Change or a Dollar

Track 1 - The Danger Contradiction EP


For the next few weeks, I will be bringing you a special edition of the Author's Monthly Quarterly, featuring The Danger Contradiction. The Danger Contradiction is a collaborative project between myself, singer/songwriter Alice Danger, and Dialectic, the producer behind all the banging instrumentals and beats.

This track is about a struggling couple, just trying to make it in today's world, and what it really means to provide (All of Miss Danger's lyrics are in blue). Please enjoy, there will be many more like this to come, and the tracks will all be compiled into an EP when it is finished.

To hear more from Alice Danger and Dialectic:

Dialectic

Alice Danger

(Lyrics)
I miss you darling; please don’t you leave too soon.

Cause in the morning, it’s so cold, without you.

I miss you darling. When will I see you again? 

I know you’re working, but if you love me, I need you there.

I’m trying baby, but times are still tough, between the five to five, and the six to twelve, we still don’t have enough.

I’m tired of this struggle, day in and day out.

Been waiting years for some good luck to come, but it seems there’s been a drought.

I know I told you that I’d be around more, but my feet are so sore. Just let me rest for a second, before the alarm goes off and I’m already out the door. I’ll be there for Miranda’s birthday. What? She’s already four? 

I wanted to be there for it, but at least I’m still providing.

Baby please, you know I’m trying; don’t accuse me of lying.

By the time I get home, you’re already sleeping, and since I come in slow and quiet you think I’m creeping from cheating. What?

That couldn’t be farther from the truth, by the way. As if I got the time, and yes, I already know what you’re gonna say.

Just not tonight sweetheart, I don’t have the energy for it.

And if you have to depart, I don’t think that I could fault you for it.

I’m trying darling.

I really am, believe me. I wish I could spend every second here with you.

Cause in the morning, I hate waking up, and leaving you is the very last thing I want to do.

My pretty darling: I promise I’m really trying to change, it just can’t happen right away

Cause I’m still working, and I’m still working. and I just don’t see a way to escape.

We've had this talk so many times; it seems we're cursed with a fundamental, unsuccessful, love that just won't work.

I understand. To be a man you think you have to offer me the things I've never had.

But I don't want money. I just need somebody to hold me close and keep me warm at night.

The reason we're married is that I knew you could carry the family we built, and treat me right. But I've been doing it by myself all of this time; I need your help.

And when I needed you around, then you were nowhere to be found.

Look babe, I know you care. But to be fair, this isn't fair: Explaining to my baby why her daddy's never there.

I must say: I've had it. This unhappy marriage is not part of the life I want to live.

All the love that we gave this, we both want to save it.

But darling, something's got to give.

I’ll miss you darling,

Please don’t leave so soon.

Cause in the morning

It’s so cold, without you

I’ll miss you darling

When will I see you again?

I know you’re working, but if you loved me, then you’d be there.

I came back home, but you were nowhere to be found.

It looked like we were robbed, except for the boxes on the ground.

I guess you finally left; I knew you eventually would.

Still it stings. You know that I’d bring you back, if I could.

I know I can’t, I know that you’re gone; I missed my chance.

I noticed you left the picture of our first wedding dance.

What a reminder of what I thought we would have. I should’ve known that that happiness in that picture wouldn’t last. 

It probably could’ve, I should’ve tried a little harder. Well by the look of things, a lot. I probably would’ve if I were smarter.

I’m just too stubborn, but you knew that about me. That’s why you left the letter right? And on top your apartment key.

I must’ve read that letter at least hundreds of times. I haven’t heard from you since, I hope you’re doing all right. 

When you can, tell my baby that her Daddy loves her. Not much of role model, but I can be a good father. 

I miss you darling; please don’t you leave too soon.

Cause in the morning, it’s so cold, without you.

I miss you darling. When will I see you again? 

I know you’re working, but if you love me, I need you there.

Modern Hip-Hop Girls (feat. The Author)

Track 12 - Volume 1
Made by: Dennisaurus Rex

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the last track for volume one of the Monthly Quarterly, "Living the Struggle". Now that it is complete, all the tracks will be remastered and compiled onto a mixtape. I will be making hardcopies available to purchase, though it will always be available for download, free of charge. This track also marks the first time I've been featured on a song, a song made by my good friend and manager, Dennis Jones. It's all about having a liking for a certain type of chick, even though you'd most likely be better off not messing with them.

Also, I apologize on being so late with this release. I've been collaborating on a special project that will debut very very soon, so stay tuned!

