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Mompha Termina

from Decline of Day by 20 Minute Loop

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The lyrics to this song are total gibberish, but I wanted to make it sound like some sort of exotic language, like a chant or an incantation. I even went so far as to call the lyrics in the liner notes the "Translation". Hmm... seems a little misleading now, but I suppose it WAS a translation of the feeling of the song... for me anyway. I was big into Kali at the time, which is probably why my life was falling apart, or maybe vice versa. Reading these lyrics now, it all seems a little dramatic, but at the time, I was really feeling pretty stirred up and dark about everything. I've become much more boring in my old age, although I still am terribly drawn to Indian imagery.

-ka

What Kelly hasn't learned from me is just to lie and say it is in another exotic language, a chant or incantation that summons Cthulhu, or something like that. Misleading people is what we're all about! Kelly might have been feeling "stirred up and dark" when she wrote the lyrics, but this was one of the fun collaborations we did during a spate of such collaborations. At the time, I remember her describing our vocal harmonizing/syncopation as "aliens with bulbous heads having sex." The dumbeks at the end were Chris Manning's idea, I think; they work pretty well. And a dumbek is a dangerous instrument to incorporate in pop music, much like the didgeridoo: next thing you know, you wind up on a Putumayo compilation. Joe Ostrowski, our ex-guitar player, once went to a lame summer world music festival that had a didgeridooist in the line-up, but the emcee called it a "digital doo."
-gg

Incidentally, when Kelly says she was "big into Kali," it's true: she wore a belt of severed human heads around her waist and carried a blood-stained scimitar around. It was difficult to ignore.
-gg

lyrics

"Translation"

I am marching
We are marching
Your eyes, your burning eyes
Can not take this knowledge from me
We will explode
The fire will consume us
And the air will smolder with our memory
Sweet is the flame, sweet is the flame
We raise our arms in praise
We are all marching
Those eyes, those lovely eyes
Can not fool me
We will explode
The fire devours
The fire devours
Devours all of us

credits

from Decline of Day, released October 23, 2001
Music: Greg Giles/Kelly Atkins
Lyrics: Kelly Atkins

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20 Minute Loop San Francisco, California

Original music for the hook-hungry mob, the nervous foot, the jaded indie-phile.

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