nathan lyle

Music

Music is the longest running thing I've attempted to be creative with... though it's often been a love/hate relationship. When I was in elementary school, my parents made me start piano lessons, but I hateed it so I whined enough that they let me quit barely a year in. I didn't touch an instrument again until about half way through highschool, when for some reason it caught my attention. I'm pretty sure the main initial reason was that I figured girls would love it if I could play a song for them. That being said, I started teaching myself music theory and got caught up in the technical parts of making music, and after that it's just been a stubborn push to force more talent out of my head than may have initially been put there. Fortunately, this is an area where being stubborn really paid off. Despite my fairly accurate awareness of my ability level at any given point, it's never stopped me from trying to get better, and with enough time I can confidently say I did get better. Even if I'll probably never be as good as I expect myself to be.

I've always written songs to express how I was feeling about things happening in my life... and I'm pretty sure there've been folks who thought I was oversharing at the microphone. I think music is the best therapy there is. (Not cheapest, because instruments are expensive.) I'm including below some songs stretching back through the various bands I was in, all the way to my earliest highschool recording efforts.

I haven't recorded a majority of the songs I've written, and haven't counted them in a while (the last time I did, it was over a thousand)... the picture here is a quick peek into my lyrics box. A few folders are my written sheet music from various arrangements, mostly from back in highschool, but the lyrics span from the mid 1990's to the current day.

In the sections below, click a title with the + symbol to open that section, and click it again if you want to close it. Inside those sections, you can use the players to check out the songs.

Solo Stuff

Over the years I've tried to become my own band, not because I prefer it to playing with other people, but I've never found the time to get a new band started up. (I definitely don't enjoy the audio engineering aspect of recording music nearly as much as writing songs or playing instruments.) Any drums on these were programmed by me, though some of the older ones are actual drums being played... vocals and instruments are all me, too.

Recorded between 2016 and 2020 while living in Toledo

About a year before moving to Toledo (the second time) I'd gotten a digital multitrack of my own. I'd previously had to borrow one to make recordings.

All This Time

Attempted to bring a little bit of blues into the mix with this one, at least in the lyric pattern... you can check out the video (stock clips) at youtu.be/w8dSpdUtUDk

Don't Know Much

Playing around with a new mic, making things up for fun... though sometimes the random chaos spits out the truth.

Go On

People seem to confuse the intent/meaning on this one... the imagery is about church, but it's really about relationships. There's a video I put together using free stock video clips, you can view it at youtu.be/WC0QBu9uL0E

Is There No

This is yet another song for my imaginary girlfriend. There's a video I put together using free stock video clips, you can view it at youtu.be/0dOaXheFFjQ

A Minor Noodling

I've enjoyed playing randomly in minor keys ever since highschool... A minor is a good one because playing all white or all black keys always makes improvisation easier. Plus, I've always felt that A minor somehow expressed my emotional voice best.

Ashes on Stage

This song was written on a napkin at Remie's bar in Marquette (during my early college years this was THE dive bar, typically where folks went after the other bars closed.) One of my man post-first-divorce songs.

Hate to Be

For a while I saw Toledo as the "place marriages go to die"... maybe not completely fair on my part. In any case, this was written about how it felt to be in a town I didn't want to be in, missing home.

Huff Daddy

This song was written specifically for the open mic at Vango's that I spent a good couple of years playing the heck out of. It was meant to be fun—the chorus is a song that one of the other guys there used to always play, and I tried to work in references to a lot of the main folks that were there on the regular.

Look Both Ways

One of my post-second-divorce songs, written during the open mic days, though I never played it out back then. Most songs I write about personal situations never see the light of day, but sometimes they have pieces or parts that make me hang on to them.

Nobody Here

Depressed feelings are often the seeds of music, or at least it's always been that way for me. This was written shortly after moving to Toledo. I even tried to make a video for it using my smartphone to take selfie videos... not sure it adds anything, but you can check it out on YouTube if you'd like.

