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(July 2018 "From the Archive") - "General Winter" (Unreleased Track from General Winter's Secret Museum)
🕑 Added 2018-07-05 01:12:45 +0000 UTC Here it is! The lost “title track” of our first album! “General Winter” was one of the first songs The Tea Club ever worked on together when we formed the band back in the Fall of 2003. The lyrics tell a fantastical story of an ancient battle between a Spirit and a Samurai that me, Pat, and our original bass player Jim Berger came up with as teenagers.We did a homemade 4 track recording of this song in 2004, which at the time was titled “General Winter’s Boney Skull” and had slightly different lyrics. We also recorded it for our 2005 EP Love Your Enemy, changing the title to simply “General Winter”. This is the third and most proper recording of the song, which we recorded at Big Blue Meenie during the General Winter’s Secret Museum sessions. It was mixed for the album, but never mastered. (All 3 versions have their own strengths and weaknesses, and I’m sure the 2004 and 2005 versions will eventually see the light here on Patreon!)
Like many Tea Club songs, the lyrics are cryptic. Being that this is the 10 year anniversary, I wanted to shed some light on the details and fill in some gaps that aren’t apparent just from reading the lyrics. So I decided to comb through the original lyrics/ideas pages and was able to come up with a short story in the form of a fable to share with you all, as well as the song lyrics. (I think this could make a good comic book someday too!)
Here it is!
This is the story of General Winter.
There was once a mountain called Snow Head. It was the tallest and most dangerous mountain, not just because it was frozen, but because it was haunted by a Spirit. The Spirit was once known as General Winter, and many years ago, he was a mighty warrior and masterful thief. His greedy Spirit and his murderous Ghost army possessed the mountain and could open it up and swallow anyone who trespassed, collecting whatever valuables they had on their corpses and hoarding them inside the mountain.
A Samurai was brave enough to climb Snow Head Mountain. He was brave because of his deep desire for vengeance. When he was just a boy, his family had gotten lost in a terrible snowstorm and stumbled upon the dreaded mountain. General Winter and his ghost army opened the mountain and swallowed up his family, but the boy was able to escape and retreated to a nearby village of Samurai warriors. The boy trained to be a great Samurai and vowed to destroy the Spirit of the Mountain, and to get back the mystical family heirloom that General Winter stole that day, a pendant called The Pilot Star.
When the Samurai climbed to the top of Snow Head Mountain to wreak his vengeance upon General Winter, the mountain opened up and the Samurai jumped inside. He saw The Pilot Star amongst a vast collection of stolen treasures. The Samurai cried out and challenged General Winter to a battle. The Spirit, amused by the Samurai’s boldness, accepted the challenge, taking on the form of a man to face him.
However, the Samurai was now a powerful warrior, and General Winter was shocked to find himself easily bested in combat. So General Winter begged for mercy, revealing to the Samurai that, many generations ago, he was murdered by the very people who trained the Samurai, and telling him about their history of rivalry to try and make the Samurai feel pity on him. The Samurai showed no mercy, and instead declared that he would not only destroy General Winter and his Ghost Army, but also become the new ruler of Snow Head Mountain, keeping all of its stolen treasures for himself. He went to pick up The Pilot Star, happy with himself that he had avenged his family.
Suddenly, the heirloom shattered in the Samurai’s hands, and from its broken pieces emerged Four Angry Frogs. They scolded both the Samurai and the Spirits for their vengeful lusts. Both The Samurai and the Spirit argued that they had been wronged by the other, but the Frogs would not listen. Instead, they settled upon a final judgement, and summoned an all consuming purple mist which destroyed the Spirit, the Samurai, and Snow Head Mountain entirely.
SONG LYRICS
So the samurai stepped forward, said:
SAMURAI: “Stay strong"
A sinking hole
SAMURAI: “This is it now, don't get scared,
Stay strong
I look back where we were…"
Snow head mountain top
Great growing divide
SAMURAI: "I see the Pilot Star"
SPIRIT: "Heaven sent snow to earth
Falling like bells
Sunlight fades
Leaving us here on our own"
SAMURAI: "Through the pantheon
For my family
Is it not the only way?”
_________________________________
And this is what the frogs had to say:
FROGS: “There's nothing left to hide behind
It's all dead earth”
SAMURAI: “I stole back what they stole from us
We owed it to the past”
SPIRIT: “He had no right,
But the wind was there to steal it back”
FROGS: "You've planted a seed and it has flourished
But the leaves they fall and die unnoticed
Know the good you could have done in time spent fighting
Your traditions mean nothing to me
Your tree of hate it has withered
Now we flood you with a sea of righteousness”
Spirit and Samurai consumed in the purple mist
FROGS: “Good day sirs”
This recording of “General Winter” was performed by:
Patrick McGowan - Vocals, Guitar, Bass
Dan McGowan - Guitar, Vocals
Kyle Minnick - Drums
Comments
Hey Todd! Dan McGowan here! I have been throwing around the idea of a "Tea Club early days" compilation featuring much of the material we've released here on Patreon. I would especially like to be able to remix some of the songs, such as "Dead and Buried" and "Chill Out", which were recorded on an old 4 track cassette tape which unfortunately doesn't work anymore. If we could get those remixed, we could complile those tunes with Zero Wave, etc and master it as an album, kind of like Nirvana's "Incesticide" album. I imagined that the track list would consist of songs that we've already made available here on Patreon, as well as songs that we have yet to make available. Something like this: 1. "DYLOS" (a song that's still unreleased) 2. "Zebra" (already available here on Patreon) 3. "Appletree" (still unreleased) 4. "Mr. Shlappy" (available on Patreon) 5. "Zero Wave" (available on Patreon) 6. "Silos" (available on Patreon) 7. "Chill Out" (available on Patreon) 8. "The Power To Freeze Anything" (still unreleased) 9. "Showertime Gorilla" (still unreleased) 10. "Puzzles" (still unreleased) 11. "Life As a Stoplight" (still unreleased) 12. "Dead and Buried" (still unreleased) 13. "Phoenis" (still unreleased) 14. "The Moon Original Mix" (available on Patreon) 15. "An Electronic Tribute To Sean" (Available on Patreon) 16. "General Winter" (available on Patreon) It's a really fun idea to throw around, although I'm not sure how soon it will happen, with all of the preparation that we're doing for our new album. But I'm a very nostalgic and sentimental guy, so I'd say definitely someday!
Question for you: do you plan to release these excellent tracks in a compilation at some point? And I would love to have this song in WAV or FLAC, like the others you've posted from these sessions (Zero Wave, The Clincher, The Moon)
Fantastic! Special thanks for the backstory and explanation. Very cool!