(Lyrics)
Let me tell you first-hand child, this chick could drive you wild.
With the strawberry lips and a side dish of smile. 
Got style, grace, her hair was in her face, and her collegiate aspirations put the lazy into place. 
I'm talking sweet talk, with every word that's spoken. 
Deep subconscious thoughts and petty crushes are awoken.
She cool, smart, the body of a dancer. 
She says she'll keep it mellow, cause her zodiac is cancer. 

I got a thing for modern hippie girls. 

I got a thing for modern hip-hop girls. 

She likes Immortal Technique and MF Doom, yet has a lil’ Wayne poster up in her room.

Wears thick black glasses she doesn’t even need, but when I call her on it she says she needs them to read.

What an unreadable chick, got my mind in a conundrum. Can’t tell if she’s real or not,

D Rex, you know what I mean son.

The kind of attitude that makes you want to hold your tongue; never sure if she’s joking, or if she’s really that dumb. 

I have a thing for this sort of chick, this sort of a kind of bitch, but still so real that even so I never get sick of it.

The kind that makes you feel as if you’re solving a puzzle, but no matter how long you spend on it you end up befuddled.

The only thing bad about it, though I still want to doubt it, is the fact that these girls keep their true emotions so shrouded.

By the time you get a feeling that they’re down anymore, you’ve already been blindsided, smacked in the face with a door. 

I wish I could give em up, but it’s just too hard man.

I got a thing for modern hippie girls, I got a thing for modern hip-hop girls.

Who Was She? (feat. MINMI)

Track 11 - Volume 1
Production (Half Hands-off): Nujabes – Who's Theme (feat. MINMI) / Blackbird Productions (The Author)



This one is a completely made up story, inspired by those moments when I was young, and I gathered my courage to talk to a girl whom I didn't even know. Sometimes I crashed and burned, but other times I ended up with a number (not that it went anywhere past that).

The encounter in the song takes direct inspiration from this one time that I hit it off with a girl I didn't know, but then forgot to ask for her number. She was singing when I approached her, but it wasn't at me, and it was certainly not japanese. I was always reminded of that moment when I listened to this beat by Nujabes however, so I decided to make a story out of it so that I could still use Minmi's voice (the girl singing on it, a Japanese pop star).

Even though it was a brief meeting no longer than 15 minutes, it's something I probably won't ever forget. Either that or I'll end up convincing myself that this song actually happened.

(Lyrics)
Let me set the stage.

It was a warm day in September. One I’ll always remember, under the streetlamp penumbras.

Such a different age; a time when texting wasn’t an option, so if you were crushing on a girl you had to get to talking.

It’s like it was yesterday. I saw her standing by the bus stop, the kind of girl that makes your jaw drop.

Wearing some tight jeans, and a low-cut tank top, big ass headphones, always blaring hip-hop.

See, nowadays it’s easy to find out about a person. What with facebook, twitter, if not those then Google searches.

I’m just saying it’s not like I could get her name and save myself the trouble of spitting game if she has no brain, or if she gives no brain.

I’m not interested in scarecrow status, and I'm certainly no Ichabod Crane.

But I digress, I gotta tell you the rest, cause when I introduced myself, she started singing this:

(MINMI)

耳をすませて (Let's listen, carefully)

黄昏れるまで (Until dusk falls)

隠れたままで、迎えまって (It's concealed itself So, wait for its greeting)

気まぐれんあ風きっかけ (The fickle winds find reason)

めくれておもいで (To turn my memories inside out)

When she finished she smiled, but my tongue was tied up.

Couldn’t think of what to say. Speaking Japanese is tough.

As I felt my ears turning red, she started giggling.

“Sorry,” she said. “That’s just a poem that I love to sing. Especially when I listen to this beat, it’s so chill, one of those that you always keep on repeat,”

I knew what she meant; I had a few like that myself.

We talked for a bit, and soon I was under her spell.

I wish I could say I got her number, but I didn’t think of it. So busy in conversation, yeah, I’m still a little pissed.

Cause when her bus came she hugged me, and kissed me on the cheek, pulled out her Discman, and from it gave me a CD.

When I got home I immediately put it in. As the song came on I smiled, cause it was Nujabes.

As the voice came on, I recognized it as hers; A beautiful reminder of a small moment in this world.

(MINMI)
ツレテって (Take me)

あなた輪どこえ (To where you are)

ときをこえ（Passing through time)

心ほどいて（My heart unravels)