Originally made this for a game which got cancelled due to time constraints and overly-ambitious scope, so it’s unfinished.

Another year, another Rubber Wizard game. This time around Kageki asked me to do more of the same style as before, and suggested La Gazza Ladra as an inspiration. I also threw in a bit of the Sailor Moon theme for good measure.

Game: Rubber Wizard Is Going Through It

This was an idea for Yamatsu’s boss fight music, although it was rejected for not fitting the vibe. Totally valid.

The title of this track is a Simpsons + Wagner reference.

Game: Psycho Burst

On the (sadly long-gone) original Song Fight! forum thread for this song, someone mentioned “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” which was one of my favorite Beatles songs at the time, so of course I had to put a couple of references to it in the lyrics.

While this song is vaguely inspired by something my mom once said about a childhood pet bird, as well as some of the continuing aftermath of the messy breakup that inspired a few of my early Song Fight! songs, it is basically complete fiction. (And for what it’s worth, that ex and I have long since reconciled and are friends again.)

The evolution of this song is pretty typical: It started out as lo-fi jazz, then it became punk rock, and now it’s a baroque string quartet with impressionistic poetry sung atop. Y'know, a totally normal trajectory that all music follows.

Lyrics: Birds of Our Own

I always wanted a bird of my own My mother had one but it had flown Away when she opened the window To let it be free as she loved it so

She always said that it would be, “If you love someone you set them free” And I know that I would love it so And I would open the window

It’s always sad when one’s not good Being in a cage made of Norwegian wood I’d hope that someone would love me so Much as to open my window

I once had a man, or should I say He once had me for a single day I thought that he had loved me so But he would not open my window

I flew away in a single day He chased me but I ran away Back to a place where I could be Myself and by myself be free

I always wanted a bird of my own My mother had one but it had flown Away when she opened the window To let it be free as she loved it so

I was going through some shit.

I’m better now.

Lyrics: Stronger Than

I am stronger than you Not a thing to do When you cried I knew I am stronger than you I will always try To live to see you die You know always that I I will always try I am stronger than you Not a thing to do When you cried I knew I am stronger than You don’t know what I’m going through You can’t see from my point of view You will be on my mind You won’t be hard to find

I am stronger than you Not a thing to do When you cried I knew I am stronger than you I will always try To live to see you die You know always that I I will always try I am stronger than you Not a thing to do When you cried I knew I am stronger than You don’t know what I’m going through You can’t see from my point of view You will be on my mind You won’t be hard to find

I am stronger than you Not a thing to do When you cried I knew

I am stronger than you Not a thing to do When you cried

I am stronger than you

I am stronger than you

This was my third Song Fight! entry, and I was finally starting to get at least a semblance of a recording setup. At this point I’d bought a cheap 4-track tape deck and actually played the guitar part all the way through and sang everything each in one take.

It was still pretty awful and I was still learning how to do basically anything with acoustic recordings. But I was getting somewhere with it, at least.

In 2006 I started the Plus 5 project, where I decided to re-record all of my first-year Song Fight! entries on the fifth anniversary of their original due dates. I LOVE YOU and Repair My Heart both came out reasonably well (and those new versions were the conceptual basis for the versions on this album), but Shipwreck still came out pretty badly, and I started to think that the song itself was cursed.

For this album, I originally started out trying to do a better job of the Plus 5 version, but it still just plain wasn’t working. I was starting to wonder if I even wanted this song on this album to begin with, and like it was just irredeemably bad and not worth trying to save.

But then I had a realization: there’s nothing that says I had to stick to my plan from 2006. It’s my song, and my choice for how to do things, right?

So I changed the arrangement significantly, and decided to lean fully into the idea that it’s a song about desperate isolation.

I think it works.

Lyrics: Shipwreck

It was a three-hour tour Looks like it’s gonna be more Now I’m stranded far from you And it looks like there’s nothing to do

I need someone to come Doesn’t matter where they are from I see a ship on the edge of my view And I’m hoping that it is you

Come on and rescue me I’m drowning, can’t you see that I Really need you all of the time so come Come on and rescue me

I am alone with nobody around It feels like I’ll never be found I have to hold on one more day To see if someone is coming my way

It was a three-hour tour Looks like it’s gonna be more Now I’m stranded far from you And I’m hoping that it is you

Come on and rescue me I’m drowning, can’t you see that I Really need you all of the time, so come Come on and rescue me

Come on and rescue me I’m begging for you to find me, and I Really need you all of the time, so come Come on and rescue me

Prototype battle theme made for an abandoned, untitled Pokémon fangame.

I ended up using this in one of my own games, although it was basically a last-minute shitpost meant specifically to have something that actually used the music in it.

Diana’s character theme song from Full Course.

Diana was meant to be a very posh, aristocratic person with refined tastes, and this is the music that popped into my head based on that description.

The composite soundtrack for Magnolia’s Early Morning Walk, a short game done for a game jam.

The different sections of this piece are the short looping motifs for the various scenes in the intended game, with different emotional variations on two overall themes that represent the protagonist’s state of mind.

Game: Magnolia’s Early Morning Walk

Background music for an informational video welcoming visitors to the Trans Academy.

The video this was for was intended to be an overview of the Trans Academy and what it does, with several different motifs to indicate the different aspects of the world and community. The video’s scope had to be pulled back somewhat, but this became the basis of the overall musical design and audio logos I developed for the Academy going forward. You will hear the Academy themes and motifs in several of the other songs on this album.

From “Rubber Wizard Is Still Pretty Busy” by Even Worse Games, https://even-worse-games.itch.io/rubber-wizard-is-still-pretty-busy

Game: Rubber Wizard is Still Pretty Busy

From “Rubber Wizard Is Still Pretty Busy” by Even Worse Games, https://even-worse-games.itch.io/rubber-wizard-is-still-pretty-busy

Game: Rubber Wizard is Still Pretty Busy

This is one of the soundtracks from Bouncing Bazoingas, a silly game about bouncing things into holes.

Game: Bouncing Bazoingas!

This is the background music from Snack Stacker.

Game: Snack Stacker

Game: ASS-TROIDS

Game: ASS-TROIDS