Inspired by Matt Chicorel’s sketch notebook exercise he calls “daily,” I have decided to make an effort to record a song and upload it everyday for the next 30 days. These are demo songs. Most often they have not been played all the way through before recording them, and the songs you hear are far from a complete version. All recordings are originals and there will be no mixing or effects used in post production in an effort to exercise my style of play and song writing. No more than 3 tracks will be used in recording. All songs are available for download. Thanks for tuning in to my daily sketch book of music
I’ve been talking about spirit animals with a good friend lately, she asked me what mine was. I told her it was something I’d like to learn through divination in a spirit quest in the wilderness. I never felt a particular affinity to a specific animal as a guide, but I can relate to the Coyote as told through Native American folklore. So much in fact that I often consider a new rock n roll persona based on Coyote, the fool. I read a very large book this summer about Native folklore, it gave me several song ideas that I never wrote down or played, they were just in my head. The Coyote is a common deity, though it should be noted that the way the animal is perceived is both spirit and body, so when we speak of animals, we mean they way they are in the wild and the spirit lore associated with them- it is a not A coyote, it is the spirit of Coyote that embodies A coyote. In these stories from countless tribes, Coyote (which sounds very similar to my name, say it out loud- Kyle D – Coyote, except in the south where I first learned to pronounce my name – if you were to say it out loud there it has one syllable where it sounds exactly like “Cow,” rhyming with “Howdy” -like “Howdy cow d” would be a nice way to say hello to me.) is the forest’s mischievous idiot.
He loves to sing but knows his voice isn’t as good as Wolf’s. 
He is cunning and smooth and lazy, though it seems the only times he uses his wit is to get out of trouble. He is constantly jeopardizing his role, though he remains loyal, but seemingly only to take advantage. He is not afraid to travel on exotic adventures alone where other animals travel in packs. Coyote loves challenging nature, then bragging about his exploits trying to impress girls, and his stories end with the moral of “don’t do what coyote did cause he is a damn fool.” The curse of coyote is to be a lonely wanderer, always hungry and never satisfied, and above all just wants to have fun. He puts the humor in the dry world of the gods at his own expense and eventually learns and laughs. Maybe coyote is my spirit animal…
This song was half-written in late summer, I wanted to play it at a show at Lovemoms but abandoned writing it due to an injury preventing me from playing guitar. I almost forgot it entirely because I never made notes, but I had a dream last night and remembered, (funny, the coyote is the spirit animal connecting humans to the dream world) and re-wrote it today. It is based on 2 stories in the book “How Coyoyte Put The Stars In The Sky” and “Coyote and Badger Play for Wives,” The former tells that coyote, with 3 wolves, 2 young and one wise, went up to the sky. Coyote figured they could shoot arrows at the sky and used them as a ladder to reach it. When the wolves saw Bear, they wanted to play, coyote retreated. The wolves and bear remained, thus the big dipper. Coyote happy with what he saw decided to make many more constellations to gaze upon in the night, and took credit among the animals for placing these stars.
The latter story (Tewa tribe) talks about foolish bet coyote makes with his rabbit hunting partner- Badger – to see who can catch more rabbits, the winner gets to sleep with the other’s wife. The link above tells the story as I first heard it, a cute story that ends with with a lesson, but censors the part describing the agony of Coyote’s wife from Badger’s “drill shaped penis” once he wins and makes love to Coyote’s wife all night long. (I remember that clearly and thinking, “What? Why did that story have to say that?”)
If you are interested, there are some great ones. The way native lore stories are told has a pattern, they just kind of jump around. They lack clarity and details and particularly the scientific lobe that a westerner needs to make a tale make sense. To me, that is what makes them so interesting. The characters in the story just react and move with out logic and therefor it gives it a very spiritual touch that you need a certain amount of faith to truly appreciate. These stories take nature and the universe and describe them as they are, with out quantifying them or breaking them down.
That is White Faces practice below me
Coyote’s Song by kyle_d
Come now creatures, gather ’round,
you may have wondered why
you see stars up in the sky-
well, I can say I put them there
look, there is wolf, there is bear
now what will you give to me
I can dance with stars
i can dance all night
Run in dreams
I can run in dreams
I’m coyote, one with the setting sun
How whooooooooooo!
Come near badger, we should play
a friendly wager on this day
to see who gets more prey-
If I win I get your wife
and if you win, then you get mine
but only for one night.
“Coyote dance with a star”
“Coyote fights a pitch”
“coyote steals sun’s tobacco”
“Coyote imitates his friends”
“How the milky way came to be”
Like I said, I have a bunch of half ideas for songs based on Native lore – spirit animals, the origin of things according to Indians, so on… One point of this exercise is to benifit my solo album that I want to record for my 30th birthday in less than 3 months. This is kind of like an on-going brainstorm to reach a concept, and this topic is like a geyser of inspiration. I’ll probably think about this song more and re-write it in the future, I just wanted to get the basics out today for the sake of my streak.
more on coyote and images above
http://members.cox.net/academia/coyote.html
http://rantopotamus47.blogspot.com/2010/05/coyote.html
and a good non-fiction read
