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LEAVE THE CITY OF THE DAMNED
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YOU LIVE IN AN OCCUPIED COUNTRY: AMERICA. OCCUPIED BY AN ELITE MONEY CLASS FOR 250 YEARS. THAT ENDS ONLY WHEN YOU DECIDE TO END IT, AT RTDNOW.COM.

Our world runs on beliefs and dreams: but not ours. An elite class put a wall of money between our government and us creating a perpetual city of the damned. To restore 300 million American’s Beliefs and Dreams OVER-NIGHT, all we have to do is leave their manufactured city of the damned. Let’s go: RTDNOW.COM

OPERATIC OPENING

Rattling bones: it’s Sheep’s nails “played” by Mike Braun. Tim Ellis’s prolific lead guitar drives the song and his rhythm guitar carries it. This was supposed to an opera of the highest level. Big stage production, a cute fat lady singing the lights out, big orchestra, moody Phantom of the Opera sets. This song reached that level. I didn’t add the flapping sound of Batman’s cape as he stands atop a skyscraper in Gotham city about to wipe out the evil of corruption, but I could have. I’ll save that for the movie. Funny how comics get it right, the heart of corruption is Wall St., modern day Gotham City. When I did the vocals I was looking out across the horizon high above an endless city called America, taken over by a soulless devouring money class.

a la Cirque du Soleil, each with a different spoken part, and full surround sound mixing. Which I later found out this studio couldn’t do and I thought “that will have to wait for the movie too.” I didn’t share all that with Tim because I didn’t want to spook him and get kicked out for ‘over-reaching’. As if 100 songs wasn’t. But Tim had the heart of a Lion as I do, and he understood the mission I was on. Troy Welstad’s piano is so cool emerging half way in.

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RAGING CAULDRON

Then it came time for the background vocals. Tim asked “Where you going to put them? You spoke over all their parts.” He was right, but there’s always a way. I said mute all the three ghost voices and do normal spooky background vocals. The fabulous vocalist (and guitarist) Jim Walker, Tim’s performance buddy for 20 years, their guitar show was beyond amazing, sat in on a couple of background sessions and added his range and veracity. I just love the cat scream at the end: it’s Jim. As I inch up on the first release, 20 songs, now you know why it took so long, this raging cauldron of vocal color still remains an issue in final sound engineering. Each measure has to be adjusted because it’s so dynamic. It’s a testament to Dean Baskerville my sound engineer that he slugged through it over three mixes endlessly seeking perfection with me. As Tim would say, “Play it Loud!” He’s always right. Every voice and all the pictures I’m painting come alive and it’s magical.

 

PROLIFIC ENDING

As if all that wasn’t enough, I wanted more juice at the end. It had all the tension, now I wanted the release. The actual transformation, the redemption moment we each will experience as we evolve to 100% citizen activism, how that will sound, and we all emerge and walk away leaving the city of the damned forever. Buzz Kill Alert! “How you gonna make that?” Dean Baskerville is not only a sound engineer but a producer in his own right and has taken over some of Tim’s role’s to help me finish the songs. Lucky me, surrounded by the most talented people. So I say, “Let’s add in the actual evolution moment and put in sustained summoning notes leading up to it.” Okay. “Let’s accent it with a Church bell”. Okay. “Let’s actually have the rush of a brain transformation, the moment it shuts down, silence, before restarting, the bell toll to restart it, and the release of pressure as the city of the damned mind programming is released.” Okay, done! “Nope, need more. Let’s put an organ pad at the end because we are all now rising above the city of the damned to meet Adrian. Still needs more. Add a real simple melody line of peace as our souls finally can rest. The famous song Let It Be came right to mind. Three notes, brilliant, but can’t use that. I have Dean add my melody line from the song. It’s beautiful. Peace. Thanks for taking the journey with me, Dean!

NAILING IT

This song was made two years into my Kung Fu (Studios) musical journey. After 400 mic hours I’d finally found my voice. Some urban legends are real. Like Sinatra nailing his vocals in one take. I finally was there. Tim Ellis could recognize it in sound check and say “You're on today. Do it.” And so went this vocal pass. It opens: “Any other day, I might feel another way, but in the shadow of today, a new world shows its face…” Today you’ll all be saying “No kidding!” But that was written four years ago. $20 trillion in national debt is ALL corruption: that I want to end. Not hard to see if you’re looking.

