Mirror mirror
Tell me something
How much more can this go on?

Who am I to complain?
My life’s been spared so much pain
Born with all that I need
My comforts all guaranteed

So what’s the problem
How is it okay
To lean on privilege
Every single day

I should be stronger
I should be there
I could help to change it
If I really cared

Some believe in fairy stories
And the ghosts that they can’t see
I believe in human efforts
Why doesn’t that apply to me
Mirror mirror
Tell me something
I might need to change it all

This entry was posted on October 15, 2017 and is filed under Creativity. Tags: Song, Piano, RWBY