An experiment in biography, using two decades worth of unrecorded songs to look back on two decades worth of experiences.
Songs composed by Max "Bunny" Sparber between 1986 and 2005, and the stories behind them. These songs are newly recorded by singing into a digital camera on video mode, pushing the resulting audio through GarageBand, and then behaving as though the resulting lo-fi MP3, upon which the sounds of birds, traffic, and chairs moving can be heard, is an aesthetic decision.
BUT WHEN CINDY DANCES (1986): The first song Max "Bunny" Sparber wrote. A pop song about a real Cindy and a possibly invented dance.
PHOTOGRAPHING THE DECEASED CHILD (1987): An a cappella hymn telling of a photographer, a child, and a funeral.
MEAN OLD MAN (1987): A song in the style of prison chants or field hollers telling of corruption and hypocrisy.
SONG OF THE CANE TOAD (1988): A strange country song telling the true story of the introduction of the Cane Toad to Australia, and the disaster that followed.
GOD DAMN YOU TOM BROWN (1989): A haunted song about a very mean man.
I'M GONNA MISS YOU WHEN I'M GONE (1990): A minor key song about marriage and betrayal.
THE BALLAD OF EMMA GOLDMAN (1993): An a cappella melody, sung slightly out of tune and based on a poem written in in 1901 newspaper, telling the tale of the assassination of President William McKinley.
RUTH (1994): A deliberately "Oriental" song in Hebrew, taken from the text of Ruth 1:16.
THIS DREAM OF LOVE (1996): Like all love songs, this is the tale of plummeting down from the clouds, through the earth's mantle, and right into hell.
THE BAND WILL PLAY A MELODY (1996): A melancholy arpeggio about the risks of wanderlust.
SERENADE THE MOON (1996): A Tin Pan Alley-style tale of a drunk and his girl.
TUT TUT NO NO (1996): A 1920s love song as transmitted from Venus.
BEGGAR'S SONG (1997): A minor-key manifesto from a bum.
I WANT TO SPEND THE DO RE MI (1997): chipper song telling of Max "Bunny" Sparber's cavalier attitude toward money at the time of the song's writing.
TIP YOUR HAT (1997): A Day of the Dead song about skeletons and the skeletal things they do.
WHEN YOU'RE MY MRS (1997): A ragtimey ditty about a nervous bridegroom.
I'M THE SAME MAN (1998): An unforgivably bitter song about the end of a relationship.
A CHRISTMASTIME TOAST (1999): An unnecessarily melancholy Christmas song.
LET THE BAND PLAY ON (1999): A moody tune about the terminus of a relationship.
WASN'T WE A PAIR (1999): A tale of loss and regret told in the manner of a Mexican ragtime cowboy song.
STRUGGLING TO CATCH MY BREATH (1999?): The lonely thoughts of a divorced salesman in an anonymous motel. Actual writing date unknown.
JIMMY THE SHREW (2000): A song about a villain.
ONE KISS FROM YOU (2001): A maudlin love song from an old man to a young woman.
GREAT LONG STRUMMING THING (2001): A naughty ukulele ditty.
WOE IS ME (2001): Unrequited love and naughty lyrics.
BACK TO THE RIO GRAND (2003): A cowboy song about a lawman and the murderer who plans to kill him.
ALFRED PACKER, A MAN WHO LIKED TO EAT (2004): An uptempo country ditty about a Colorado cannibal, and, later, Max "Bunny" Sparber's neighbor.
FOUR DETESTABLE CHILDREN (2004): A circuslike melody telling of little criminals.
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