Swans Have Flown

I often get asked what I think is my best song. I always answer with this little shanty/ballad. I realize I am in the minority in thinking so. The next post will be the song that everyone else (practically) thinks is my best song, and the story behind it.

The first part of the song is a capella. I actually had planned on doing an entire album free of any instruments, using only vocals or body-made noises (insert childish giggle here) but the same time I was working on the album, Tom Waits had just released "Real Gone". While there are sampled instruments (his own), it is created mostly with just mouth noises. I quickly gave up the idea, but I always loved this little bastard all the same.

The lyrics were inspired by a drunken conversation I had with my pal Danny. We thought it would be pretty awesome to make a film about a pack of swans that eat some moldy bread at the park and go bat-shit insane and declare war on humans. The words are sort of like random quotes that I imagine scared and confused people might say when the swans claim their "no-more-fuckin'-around" stance, followed a calming ballad by the refugees of the great Swan War. I still think that film would be pretty awesome.