This is a very rough work tape of a song called “Lazy Angel.” It was my attempt at writing an interesting song using only two chords. Written and recorded in 2010.
Listen: Lazy Angel (demo) (broken link)
Lazy Angel
Words and music by Nicholas Tozier
I walked a sunlit field on a dark summer day
Saw cool beads of rain on a bluebird’s fallen egg
On my way, I met a winged and slump-shouldered man
An angel grown too heavy for his wings
His feet were caked with dirt, his feathers ragged, feathers stained
Had a message but forgot what he was going to say
He emptied out the spit valve of his tarnished old cornet
And blew a drunk refrain of “The Old Grey Mare”
And somewhere there’s a halo on a hat rack in an empty room
Somewhere there’s a halo just burning in an empty room
He emptied out the spit valve of his dented old cornet
Shuffled his muddy feet, shrugged, and scratched his head
While I walked home beside his footprints I found a fallen feather
I knelt to pick it up, twirled the hollow stem between my thumb and finger
And as the sun emerged from beneath its shroud,
I thought how fitting that I’d found a quill that day.
On a blinding white page, I spilled my vision:
Sank that feather in the inkwell of my pupil
And I wrote what I saw, wrote what I’d seen that day.
And somewhere there’s a halo on a hat rack in an empty room
Somewhere there’s a halo just burning in an empty room