Maybe Magic (2022 – Eclectic/Acoustic)

TA MM Page - Square

“A soaring beauty, deceptive in its apparent simplicity, a mixture of ‘Pink Moon’ Nick Drake and ‘Hunky Dory’ David Bowie” – Culture Catch, New York

“With its dizzying guitar work and wry lyrics, ‘Maybe Magic’ highlights the virtuosity of UK musician Tim Arnold.” Bandcamp

“Very strong, very beautiful, very impressed.”
Kevin Godley

“Tim’s haunting and compelling, it’s always fascinating to hear what he does next.”
NME

Tim’s 23rd studio album is a work several years in conception which brought together a multitude of experiences and influences for a musician who has cut a diverse course in his artistic development. This 9-track release comprises a new approach to his guitar playing (finger style playing), gleaned from his love of American composer and guitarist Michael Hedges. The album title is inspired by author Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘Maybe Logic’.

‘Maybe Magic’ brings together songs written between 2019 and 2021 when Tim discovered Discordianism – an idea that both order and disorder are illusions imposed on the universe by the human nervous system. These ideas took root at the end of 2019 during Tim’s collaboration with alternative theatre group ‘The Mycelium’ – a British female-led production company spanning decades of alternative and DIY culture.

After receiving a ground-breaking book on Michael Hedges’ finger style guitar playing ‘Rhythm, Sonority, Silence’ by Hedges’ collaborator John Stropes, Tim set about relearning everything he knew about the acoustic guitar and began work on the album. His time was spent learning the new guitar tunings, whilst simultaneously painting the album cover in the room next door, as audiobooks of Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger and Alan Watts blasted out of the stereo. The album artwork was inspired by one of Tim’s dreams.

After applying gold leaf and gouache, Tim would pause the audiobooks and record a new song while each new layer of paint would dry. This process continued between the two rooms over the first 3 weeks of 2021 until both the album and the painting were completed.

Tim’s revisits a musical style in Hedges’ inimitable harmonic structure Tim first heard as a boy, at the same time as learning to paint again.

What ‘Maybe Magic’ sets out is the first album Tim has released without anticipating any outside thoughts about the music and without any intention to release it publicly. He decided to release it whilst his multimedia album/film project Super Connected is on hold.

Tracks and Lyrics

1. Guides

I am Ralph Steadman, The Big I Am

I am Bridget Riley in an Op-Art slam

I am Monty Python,

The Judean Peoples Front

A Carrie Fisher wisher

And Lenny Bruce stunt

 

I am Arthur Rimbaud,

Season after season in hell

I am Quentin Crisp

And Virginia Woolf as well

I am Mandela

Freedom and a Dove

I am Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Shining up above

 

It’s up to you, it’s up to me

Who we really wanna be

Saying ‘everybody else’
Is another way to say ‘ourselves’

 

So where did we leave our minds?

There must be more to picking sides

What if we close our eyes?

Dig inside. Find a guide.

 

I’m getting out my Gandhi

My Erin Brockowitch

I am all of The Beatles

And we’re bigger than Twitch

I am Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale too

I am Miles Davis

And David Bowie too

I am the love child

Of The Buddha in the sky,

Lady Emma Thompson

And Mr Stephen Fry

 

I am Yoko Ono

Carl Gustav Jung and Freud

Jan Morris and James Baldwin

And every member of Pink Floyd

It’s up to you, it’s up to me

Who we really wanna be

Saying ‘everybody else’
Is another way to say ‘ourselves’

 

So where did we leave our minds?

There must be more to picking sides

What if we close our eyes?

Dig inside. Find a guide.

 

I Am Robert Anton Wilson

And William Blake

Madame Blavatsky and my brother

Robin Williams and Cake

 

It’s getting very crowded
There must be something we can do
They’re turning into me

And I’m turning into you

2. The Spectrum of Love

Free it

Don’t tie it up

Let it out

Don’t self-destruct

 

Let’s get the cat

Out of the bag

The cat has wings

The cat can fly and it sings:

 

No background =

No figure animism

No environment =

No organism

 

From front to back

‘Other’ goes with ‘self’

Everyone is you

You are everybody else

 

It’s the love you give me

Unlocks the limit to the love I can give you

It’s the love you give me

Unlocks the limit to the love I can give you

It’s the love you give me

I give you. You give me.  I give you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exude it

Like the Sun makes heat

Don’t let the tail

Wag the dog

 

The inner fountain

The hearts beat

Become the mountain

To never ever, ever stop

 

So trace the spiral

In your hand

The upward spiral

To help you land

 

Be like a river

Buzzing like a bee

In and out of, in and out of

This energy

 

It’s the love you give me

Unlocks the limit to the love I can give you

It’s the love you give me

Unlocks the limit to the love I can give you

It’s the love you give me

I give you. You give me.  I give you.

 

 

 

 

 

4. Dream in Tight

Trying to find an angle

For you until the close up’s right

Your feet begin to stumble

And I forget we could be losing light

 

But I don’t care, let nightfall wrap us

We’ll pick up on another day

I can’t photograph what I’d like to say

 

It’s easier to dream

Yes it’s easier to dream

 

‘cause she fills me up with light

‘til shadows fall then rise just right

And I’m tuning up inside

Out of the box, we’ll stop the clocks, and dream in tight

 

It’s starting to sound familiar,

But altogether entirely new

The will that wants to thrill you

Is driving everything I do

 

And I want to hear of all your journeys

You’ve ever had and have yet to take

You captivate.  You fascinate

 

Me. I just want to dream

Yes, I just want to dream.

