Sixteen songs of mine given the full orchestral treatment. Most of them are instrumental, and a few of them, I've come to think, are better that way.

They come from all over. Some began life on Music Only Dogs Can Hear or on my 1997 album, The Man Who Isn't There. Three of them started as mathematically generated MIDI weirdness out of an old Microsoft program and had to wait decades for anything to be able to make sense of them. Several aren't mine at all.

If you're sampling rather than listening straight through, a few places to start:

• Chopin's Dead—the most famous funeral march ever written, as ragtime. He's had a hundred and seventy years to object.
• Hannibal's Elephants in Paris—a symphonic scherzo that came out perfect on the first try, from an instruction I typed mostly as a joke.

You can listen to the whole album here, or visit each track listed below to read the lyrics and play that song only.

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How Can I Make Him Love Me

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 9/13/2026		Page Views: 9
Hashtags: #Music
A teenage lifeguard, an empty motel pool, and a fan-fiction TV script that needed a song.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (167 words)

This song has a backstory for sure. When I was about 19, the summer after I graduated from high school, I was working as a lifeguard at the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge in St. Augustine. There was almost no one ever actually there; so, to fight boredom, I wrote what we now call "fan fiction", a script for Love, American Style entitled "Love and the Girl Reporter". And I decided it needed a song. So I wrote this, with the idea that Lois would sing it about her impossible love for Superman.

Run, Dick, Run

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/23/2026		Page Views: 11
Hashtags: #Music
The man who chose his old mess over something new, with a full orchestra to mourn him.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (67 words)

From my 1997 "break-up album", The Man Who Isn't There. It's about Dick, who, when it finally came time to make a commitment, chose to return to a bad situation rather than face his fear of trying something new…and, I thought, better.

Sally's Choice

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 9/13/2026		Page Views: 7
Hashtags: #Music
Written in the late 1970s, recorded only now, for everyone who won't ask why they're unhappy.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (90 words)

Here's a song I wrote in the late 1970s, but never got around to actually recording until 2026. No, I didn't write it about a specific person. I had, by then, started to see that a lot of people seemed unable or unwilling to examine the reasons for their unhappiness. This song was my response.

Chopin's Dead

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Music
You know this tune even if you've never known its name. Now it has a full orchestra.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (181 words)

You already know this tune, even if you've never known its name. It's the Marche funèbre—the third movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor—and it is almost certainly the most recognized funeral music ever written.

Golden Autumn Sun

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 102
Hashtags: #Music
A computer can write a thousand songs in a second but can't say which one it likes. I can.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (175 words)

This one has an interesting history. Years ago, Microsoft released a music generator program. It only generated MIDI, of course, and it did so mathematically. As they said in those days, "A computer can generate a thousand songs in a second, but it can never tell which one it likes best."

The Fly And I

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 8
Hashtags: #Music
Spilt orange juice, stray Wheaties, and one housefly who was better at breakfast than I was.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (101 words)

The story behind this one is over on Music Only Dogs Can Hear, where you'll also find the lyrics—the whole sorry account of the breakfast table, the spilt orange juice, the Wheaties gone astray, and one housefly who was demonstrably better at this than I was.

I'm Only As Far As The Nearest Bar

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 8
Hashtags: #Music
A borrowed electronic organ, a neighbor's lyrics, and a nineteen-year-old stuck with the singing.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (121 words)

This one goes back to 1970, when I was 19 and spent a stretch of sessions working with Marian Robinson, who had an electronic organ and wanted to write and sell songs. She couldn't sing or arrange, so that part was my job. The words came from her neighbor, Tex Alexander. The full story is over on That '70s Album.

Alice's Resistor

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Music
Why give a fifty-year-old parody a symphony? It's cheaper than you'd think, and the tune is catchy.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (55 words)

Why would I create a symphonic pop arrangement of a song that I wrote some fifty years ago? Well, basically because 1) It's really cheap that way; and 2) The tune, while a style parody, is originally and actually pretty catchy.

The Man Who Isn't There

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 8
Hashtags: #Music
The breakup song I'm proudest of, now with an orchestra. I wrote it before Taylor Swift was six.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (83 words)

The title track of my 1997 album, The Man Who Isn't There—my "break-up album". (Yes, I recorded one before Taylor Swift was 6 years old!) I've always felt this song was good enough to be worth getting my heart broken for.

Coils

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 9/13/2026		Page Views: 9
Hashtags: #Music
Mathematically generated MIDI weirdness from a defunct Microsoft program, once called Earth and Sky.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (157 words)

This one started life as a bit of generated weirdness out of that Microsoft music program from a few decades back—the same source as Golden Autumn Sun. Hey, they were trying! I first called it "Earth and Sky".

Spoons In The Dirt

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 14
Hashtags: #Music
Mud pies, school days, and a duet we never actually sang together.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (96 words)

From my 1997 album, The Man Who Isn't There. I wrote it to be sung as a duet with my college friend Mike Tucker, though scheduling conflicts meant the two of us never actually sang it together. It's about the length of a lifelong friendship—back yards and mud pies through school days and out the other side.

Hannibal's Elephants in Paris

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 221
Hashtags: #Music
My whole contribution was one instruction: Hannibal takes his elephants to the Folies Bergere.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (99 words)

This one is a little embarrassing, because I did so little to create it. I didn't write anything at all, personally, except the instruction: a symphonic scherzo that describes Hannibal taking his elephants to the Folies Bergère. And this just popped out. And it was perfect!

Golden Autumn Rain

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 95
Hashtags: #Music
Golden Autumn Sun's wetter sibling, from the same pile of machine-made MIDI.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (82 words)

Same origin as Golden Autumn Sun: a piece of mathematically generated MIDI weirdness out of that old Microsoft music program, fed to Suno decades later.

Every Song I Sing (Sounds Like The Carpenters)

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 7
Hashtags: #Music
My wry little homage to the group that kept steering my songwriting without being asked.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (123 words)

Carpenters were a major influence on my musical evolution—so much so that I eventually noticed they were affecting my direction rather more than I wanted. So, in wry awareness, I threw together this little homage: not exactly a parody, but not entirely serious either. The vocal version is on Music Only Dogs Can Hear.

Altronia

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 7
Hashtags: #Music
A friend played a few chords after a study group, and I couldn't stop humming them.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (124 words)

A metaphysically-oriented friend, Chris Carmona, played a piece she had written on the piano after a meeting of our studies group. It was a very simple piece, not really more than a series of chords; but the chord progression was addictive and I loved it, and asked permission to arrange it. She calls it Altronia, after a science fiction story she'd been working on.

Carry The Flame

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/20/2026		Page Views: 8
Hashtags: #Music
A perfect musical description of the Grand Canyon.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (66 words)

This is the concert arrangement of the song Tanno sings in Lucian of Samosata—an ancient Gaulish lament, sung by a Gaul who had spent twenty-two years as a Roman slave. However, in its concert form I found it a perfect musical description of the Grand Canyon.