Porch Light

This is the closest I have to an anthem so far. It's gone through a lot of evolving over the years. I wrote it after my second divorce, and having moved back up to the U.P. for a few years... it's written for the person I've yet to meet, who I feel like I've been waiting for all my life.

Struggle

Another post-second-divorce song... I've been trying to figure out a piano version ever since I wrote it and can't find it. This is me trying to talk positive to myself. Doesn't usually work. lol

Two Thirds Empty

A kind of experimental song... back when I was still trying to sing in a higher register than my voice allows. I decided to go low. That plus the lyrics apparently make for a depressing song... I was once told at the open mic (by the manager) to never play it again.

Why

Every now and then I write a song and record it and then never play it again. I haven't played this since I recorded it. This is what happens when you make music your psychological medicine.

Recorded in late 1990's to 2010

Most of these are instrumental improvisations, where I'd start adding parts into the recording machine and just make up things to go with it. (I did this a lot when I had to borrow recording equipment to record anything.) I couldn't play a lot of them again very easily if I tried. A few are more actual song attempts.

Around The Point

Most of the piano things I write are slower, but when you have a multitrack you can explore outside the normal bounds... this is two different piano parts, mostly messing around with mostly a single chord (one brief progression to pull it out before falling back in.)

Bottled Apathy

Probably my earliest attempt at being my own full band - these are an actual drum set, and me playing guitar, bass, piano, and singing. It's not necessarily great, but I was pretty happy at the time I recorded it... the way I learned to do anything musically was always to just try it before I knew how to do it. Not super efficient, but it is what it is.

Frozen Flame

In highschool I wanted to start a DJ company called Frozen Flame. Because back then, that was how you named things. :-) This is just me messing around with various sounds on a synth that was new to me (Alesis QS6).

Funky Piano

Early in my initial college years I was a secondary music education major. That gave me access to the computer lab where there was music software that let you compose digitally. This was me playing around with that software. The notes were clicked in and then played back from the computer. This is a short one.

Here There Be Dragons

Keyboard takes a bit of a back seat so I can experiment with guitar... I've never gotten very good at soloing on that instrument, so here I was recording a bit of a progression for the purpose of playing around with melody.

I Can't Sing

Self awareness. Not sure what more can be said here.

In The Dark

And sometimes improvisation doesn't need an instrument. I'd borrowed a four-track and this was me sitting on the couch with that and a mic. I sometimes wonder what kind of music I'd make if I did drugs.

I Watched You Walk Away

Elsewhere on the page here you'll find a version of this recorded back in highschool with someone else singing it better. This is a song I wrote for my first big highschool crush. We dated for a week, but I'd had a crush on her for a couple of years before that. She broke up with me through a friend of hers, because highschool. It's one of the first songs I wrote that I really liked, so I've tried to record it every now and then, but I'm never happy with my singing of it.

Luv Leading to Sax

More noodling with a new synth... I really liked the saxophone sound it had. I've only played reed instruments briefly during one of my college classes, and it's best for all of us that it ended there. I make sick geese sound beautiful.

Not Where I Left It

Another post-first-divorce song... recorded on a borrowed four-track while still living on campus at NMU.

Oblivious

More noodling on a new synth... perhaps the happiest thing I ever recorded. I blame the flute.

Seagull

Here's some real drums instead of programmed versions... my band at the time practiced in my basement, so between practices I had access to a decent drum set thanks to our drummer not wanting to haul them each time.

Social Skills

More noodling on a new synth... closer to the feel I usually went for. I really liked it when I got that first professional level synth.

Somebody Behind You

For some reason, when I was recording this (making things up as I went) I kept feeling like someone was coming in the room behind me when I would listen back to it through the headphones. Still creeps me out.

Uncertainty

Improvisational experimentation... I recorded four tracks, with each one being a single note melody, adding them in over time.

