Crop Circles

While we continue in a lighter vein with this set of entries, here's a video for a song called Crop Circles which I performed live in 1997 with my good friends Bob Evans and Roberta Nichol. I go waaaaay back with Bob and Roberta, we first played together forty years ago and have been in a large number of different bands playing different styles of music over the years. We started out playing folk music, and Crop Circles comes from a ten-song set that harkens back to the styles of music you might have heard us play at the Regina Guild of Folk Music back in the day. I wrote eight of the songs, Roberta wrote two, and the three of us took turns singing the lead vocal from song to song.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3keLd3Gh5vM

Are some crop circles fake? No question! But I'm amazed to see comments on youtube for this song saying this is me pandering to the establishment and mainstream science, or me trying to convince people that every single crop circles is fake. Is there something at the core of the crop circle phenomenon that is real? As the lyrics to this song say, "I love a good paranoid conspiracy, alien mystery just as much as any Average Joe", and I'm willing to keep an open mind on this topic.

Sometimes a conspiracy really is a conspiracy, or a mystery is a hoax. But sometimes mysterious things (like dark matter and dark energy!) happen for which the mainstream doesn't have a good explanation. I like this song because it's got a great groove and it makes me smile, and it makes its point about how sometimes we don't know what's really going on without taking itself too seriously. My popular youtube video for my song Secret Societies also looks at such things from a deliberately over-the-top perspective, saying that absolutely everything is a conspiracy:

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Br3lpVmids

Other blog entries that have looked at how conspiracies tie into the Imagining the Tenth Dimension approach include Beer and Miracles, When's a Knot Not a Knot?, and Daily Parrying. I'll be posting a version of the video for Crop Circles with lyrics superimposed in a few days... in the meantime, here's the words if you want to sing along.

Crop Circles
- words and music by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

I stand before you today as a fraud
A fraud of miniscule proportion perhaps
Compared to the great frauds of the century
But a fraud nonetheless, now blessed
With newfound confirmation that
Mankind is indeed a creature who searches
Searches for deeper truth and inner meanings
And a sucker is indeed born every minute

Now being a prairie-born, prairie-raised prairie boy
I too have heard the tales
Of miraculous appearances of unexplained phenomena
Out in the middle of our golden fields
I'm talkin' 'bout crop circles, and who hasn't marveled
When the local papers break the news
Of a mystified farmer out standing in his field
Trying so hard to explain the latest

Crop circles, another mystery for the ages
Crop circles, another wonder to behold
Crop circles, history writes its pages
Now another wondrous story can be told

Now being a prairie-born, prairie-raised prairie boy
With two close personal friends
Late one night when the moon was bright
We concocted ourselves a plan
To drive way out and sneak into some farmer's field
And perpetrate a little prank
Hopin' for anonymous vicarious fame of some sort
We intended to make ourselves a few

Crop circles, another mystery for the ages
Crop circles, another wonder to behold
Crop circles, history writes its pages
Now another wondrous story can be told

You take a big piece of rope and a good long stick
And you find yourself a field
With some tire tracks that'll hide your path
As you walk out to the middle
Where one of you stands with the rope at the center
And another grabs hold and walks around
And you flatten out the wheat with the side of your stick
Make yourself three or four of them

Crop circles, another mystery for the ages
Crop circles, another wonder to behold
Crop circles, history writes its pages
Now another wondrous story can be told

Now I'm not sayin' that every single circle
They find out there's a scam
And I love a good paranoid conspiracy, alien mystery
Just as much as any Average Joe
But when I surf the web and I buy the books
And our circles are proudly displayed
Right next to all them other circles from around the world...

Well, it makes me just a little sad

Gimme some of them
Crop circles, another mystery for the ages
Crop circles, another wonder to behold
Crop circles, history writes its pages
Now another wondrous story can be told

Crop circles, another mystery for the ages
Crop circles, another wonder to behold
Crop circles, history writes its pages
Now another wondrous story can be told


If you'd like to buy the mp3s of this ten-song set, I'm selling them as a package for only $5 at the Tenth Dimension Digital Items store. And while you're there, check out the O is for Omniverse pdf, which we've reduced to $10 as a special for the month of February.

Enjoy the journey!

Rob Bryanton

Next: Dancing on the Timeline

PS Here's a little bonus for you: Bob Evans is a great musician with a dry sense of humor who always makes me laugh. For more about Bob go to bobevansguitar.com, or check out his youtube channel, AcousticTonic. Here's a couple of videos from him in concert that will give you a sense of how much fun it is to see Bob perform, the first is his introduction to the song, the second is the song.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9BCSgXlupk


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RvLfhFgK_0

PS - Don't forget, "Crop Circles" is just one of a ten-song collection, if you'd like to purchase these ten songs as high-quality mp3s it's only five dollars for the whole collection, go to the Tenth Dimension Digital Items store if you're interested. And while you're there, check out the O is for Omniverse pdf, which we've reduced to $10 as a special for the month of February.

A direct link to this video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjR69ddBK78