Coronavirus – George Blamey-Steeden

TOY TOWN HAS LOST ITS SOUL

It may seem like Toy Town
When you’re looking down from up above
But in reality what you’ll find there
Are the lovers and the unloved

Like anywhere else around the world
Opposites attract
North and south and east and west
There’s no argument, it’s a fact

Umbrellas for a rainy day
Sledges for the snow
Barbeques come summertime
Autumn Bonfire Night’s multi-coloured show

But now the streets are empty
Corona virus has control
For lovers and the unloved
Toy Town has lost its soul

My last blog post was all about my new book, a book full of lyrical verse and short stories. It’s called, ‘LOOKING FOR REASONS’. I guess there’s no harm in mentioning it again. If you are interested, ‘LOOKING FOR REASONS’ is available on Amazon, either as a paperback or on Kindle. The UK link is below. Outside of the UK, just type in ‘Zoolon Audio’. The purchase prices have been cut right back, hence they’re not expensive. On Kindle Unlimited it’s even free!

Time for some music. This one is called ‘Summer Died on a Saturday’. Looking back, it seems I guessed right with the title. It’s a number from my album named ‘The Forgotten Daughter of Zeus’. I hope you enjoy.

Also, if you’re interested in my inexpensive PROMO VIDEOS FOR AUTHORS hit the link here or aim at the one at the top of this blog.

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having their poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for yourself, here’s my collection you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

FAKE IMMORTALS

‘The Day After’ by Zoolon

A LIFE – I hope you enjoy;

Misty morning, starless night
E minor clad in grey not white

There are heroes saying nothing
There are angels staying schtum
While out there on the streets you’ll find
The fake immortals and thoughtless dumb

Each statistic, their fault
They take another life
She just lost a husband, He just lost a wife

Each statistic
Another life
Another life…

E Minor Guitar Jam – Backing Track. I hope you enjoy this one as well;

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

EMPTY STREETS & EMPTY ARMCHAIRS

‘Rush Hour – Tuesday Morning 9AM’

The line, ‘Rainbow’s End stay a secret, for forever and a day’ was the line that my song Rainbow’s End was built around. Folklore has it that at the end of the rainbow there’s a pot of gold and an enchanted magical land where all your dreams come true. No one’s ever found the end of a rainbow. If dreams came true there now would be a good time to discover it – or would it just become victim to human greed?

Even though I’ve posted this song, ‘Rainbow’s End’ on the blog before, there’s no harm in running with it again. A download of the album by the same name is available on BANDCAMP

EMPTY
Every day a locked down deadpan Sunday
Every day a mountain never climbed
Every day a postcard never posted
Every day heartbeats that never rhymed

Maybe June, July or maybe never
My guitar the only living thing that doesn’t care
A window’s view, an empty still frame
No face to face, just an online love affair

Empty streets and empty armchairs
Empty funerals for those already dead
Empty songs sung with no one listening
Empty graves, empty love and empty heads

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

WHAT IF?

I don’t know its name, or if its even got a name. However this work of art from Francesca Woodman’s portfolio captures that feeling of being ‘locked in’

When I get bored – that happens quite a lot because of being locked-in with too much on my mind and nothing much I feel like doing – I end up playing the game of ‘WHAT IF?’ Pointless, I know and certainly there’s no song to be made from this one even though it sings OK. Even so, I put my ‘WHAT IF’S’ to basic lyric.

WHAT IF no one ever finds a cure for the corona virus?
Does that mean we’ll stay locked in and grow long hair?
We might as well count the days to global melt down
And for End Times, maybe a good idea to prepare
Newsreels, they talk about this disaster
Even so, I believe the medics, the sick and dying deserve more care

SO, WHAT IF those born rich helped out and cashed a few ripe assets
That wouldn’t take a lot of effort to arrange
To them it would be like me handing over ten quid
To the girl behind the counter, “There you go, you can keep the change”
Am I asking far too much from those with plenty?
Most likely I guess they’d all want something in exchange

WHAT IF the monarch sold the Crown Jewels
Perhaps, the holiday home in Scotland’s Holyrood as well
So then she could throw some hard currency in the direction of the nurses
The doctors, the carers, and all the other ‘at risk’ personnel?
Or would she say, “No way, it’s British heritage
And that, my young subject, is all I’m going to tell”

WHAT IF The Pope went and mortgaged The Vatican
With all the millions of pounds and dollars that would raise?
He could hand out the cash and help the living dying
Or would he say “Corona’s just a nasty phase
It’s best to leave these things to God in Heaven
And as you might know God works in the strangest ways”

Some fierce music from my ‘The Forgotten Daughter of Zeus’ album. It’s titled what I am, a ‘One Man Band’. I hope you enjoy.

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

DECISION NHS

‘The Decision by Dzaet’

The doctor had to make a decision. Would it be the bloke who needed treatment for his cancer or the woman at the wrong end of COVID-19? The hospital was in overflow. Only one of the pair would get any treatment. Only the doctor could choose who.

She needed to think. She went outside the hospital. In the car park she took her last coin out of her pocket. Heads the bloke gets his treatment. Tails the women does. Both patients are 50/50 in terms of surviving. She flips her coin in the air. It lands on the grill of a drain and disappears. Splosh. She doesn’t have another coin.

Who makes the decision?
Who spells out the case
For who dies or who gets cured?
Which one will she erase?

Someone had to be castaway. The doctor’s dilemma. Here’s my song, ‘Castaway’. I hope you enjoy.