Open Mic Songs

I discovered that humor went over well at the open mic so ended up writing a bunch of naughty songs. Most of these are those, though I've mixed in a couple serious ones too. I always felt very schizophrenic because of how different the joke songs were from the serious ones.

Bossom Buddies

They always say "write what you know"... I don't know if I know a lot about boobies, but I've certainly thought about them a lot over my lifetime. In the back of my head I had it figured out that I would write a song that encouraged women to flash me. Never worked.

Dear John

Guess where I wrote this song? One of the things I loved most about some of these goofy open mic songs was the wordplay.

Kelly K

A friend of mine who also played at the open mic at Vango's was writing a song for the waitresses... I don't remember the specifics of the moment, but I got it in my head I could do better so wrote this.

Kitty

For some reason, a few people had a contest to see who could write the best lesbian song. If I remember correctly, mine was judged the winner by an actual lesbian (she was one of the regular musicians there). Though I'm also sure I offended a straight couple who got up and left.

Pickup Line

My most requested song at the open mics. Women seemed to love it. I basically took a list of pickup lines off the Internet and made them rhyme.

Sock Puppet

At one point I got frustrated that I wasn't being a serious musician by playing so many silly songs, so I tried to do more with the piano. I never really came up with anything during that stretch that I really loved. This one's about religion.

Underneath

One of the songs that started my open mic career, such as it was... I wrote a couple of songs like this shortly after my first divorce, and would get up and play them at the Village Pub and I'm pretty sure people thought I was going to commit suicide afterwards. This one has my favorite line I ever wrote... "it feels like God's pissing on my campfire."

September 2002 - Borrowed 4-Track Session

Having borrowed a four-track recorder, I spent a couple of weeks attempting to record an album of sorts. I never really finished it, no name/title or anything. But these were my first attempt to be my own band - playing all the instruments and singing.

The Flow

One of the couple of most depressing songs I'd written after my first divorce and frequently played at the Village Pub's open mic. It was the first time I branched out from the standard four chords everyone learns on the acoustic guitar.

Ashes on Stage

Closer to the original version of this song (newer one in the first group above).

Shifting

It's probably to safe to say most of my early years of songwriting were bleak. Even when I was trying to be optimistic.

Gone Blind

Having been a fundamentalist Christian for a few years after highschool, my earlier songs often had more God references, even post-belief. This one sort of covered several different disillusionments in my early life.

Exit Stage Left

When I wrote this I was trying to write a song about suicide that had "happy" sounding music, kind of going for a tension of sorts I guess. It definitely caught a few ears at open mic nights.

Still Here

A little less metaphor in this one, the kind of straight forward lyrics that made some folks uncomfortable. Written post-first-marriage.

Imaginary Girlfriend

Always was proud to have squeezed a White Lion reference and musical nod into one of my songs. (And a reference to Poison of course.) I think I've been sure since highschool that my wife only existed in my mind.

Please Bypass This Heart

I took a list of country song titles off the Internet and ordered them to rhyme. Ironically, it makes for a pretty good country song.

Too Much Cheese

My parents moved to Wisconsin when I graduated from highschool. I never liked cheese, and I liked to point out to them often that there was indeed too much cheese in Wisconsin.

Giggle

Written in a class at NMU where I should have been paying more attention to class.

Sniffing the Glue

This was my intro to funny music at the open mic... it was amazing to me how much easier people were entertained with humor than depression, though that shouldn't really have been a shock. Though one fellow musician there accused me of being "too clever" because of this song. (The horns were an afterthought that in retrospect don't really work.)

Underneath

More original version of this song (newer one above in the open mic section).

The Birth of Dark

Written about the ending of a best-friendship, which tends to happen when they're your room-mate but sleep with your ex wife before you're fully ex.

Riders on the Ship

Improvising with the synth a bit, channeling some 70's vibes...

I Do

An attempt to revitalize an older song written in my Reality Shock days.

