Raw vocals for Tools of the Trade. These are comps, since I got a little behind the beat in verse 4. Plenty of room and throat noise for you to engineer away.

This is the second (verso) of a two-part piece imagined as the centerpiece of a musical theater number, “Spectrum”. It’s alternating 8 bars of 5/8 with 8 bars of 6/8 in Dm, just to keep it punchy. ZIP includes room and close-up mic positions.

—————
Tools of the Trade (verso)
Lyrics (cc)BY 12017 D A Ayer

No man owns the sky
or the colors in my eye.
Could I be so blind
[as] to offer up my mind?

We’re just tools of the trade,
always ready to hand:
[the] mere knives in the drawer
with no grasp of the plan.

Chaos scrolls unseen
‘cross the bottom of my screen
as each new talking head
proclaims that Truth is dead.

We’re the ink on the page
hurling shock and surprise:
the black on the white;
both the truth and the lies.
Novus ordo seclorum!

Connoisseurs of fact
suborn my every act,
inciting my desire
with alchemizing fire.

We’re just tools of the trade
lying ready to hand:
[the] mere knives in the drawer
with no grasp of the plan.

Fortunes rise with time
inviting me to climb
though every step I gain
is paved with others’ pain.

We’re just tools of the trade
always ready to hand:
mere knives in the drawer
with no grasp of the plan.
We’re the ink on the page
hurling shock and surprise:
the black on the white;
both the truth and the lies.

Novus ordo… Novus ordo seclorum!
How could I be so blind?