 

‘cause she fills me up with light

‘til shadows fall then rise, just right

And I’m tuning up inside

Out of the box,

we’ll stop the clocks,

and dream in tight

 

Out of the box, we’ll stop the clocks, and dream in tight

 

‘cause she fills me up with light

‘til shadows fall then rise just right

And it’s tuning up inside

Out of the box, we’ll stop the clocks, and dream in tight

5. Shine You Light

One day it was dirt

Under your shoe

Next day came a bird

Singing through, sowing seeds

‘til something grew

 

Someone made you shout

Now they’re feeling bad
How could they know how

You waited all of your life

To shout like that?

 

Now you’re not afraid

To shine your light

So come out the shade

Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s right

 

You have hills to climb

You know you will

No such thing as time

So you can climb all your life

And still be still

 

I know so much has changed

But you’ve got what it takes

To imagine how

With skill and grace

It’s endless space

You’re facing now

 

Don’t be afraid

Shine your light

You’ve got it made

Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s right

I know you like to place

Everything in it’s place

But some things can’t be made

To answer all of our dreams

If something better’s on the way

 

You might hear craziness

Spoken up and under

Of the amazing mess

That we made of this world

But there’s still wonder

 

So don’t be afraid

Shine your light

You’ll your way, ‘cause

Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s right

6. Brighter Squared

My joy is a compass star

She takes time, stops it’s pace

We grin and wink. It slowly bends

And mends our compass face

 

My joy appears in teal

Her own joy does conceal

Dreams we dreamt up then

Mystery whispers, revealed when

 

When hope is hard to bear

A gem may speak a prayer:

“Light shines brighter squared”

I’m trying hard to get it into my head

“Light shines brighter squared”

I’m trying hard to get it into my head

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My joy no longer hides

From waves that break a dam

I close the act, and cry

The night to be who I really am

 

Her sound, right here

Under rose by Roman laws

Over a smiling tear’s pause

Her sound is right here

 

This want is wanted more

Not by me. By future’s door

 

“Light shines brighter squared”

I think I finally got it into my head

“Light shines brighter squared”

I think I finally got it into my head

7. Catch That Flame

You breathe in

You breath out

You give in

To  give out

 

You see in

You see out
You hold in

To let out

 

Watch the fire

Between us grow
The shadows higher

The more light we show

 

We wonder why others are so different

We never ask why we are the same

And don’t it feel good when the other hears you?

How would it feel to all catch that flame?

 

You look in

You look out

You feel in

To feel out

 

Understand

Every word

Hold a thought

And be heard

 

So watch the ocean

Between us flow
Waves will takes us
Together home

 

We wonder why others are so different

We never ask why we  are the same

And don’t it feel good when the other hears you?

How would it feel to all catch that flame?

8. Opening Doors

I’m in here

You’re out there

I want to see you

Need some air

 

So I stare to the sky ‘o stars

Tell myself one of them is ours

 

I need to see it

I need to be it

Am I guiding?

Or am I hiding now?

 

We took a reading

Trying to figure it out

See how the cards began to shout?

 

Most of my life I’ve fallen through

Opening doors

They show without warning they’re for you

But no sign they’re yours

 

This world can do your mind in

When you’re cut off at the source

I’ve got to keep finding

Those opening doors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m all shadow

In your light

But since you ask me

I’m all right

 

I found a way
To navigate this pantomime

And found a boundary just in time

 

Now we’re together

At sunset

It’s beautiful

Because of everything we lose by it

 

They say we’re crazy

To dream out every night

I guess that maybe Maybe Magic’s right

 

Most of my life I’ve fallen through

Opening doors

They show without warning they’re for you

But no sign they’re yours

 

This world can do your mind in

When you’re cut off at the source

I’ve got to keep finding

Those opening doors

 

Most of my life I’ve fallen through

Opening doors

They show without warning they’re for you

But no sign they’re yours

 

This world can do your mind in

When you’re cut off at the source

I’ve got to keep finding

Those opening doors

9. Questioning Answers

“So give me your question”

Said the Sage to the Fool

“That was the intention, ‘til you broke the rules”

“No need to be doubtful”

The Sage did speak true

“Won’t you trust in my counsel? Or are you just passing through?”

 

I’m looking around this town

People holding on.  Don’t know how

I’m full of so many questions

And I’m struggling to let them out

Sometimes I go down your road

When memory does allow

But I’m tired of asking questions

So I’m questioning answers now

 

Lay down all your secrets.

I’m no longer under your spell

You’re right about one thing

I came to bid you farewell

When wisdom is speechless

Is something missing in fact?

The change may be coming

If we remember to act

 

I’m looking around this town

People holding on.  Don’t know how

I’m full of so many questions

And I’m struggling to let them out

Sometimes I go down your road

When memory does allow

But I’m tired of asking questions

So I’m questioning answers now

Available to stream and download in the United Kingdom via all digital stores (excluding Spotify) from the 7th January 2022. Limited Edition CD available from Bandcamp only.