New Songs From Days I Knew

...have a new band called Days I Knew and we are in the process of making an album...here are 3 songs from the project (not fully realized mixes yet: but getting there)

...thanks to stallion, drew, and skull...look for more songs and more info on the band to come soon...



Smoke and Mirrors
The Devil is Beating His Wife
I Love You Too Much

Omaha Beach is in Reach

Omaha Beach is in Reach

For the Love of Harry

Here are two songs recently recorded by me at my T21 Studio. Featuring yours truly on vocals and Zack Williams on piano...we both love Harry Nilsson so these go out to him...

Living Without You
Good Old Desk

We All Get What We Deserve

Here's a new song....I composed it; played all the instruments on it; sang it; a real one man band as it were....

We All Get What We Deserve





I took a chance, a stab at romance
The things that dreamers often do
But knowing me, I just couldn’t see
Between the white lies and the true..

laughed at myself, put it all on a shelf
walked away from the tainted memory
But triggers and such it all was so much
I was in a place I didn’t wanna be…

And who’s to say, this isn’t a play
Or simply what one makes it to be
For after all, if the writings on the wall
You can’t read what you never see…

I read in a book, I took a second look
I studied the lines on my face
Gravity bends, I would do it all again
It sure beats running in place…

Do I know you, were you at my school?
Were you the girl with the dancing eyes?
You probably didn’t know me you couldn’t see
For I was wearing a disguise..

But I took off the mask, it was a task
Yet I had to find the reason behind
These thoughts I feel, no longer concealed
I was so visibly tired of being blind…

The river it flows and where it goes
Is a matter of geography
But no matter how it bends and it slides
It seems to always find the sea

That river is me, that current is you
We all are but leaves in the stream
Some hug the shore, others want more
Those are those who live the dream…

We all get what we deserve, come what may
What we send out surely returns
So excuse me, I’ve got some places to be
Got some lessons I need to learn….

We All Get What We Deserve
Words and Music by William Bates
T21 Music 2008

The Allure of Nature

We have some very scenic places near Greenville, SC. Here is a slide show of some of my photos from Paris Mountain State Park, Cedar Falls, and Lake Conestee with some background music by yours truly....

In the Stillness of the June Night

Lately I have been thinking of how we all just move through time. How tangible time truly is. And how precious our time truly is. And how things happen for reasons and how time teaches us in time what those reasons are. With those thoughts in mind, I took out my trusty old guitar and composed this song....

For Your Listening Pleasure:

In the Stillness of the June Night

in the stillness of the june night
i took a walk on memory's shore
toward a strange beckoning light
whose shadows did implore
me to move through time
just as i move thru an open door

i'm a gypsy i'm clairvoyant
tho’ i cant even read between my lines
and im late for my appointment
on the other side

and i saw all my lovers
all my friends and enemies
gathered in a circle as they hover
on the calm bedeviled sea
that rocks me like my mother
that lifts me up like my daddy

i'm a gypsy i'm clairvoyant
tho’ i cant even read between my lines
and im late for my appointment
on the other side

and the measure of a man, son
is in how he gets up
from the struggle and the fatigue, son
and the storms that do erupt
and how he clings to happiness, son
and gives it back to the ones he loves....

i'm a gypsy i'm clairvoyant
tho’ i cant even read between my lines
and im late for my appointment
on the other side

in the stillness of the june night
words and music by william bates
t21music 2008

New Songs

I am getting a new band together with Mark Payne on Bass and Drew Pierce on Drums. We are going to do the style of music that I did in my first band way back in the early 90's...upbeat Power Pop with a ballad here and there...I am most excited about the way this project is going. We will be recording an album's worth of original songs this summer. Here are several of the songs in acoustic form, me singing and playing the guitar live as it were. A glimpse at the process of putting an album together as it were...

I Just Wanna Live
There's A Way
I Just Wanna Be in a Rock and Roll Band
When You Were Alive