I Was a Dinosaur [NEW SONG]

At the end of January I joined the RPM Challenge, sort of a NaNoWriMo for music. The idea is to get your creative juices flowing by just creating, not really worrying about quality. The goal: 10 songs or 35 minutes of music, comprising a complete album, all written and recording in the 28 days of February.

I failed.

Don’t ask me why the shortest month was deemed the one for this challenge. Two or three more days would have made no difference to me; I wasn’t even close. I’ve never been a particularly fast writer.

But the day after signing up, on my drive home from work, one song did pop into my brain. Being a stickler for rules, I wrote nothing down – though it’s possible I sang a few embarrassing riffs into my phone to make sure I didn’t forget them.

In the end, it took me a little over a month to get around to writing lyrics, recording all the parts, and mixing the thing down. It’s a bit different from anything else I’ve ever done. Why don’t you download all two minutes and fifty-two-seconds of it?

Heck, sing along:

I Was a Dinosaur

One hundred years ago I was a terrified conscript
A miniscule pawn for national interests fighting in a world at war

I may not survive this conflict; I may have died by morning
My standard of living is higher than that of any other time in history

One thousand years ago I was a serf in England
Immobilized socially, laboring daily, restricted by class

I will not self-actualize; I may just get through this winter
In service to bloodlines better at speaking and acting noble than mine

I was a dinosaur x8

One million years ago I was a Homo erectus
Thinking I’m badass standing on two legs instead of on four

Yesterday spent on hunting; today’ll be spent on gathering
Maybe I’ll figure out making those sticks hot so I can be finally warm

I was a dinosaur x8

One billion years ago I was a Precambrian life form
Only marginally multicellular, sucking up nutrients

No rudimentary sense of self; no way for me to call for help
No way I could even know it’ll be eons and eons and eons before

I was a dinosaur x16

 

Bone drawings: tibia of Megalosaurus, From Nature on Stone by J. Erxleben, as published on Plate 31 of A History of British Fossil Reptiles by Richard Owen, 1849. Archived at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/books/britfossils/html/txu-oclc-13370987-2-dinosauria-plate31.php

Any passing resemblance to Kasabian’s “Velociraptor!” is unintentional but, let’s face it, probably not entirely coincidental.