ROBIN MORALES & BRENDAN SMITH

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function (album)

Content Warning

Contains lyrics dealing with depression, mental health, and suicide.

lyrics

1. Wuhan – Morales/Smith

Wuhan … Wuhan …

2. Marketplace transactions – Morales/Smith

(Instrumental)

3. Proclamation – Morales

(Instrumental)

4. Clouds – Morales

I’ve been sitting underneath the poplar tree
The wind moves its wispy leaves away from me
You’re long gone and you’ve left nothing
To touch, kiss, or see.

So if you hear this won’t you please sing to me?
Your voice is like a mellow lark on the breeze
It’ll bring life back to the dying old and sold
Poplar tree

Clouds of air drift through the sky
Clouds of water make me feel so high
Clouds of sadness make me want to die
You left without a goodbye

In the morning when I rise all alone
I think of you and the lies you condone
They seep below your poplar skin
And into your hollow bones

Clouds of air drift through the sky
Clouds of water make me feel so high
Clouds of sadness make me want to die
You left without a goodbye

5. East Lansing – Morales

I walk through snow strewn streets underneath yellow lamplight
Pondering your grace and the mystery of your delight
Does the snow on your windowsill still glisten in the moonlight?
There’s nothing lonelier than East Lansing at night

Hold me darling, my heart is aching
Love me darling, my heart is bleeding

Now you wear your nostalgia, in shades of remembering
Your youth is an old melancholy that keeps on growing
If only I could reach you, you might hear what I’ve been saying
I think you’re the loveliest girl in all of East Lansing

Hold me darling, my heart is aching
Love me darling, my heart is bleeding

6. My only friend – Morales

(Instrumental)

7. We the people – Morales

We the people of the United States
We the people are crushed by history’s weight
We the people wanna give peace a chance
We the people march with love’s clear stance

And look, just look, what they’ve done to us

We the people protest in the street
We the people with justice still to greet
We the people see freedom up ahead
We the people will overcome and ascend

And imagine, just imagine, where we’ll be then.

8. Speaker Dust Suite #4 – Morales/Smith

(Instrumental)

Biography

Robin Morales (he/him/el) is the bilingual working-class son of two Havana immigrants and a senior in the teacher preparation program at Michigan State University with a major in social science education and a minor in Chicano/Latino studies. He writes music, poetry, and theatre works that serve as personal reflections of his upbringing and boyhood in Lansing, MI. It is not unusual for Robin to regularly engage in small acts of cultural resistance such as wearing colorful crop tops to class and sending pacifist literature to military recruiters. Robin aspires to be a history teacher some sunny day in a country without school shootings.

Brendan Smith (he/him/his) is a Senior Undergrad marketing student at the Broad College of Business. His Christian faith, spending time with his friends and loved ones, and creating things in mediums of all kinds are some of the things he values most. Originally from Canton, Michigan, he also enjoys spending time exploring the unique natural environment of Michigan, and has spent a considerable amount of time camping and enjoying nature through wilderness backpacking trips.

Description

“function” is a low-cost, basement studio recorded rock/folk indie album. As such, the recording of this album was done with cheap instruments and equipment. Lyrically, the album’s themes touch on alienation, political angst, and spirituality. Our main theme is longing. We considered longing through a multifaceted lens: longing for human connection and love, but also longing for justice, truth, and change. The album is roughly 20 minutes in length.

Reflection

Receiving the microgrant greatly helped Brendan and I record the album. In fact, without the grant, we would not have been able to record our music using the same digital program that we would have liked. This is to say that the grant enabled us to purchase FL Studio: the recording software used to record the album’s _ songs. Additionally, the microgrant was used to finance the purchase of new guitar strings which were critical for recording final guitar tracks. Through this process of writing and recording music during the time of COVID, I have learned that artistic collaboration can be a very different process than individual artmaking. The former involves compromise and the meshing of two ideas into one fused outcome. The latter is (often) a more isolating endeavor. Furthermore, I learned that artistic progress should not be judged based on how much work was “completed,” but on growth. For example, the days Brendan and I made very little observable progress on a song were often the most fruitful because we went through the many artistic choices we did not like and thus clarified the path forward for a different day. In this process, I also learned that the universality of certain human experiences (like sadness and alienation) is best written about through the personal lyric – not the generalized lyric. Given that this album was written during the COVID pandemic, we were provided the opportunity to learn about and consider macrolevel social happenings on an individual scale and express such personifications through the rawness of music. I strongly believe that other CAL students would benefit from similar grant support in the future to finance their artistic endeavors and projects. The truth is that financing art is seldom easy, especially for college students who must consider the costs of living and tuition. Programs like the microgrant can truly be the difference between a college-artist being able to pursue their vision when inspired or having to shelve their vision for a different time.