Never Let Go

Written for a girl I met about a year after my first divorce. I actually met her online before that was a thing. We only dated for a few weeks, only met in person once. She helped pull me out of the divorce funk though, which was no small thing.

Piece of Me

Written about/for my kids (though before my youngest was born)... becoming a dad put me through a lot of reflection and eye-opening.

Squint

Probably my best received "serious" song at the Village Pub open mics... the song went through some evolution over the years, in particular being played more on the piano than guitar.

Walk

Though I have strong musically conservative streak, I do like to experiment, too. I made the most out of my Alesis QS6 back in the day.

Early 1990's - For The Spirit

In highschool I really enjoyed writing and arranging music on paper, while I was learning various things about music theory. At one point shortly after leaving highschool and starting college, I took some ideas of songs from my highschool days and decided to create an opera of sorts from them. I never really fully developed or finished it, but I used the computer lab in the music department to be able to hear the arrangements. (Vocal lines are set to use a synthesized human voice but no words, obviously.) Each movement was it's own idea, then they all came together in the final one. Unfortunately, synth technology wasn't too far along yet, so the instruments don't sound very non-digital.

I - The Promise

II - Israel

III - The Waiting

IV - Rapture Prayer

V - Patience And Grace

VI - Thanks

VII - InUnity

Highschool

A wide range of efforts from pre-1991. I started playing piano in my junior year of highschool, and spent much of that and my senior year paying way more attention to music than class. (My grades reflected that very clearly.) At various points I wanted to be a rock star, or an old-style classical composer. I was fascinated with music theory. Any drums that aren't recorded on the highschool's set are from a casio keyboard. And I used my mom's boom box as my recording device. I had a second cassette player, and I would record one thing, then play it back on the other while playing along to it, if I needed more than one track.

Angel's Wings

Written at the very beginning my brief fundamentalist religious phase. I always felt like piano and heavy metal guitar belonged together.

A Part Of My Life

I spent a LOT of time improvising depressing piano music in my later highschool years. This was recorded on the highschool's grand piano, where I often spent my lunch hours.

Can't Take It With You

At the time I thought this was my best rock and roll song. :-) Using the boom box and seondary cassette recorder, I recorded the drums at school and then the guitars and vocals at home. I'm always fascinated when I listen to these early recordings, in that my singing doesn't sound much different than my speaking. Even now, decades later, I wrestle with my voice as an instrument.

Eb Minor Random

I was in love with the Eb minor pentatonic scale, mostly because it was easy to play on the piano... you just hit random black keys and you've got instant melancholy.

For 4 Flutes

One of my first efforts to arrange a more classical style of composition. I had four flute players from band class help me record this at lunch.

For The Spirit

This was my main highschool musical idea (the melody)... originally written on a small tenor guitar I'd gotten from my grandpa's house after he died, while sitting on my back porch and listening to mourning doves.

For The Spirit (Graduation)

Slightly different arrangement, with a little shock factor at the end. People didn't quite know what to make of some guitar shredding at the formal graduation ceremony (played at my graduation in 1991.)

Funk It

Me being funky in my bedroom after having my first bass guitar to play with.

I Hate To Say Goodbye

Written for our highschool graduation ceremony.

I Watched You Walk Away

Another broken heart song recorded at a choral concert. I sometimes wonder if they ever realized back then (if they were there and heard it) that I was so quick to overshare long before the era of Facebook.

Lost Dreams

Maybe the epitome of my highschool drama expression... piano and metal guitar felt like two sides to the same coin to me.

Lost Dreams (Original)

The original piano version of the more involved song. Probably my second most favorite musical idea during those years.

Love

Me singing and playing guitar, and Paul (a guy who worked at the music store I hung out at) was helping with the recording equipment and bass line.

Our Song

Written for the girlfriend who would become my first exwife. The first time I'd written and recorded a song where I was singing.