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

DEVIL ON THE RUN

‘Covid-19 Art by Anasyasya Eliseeva via New Frame’

It’s not the sky that’s on fire
It’s humanity’s destiny
So stay locked in your prison cell
And let what will be – what will be

Don’t hide behind a miracle
Hide behind an old locked door
Say no to celebrations
Besides, you’ve seen them all before

Shit happens, we all know that
Shit happens every day
Let each day count for nothing
And remember not to pray

Pointless wishes, they’re a poor excuse
When the fragile have been led astray
Point the sufferers toward a better place
Let tomorrow best yesterday

Selfishness, the great divide
Now that’s kingdom’s come
Lie still, alone, in an open coffin
Laugh your head off – get the devil on the run

From my backing tracks on YouTube, a Bullish Grove for a bullish mood. An instrumental that also works as background music. I hope you enjoy.

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

PICTURES FROM ISOLATION CENTRAL

‘Things to do when in lockdown’

It’s become a challenge now. I’m 10 days in to my lockdown and so far I’ve not stepped outside the house at all. Not even once. Not even to clean the seagull shit off my car. I’ve seen it from the window. It’s not a denim blue car anymore. I don’t fancy cleaning it just yet.

It’s still vitamin D tab day every day. At least the tabs – unlike the sun – are ready and waiting for me at breakfast time.

I’ve been wondering what the world record for self-isolation lockdown is? Google doesn’t know. It’ll be sad if I break the record without knowing I’d done it. Nothing comes easy.

So, no outside photos to take. Instead some pictures of pictures hanging on the walls. The same walls that have me in lockdown.

‘Lockdown boredom’

‘The lockdown girl from The Pigeons Are Switzerland album cover’

‘No humans; clean water’

‘Doesn’t everyone have a pic of their mum? Maybe, maybe not. I was 10 when this one was taken on the day she and dad finally got married. That was the day my dad – joking I hope – said, “George, at last you are only a bastard in one sense of the word”

To my slow build, semi-surreal, composition, ‘Dead Rain’, today’s music for the blog post.

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

OBSERVATIONS

‘I’m good with corona’, says Mr Wolf’

Day nine, banged up. Happy most times. Daylight through a window. Vitamin D days. Running out of mushrooms. I live on mushrooms. I heard that the seagulls have gone fishing out at sea. They don’t hang around McDonald’s any more. No Grand Big Mac eaters to swoop down and nick burgers from.

I had a dream my door was open
Outside, sparrows singing, humans dead
Then a nightmare full of blue skies
Nothing dark inside my head

Guitar and me and melody
Inside my safe house prison cell
Through the window, two cats, a starling
Then bees and trees and empty hell

When this thing is over
And I’m walking out that door
I’m wondering if the new world
Will be better than before

What about some music? Here’s something dark and experimental of mine from ages ago. It’s called ‘Erasing the 38th’. It got curated but has yet to appear on an album. Maybe it never will now. I hope you like it. If it helps, here’s the the first couple of verses, the music follows.

Stars instead of streetlights
Two moons instead of one
Touch the edge of heaven
Give breath to a dying Sun

After the blaze of glory
Comes the flickering light
What’s left has no shadow
No vultures in flight…

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

THE YEAR OF THE RAT

‘Artwork by Misslyka’

During WWII, Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’ It’s a shame that that turned out to be false news. He never said it. Even so, it’s a great line for the current crisis in the world of art and fits like a glove for all the art genres suffering because of the worldwide lockdown right now. At times like this it seems art and artists are playing second fiddle to the invisible zombie infection we’re living through.

Musicians are a good example. With the music industry dead in the water because of the corona virus lockdown and my rainy day alternative businesses being dependent on being in places where crowds once gathered but are now closed down, I’m thinking what’s the point? Then again, I keep telling myself that dark days ought to be creative days. The two go hand in hand. Maybe that’ll work for me soon. I’m hoping it will simply because when composing I never think about money, or, as of now, a lack of it.

I’m also hoping all artists of all genres hang in there best they can. Bad times arrived too soon and will last too long.

The year of corona, the year of the rat
Just like in the Black Death, check out the stat
Selfishness, stupidity and greed we combat
A pity we can’t rename this year, the year of the cat

2021 the year of the ox
The dead now all scattered or in some wooden box
The rebirth of music, musicians, no more shocks
We’ll sing our hearts out for anything, anything that rocks

I guess my song ‘What Remains’ fits the mood today. It’s from my ‘The Pigeons Are Switzerland’ album. I hope you enjoy;

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE

JUMP THE QUEUE

‘Waiting, watching’

For my ambient, dark piece, ‘The Forgotten Daughter of Zeus’ as of now read, ‘The Forgotten Cheated Souls’. The more I hear about the greedy idiots who are stockpiling food while, for example, NHS staff don’t get a look in when it comes to visiting a supermarket after a long shift is over the more I angry I get. My music and words below.

Where have all the humans gone
Now the empty shelves, they have no worth?
Are they hiding in the shadows
Or still suffocating mother earth?

They’ll pay the price for selfishness
It’ll cost more than they think
Storing, hoarding, stockpiling
While the hungry poor die in a blink

Sharing nothing, taking everything
They get fat while others starve
No chance of them handing back
The last pig on earth they’ll cook and carve

It’s said time and tide waits for no one
I don’t believe those words are true
Time and tide always form a straight line
While uncharitable humans jump the queue

As ever, if any poets out there are interested in having your poems turned into songs then click here to check it out: POETRY TO SONG

If you are looking for all my other music then you’ll find it to download on BANDCAMP or you can stream and/or make a playlist of it on SPOTIFY

If you’re thinking about new t-shirts and similar for the summer, you might be interested in ZOOLON’S MERCHANDISE