PAINTING PICTURES

Adrian the protagonist is joined by three rebels, who anguish over the never-ending torment of their countrymen’s souls playing out below. They lament their plans to shut the city of the damned forever. Alarm Bell-Wake up call! Tim Ellis producing exclaims “Where are you putting another spoken ghost voice?” I’d say “It’s as important as the song, maybe more, its what everyone is going to see and do, we have to make it work.” But I was also picturing the biggest operatic stage production ever made with in-aisle performers in each corner of the venue

IN THE STUDIO WITH ADRIAN

Making of the Song "Leave the City of the Damned"

ABOUT ADRIAN'S SONG: LEAVE THE CITY OF THE DAMNED

OMG, they say great pain makes great art.  And they’re right. This song emerged from a painful part of my life: divorce. I was still trapped in a relationship I couldn’t stand, and I needed to zone out. Before I know it I was engrossed in a History Channel series, three hours about Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazi regime, death camps, etc. Did I mention I’m Jewish? Those maniacs wiped out my relatives. At any rate, it seemed to fit my mood of being persecuted for a crime I didn’t commit.
 
Hitler was so successful that he turned proud, hard-working people into monsters accomplices who did nothing or oversaw the physical cities of the damned. Anyone not from the elite class, a select race, was rounded up, dehumanized and exterminated. Their evil started with public slurs. As a sleeping timid public took those slurs to heart, the legal system became involved and they began to limit or ban the activities of whom they wanted to crush. Any of this sound familiar today yet?  After that it was only a matter of time before they confiscated property, evicted them from their homes, and relocated them under the pretense of, “you’ll be happier” –before they were killed. This degrading process for the damned, taking everything they owned and reaching into their heart for their soul, is not unlike my experience of divorce. It’s evil, on two legs, as the song says.

Before the Nazi’s conquered anything, they had to conquer the mind. Their transformation of the nation began with propaganda. They had to create a mental city of the damned before they could create the real cities, the concentration camps. Any of this sounding familiar today yet??? And when they did, these killing companies were so effective they were responsible for systematically killing ten-million people. The mental city of the damned was quite powerful, for it empowered the would-be perpetrators to create a perpetual cycle of fear in their ‘enemies’, so their enemies would give up without a fight. Anyone hear this today yet? Albert Einstein was smart enough to see this coming, left Germany and helped the US defeat the Nazis. 

 

We are in a city of the damned right here in the US today as we endure the propaganda of our politicians and a paid for media. They repeat lies and demean us if we do not agree with them. They persist until we start to question whether they may be right. They refer to us as if we are a cancer growing in their backyard, and put people on the defensive about anyone else who may disagree. They avoid the real issues, start legal proceedings behind our back (as a precaution) and threaten us often with lawyers. They are always on the attack and hold us mentally captive in the “Stockholm Syndrome”: most yield, don’t resist, and learn to love their captor.
 
This abusive behavior is just like a divorce. I was expected to be thankful if slight pressure was taken off my emotional and financial windpipe. Just like our politicians and our media, there is no reasoning with irrational people who are always right, even when they are consistently proven to be wrong. People who are always right rarely stop and learn from their mistakes. For the 41% of American couples who have been divorced, I think when they look closely they will recognize the same markers and realize what’s happened between the American people and their government is just that. WAKE UP!!! The government divorced its people. Us, the American people, our voices is not heard anymore. Which is why the people who don’t payoff all the politicians can’t be heard or get anything done. And that’s why I made this opera. To wake EVERYONE up. They took your country; the money class took millions of homes in the last recession. They’ve already taken all their companies offshore, that’s your income and future. Are you fully awake now? I really hope so.

 
When America was formed, political parties did not exist. The founding fathers, having experienced them firsthand in England, warned that political parties would gain too much power and become corrupted against the will of the people. And, the moment our first political parties emerged, they only ever existed on a slippery slope. The party of Lincoln, the Republican Party, freed the slaves. One hundred years later the political parties’ main positions had flip-flopped, their ice caps reversed. It appears they melt and reform every 50 to 100 years. And rarely have they learned from their mistakes. Today its ALL lip service to 300 million American spirits.
 
