the brief

the third song in the lily genre, a defiant 'screw you and your wandering ways'

It should go without saying but I'll point it out just the same: Much of what a karosong becomes depends on the async track that spurs it. Shorter or longer. Faster or slower. Simple or complex. The async track creates the channel within which the karosong flows.

I had come across Jesse Cook's Cancion Triste on youtube sometime in the early part of 2020. It was put on my 'maybes' playlist and then stayed there until that December when it was moved into the active channeling list, even though I had no title nor sense of the song to come. It was well into January 2021 and the first sub-vocal channeling period before it began to coalesce.

did i hear you say
you were thinking about leaving me?
did i hear you say you were thinking
about walking out that door?

did i hear you say you were thinking
about abandoning your boy?
well message received
loud and clear

It was the 44th karosong to start channeling, the 4th in the 3.3 set, and the 9th asynchronous collaboration with music by Jesse Cook. It also turned out to be the 3rd song in the lily genre.

I understood the big structure long before I got the title. It would have three choruses sandwiching two verses. But the choruses would 'evolve' from one to the next (a fairly common karosong pattern; see the karo'esque tour for other examples). In this case, the "did i hear you say...?" of the first chorus would become "so if you're planning..." in the second chorus, and "i don't give a shit..." in the third.

so if you mean to say
you're planning on leaving me
if you mean to say
you're planning on walking out that door

if you mean to say
you're planning on abandoning your boy
well message received
loud and clear

I had all three choruses by early April when I returned to my home property, and started recording again. But still no title. The two verses only came in fits and starts over the next couple of months, and the title finally showed up in the lyrics for the first verse.

but what makes you think
I didn't see this coming?
that the late nights, whispered calls
and yeah the lipstick didn't tell me

the sad truth is baby it's been so long
since you went away . . .
it's already stopped hurting

This was the period of the whole/full karo coming into its own and each song in the 3.3 set was a coming out and exploration of that new vox. There were only a few spots where I didn't get the delivery at the same time as the lyrics. (Two of those spots were the elides into the last line of each verse; their delivery took several months to figure out and achieve.)

but i don't see it will make
all that much difference anyways
with you, here not here physically means nothing
if you're not here mentally

and there's nothing worse than being lonely
when you're not on your own . . .
so I might as well be anyway

The narrative style of a woman speaking directly and — call it brusquely — to her partner clearly echoed another song that was actively channeling in the same period. That was You can say I said (with Lily was here by Candy Dulfur and David A Stewart). Looking at their similarities, I realized that I had already channeled a similar song back in the 3.2 set, As darkness falls (with Once by Jesse Cook).

Now there's a maxim in writing that 'one is nothing, two's just a coincidence but three is a pattern'. So there was a definite pattern here that I first thought was another karosong flavour. But as I thought about it, it seemed this was more a specific way of telling a specific kind of story, more a genre than a flavour. The first and so far only karosong genre. It was dubbed the 'lily' genre for personal reasons.

so i don't give a shit what you're thinking about
or planning to do
no i don't give a shit if you walk out that door and
it slams you on your . . .

but i give a shit about our boy
and you'll do right by him
and that's my answer
loud and clear