Most of us would agree that our political system is virtually paralyzed, perverted by big money, which we cannot stand. We see that our system is overwhelmingly rigged by money in politics, that our system no longer represents the people, and that it has only appeared to enable the phenomenon of career politicians. It is leaning on our windpipe. And it was NEVER supposed to be this way! I am pushing back, and I want 300 million people to push back with me by adding their names at RTDNOW.COM
 
Good people do go into politics, only to become entrapped by a broken system.  If they offend big business, they don’t get donations, and most likely those funds will go to their opponent. Then they are out. Recent example: Bernie Sanders was a creature of the system and made some great noise about it, and that was it, and he was unfortunately out-maneuvered as he went to see the Pope in the middle of his one and only Presidential election run.
 
Other times the Corporama uses lobbyists to collect dirt on the “good people” and try to smear them. Fear, smear and pressure are what they just love to use against any one person, it works. Big business ultimately owns all of our politicians. Example: President John F. Kennedy didn’t play ball and they killed him. The exception is Teddy Roosevelt. He had a very big set.
 
There is no way to challenge a totally corrupt system. Or is there? How about 300-Million of us use the magic door called RTDNOW.COM and exit our city of the damned, OVER-NIGHT!  It can be that quick in the internet age if 300 million of you use your Smart Phones actively. We can leave our mental city of the damned together in-the-blink-of-an-eye, as soon as you decide to do it with me. I’m not asking for money. I’m making it free. I’m asking you to help me save your future. 300 million can really drain the swamp of corruption called Washington DC, which has bankrupted the ordinary citizen, squandered our treasury and already begun the collapse of the global economy. Now you know why I made 100 songs to reach 300 million people. I really mean to accomplish it.
 
As a people we have let ourselves become mentally entrapped just as the people of Europe were before World War II, prior to their eviction and relocation. The elite money class has effectively delivered its propaganda for five decades in an organized plan laid out in a 1971 memo, the famous Louis Powell memo. We all are waking up to find ourselves trapped in a corrupt political and economic relationship we can’t tolerate.

 

But you have a choice. Right now. Stand up with me and take action while we still can! Listen to the song again, then reach out and take my hand at RTDNOW.COM and just leave the city of the damned! It’s really that simple. Times 300 million. Get busy, use the Internet to keep telling EVERYONE add your name at RTDNOW.COM

discussion
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  • What city is Adrian singing about?

  • What makes it eternally damned?

  • How do we all easily leave it right now?

lyrics
LYRICS: LEAVE THE CITY OF THE DAMNED

Words and Music by ADRIAN

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Any other day, I might feel another way

But in the shadow of today, a new world shows it face

 

Not one of pity or rage, not one of anger or shame

Not one of remorse or blame, one of evil on two legs

 

Dead but still alive, a soul that feeds on sacrifice

It screams and then it laughs, HA HA! WELCOME TO THE CITY OF THE DAMNED

City of the damned

 

A crow cries for more, a hyena licks it chops

When dinner is served, they’re always there

 

It’s ghoulish Satanic party, dancing without a heart in

Most sacred to a maniac, is the pain they live to give

 

Ohhh Dead but still alive, a soul that feeds on sacrifice

It screams and then it laughs, HA HA! WELCOME TO THE CITY OF THE DAMNED

City of the damned.

 

Oh please end my pain, by stopping you rotted brain

It went insane so long ago, the echo of you is gone you know

The echo of you is gone you know, the echo of you is gone you know

The echo of you is gonnnnee you knooowwwoooo  ohhh ooohhh

 

Days go by, and you can’t believeeeeeee, you’re here, ohhh ohh, city of the damned

Lend a hand, reach out brother, reach out sisters, take each other’s hands

It’s time to get up, stand like a man, Leave the city of the damnedddddddd

While you still can, while you’re still hu-man

Stand up! Leave the city of the damned

“If you’re hearing this message, the evolution has begun. If you’re hearing this message, the evolution has begun, if you’re heeaarriinngg tthhiiss mmeessaaggee…”

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