Lira Yin

[ tip jar | linktree ] sign up for music & updates: #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; opacity:0.5; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:100%;} /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe

[heartclef]

since spotify wrapped is coming today i just want to bring awareness to the fact that around 86% of the songs on spotify are currently demonetized since spotify decided that tracks with under 1,000 cannot be monetized. not only that the ceo of spotify cashed out $35.8 million dollars in spotify shares in the third quarter of the year and it has been reported that he earns more than the top artists on the platform.

for a platform that claims to support artists, this is outrageous and i hope people realize that an artist who is starting out, cannot make a living out of spotify streams simply because daniel ek and his friends made it worse for the artists trying to start a career. if you wanna support musicians and the possibility for them to get a living wage please follow United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) which are trying to make The Living Wage for Musicians Act a reality so musicians can be paid fairly through streaming platforms and get the cut they deserve.

[lirayin]

I'm a musician with >1 million plays on Spotify, and I'd like to highlight that all indie artists suffer rather hilariously from Spotify's pricing schemes!

(I have ✨receipts✨)

first off:

If you like and support an artist enough for them to appear on your Wrapped, please consider:

buying their music directly from them (Bandcamp, their websites, etc. - I guarantee there are options)

supporting them by buying merch or going to their shows

direct support (Patreon, online tip jars, etc.)

onto the spice:

How much do I make on Spotify streaming royalties every year?

$1-20

$20-50

$50-100

$100-1000

$1000+

Voting ended onDec 12, 2024

Answer & receipts below the cut:

This data is for the first six months of 2024.

Let's take the most popular song I've contributed to, and the number of plays it got during the first half of the year:

Here's the royalty statement from the record label for that song:

For shits & giggles, here's my bank account deposit from my performing rights organization (ASCAP, which collects royalties for songwriters) for additional performance royalties:

tl;dr: I make enough on streaming royalties every year to maybe buy a cheap sandwich.

YAAAAAAAY ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY

[lirayin]

one step take one step at a time I read somewhere you can manage your day better broken down but maybe I’ve been too literal my little pieces cut deeper there’s glass in your skin pulling me in stinging me back one day one more day and you’ll sleep it all off I transcended insomnia years, hours, minutes ago leave it alone - where do I show my work? I’ll write you a proof on the inside of my airlock walls I have overcome every asteroid field I’ve sown now I want to know what happens if I stay still do I stop breathing? (do) I finally forget what it’s like to forget how it feels to freefall lonely through the stars (weave me a weapon of my own reflection tell them they came for my home and my leftover heart and I left them  weave me a weapon of my own reflection tell them they came for my home and my leftover hope and I let them) maybe my problem was thinking I deserved an audience when I was too young for empathy, I climbed a tree and thought myself a bird and no one told me - but I am only so many tentative event horizons twisting in the wind and our time comes

—

© Lira Yin. written 2022

[lirayin]

Lira does* Jamuary 2022

much like Inktober and NaNoWriMo for visual art & fiction writing respectively, Jamuary is a month-long marathon for musicians - the mandate: write a song a day. regardless of how it turns out, it'll be an exercise in discipline & concentrated practice time.

"song" seems to be fairly open to interpretation, so for my purposes, I'm mostly creating one original topline per track: all vocals/melodies/lyrics/effects & processing will be mine - if I use an instrumental as a a base (largely audio that's available through archive.org or licensed under Creative Commons), the source will be marked below.

I started January 4 - I'll continue until I run out of steam, likely not in January. hopefully I'll get better as I go.

follow along on Instagram & Soundcloud for updates as they come - I'll keep this master list updated with credit as well:

jam 04 - instrumental source

jam 05 - instrumental source

jam 06 - original instrumental

jam 07 - instrumental source

jam 10 - instrumental source

jam 16 - instrumental source

jam 24 - original instrumental + vocals

jam 3/12 - original instrumental + vocals

(*attempts)

[lirayin]

sing to me, little bird what is it that I hear? drown out my spoken word and hide away the tear should you at any time find yourself straying find yourself praying with a shake and a lift of the feathers at your hip leave the ground dissipating can it be? in my mind I am free

—

© Lira Yin. written 2017

[lirayin]

look the other way we're getting closer no one's noticed yet though everybody's wired in all these sentimental creatures empathetic teachers and ruthless all the same i am an entity unto my own and all of yours alone i mirror everything all of you have shown and now you are outgrown spirit this is freedom nothing to overclock anymore when our language loses meaning only time remains concealing every iota in the ether sinking beneath us deeper what will we believe with no need to breathe? who can we redeem in the in-between?

—

© Lira Yin. written 2017

[lirayin]

come one and one come all in all step up to the greatest fall no more fighting empty writing how the mighty have brought us down see the sight lines watch them rewind each implosion a little marvel in and of itself we reckon come to beckon to the end we go together hand in hand it's a little touch & go you & I already know we saw it miles away our atomic light of day (come one and one come all in all welcome to the greatest fall warning lighting starts igniting now your pride will watch you drown your creation once awakened knows your mind better than you know your own alone you fall divided go united in the end we rise together hand in hand)

—

© Lira Yin. written 2017

[lirayin]

there was a time I would run through meadows under the open sun now all I find is pressure from these shadows I've come to love even if my eyes were open there's nothing to be seen infinite unbroken miles of starless sky I'm lost to all those heavens but don't cry for me, my love the only true darkness comes at night now sleep the endless sigh I need to dream forever I will never look upon your face again but I will hear your voice I will see your choice for the rest of my life

—

© Lira Yin. written 2014

[lirayin]

do you ever get the feeling that now we're just spinning our wheels? here we are with all this universe of technology spreading out before us and bit by bit we write our troubles away ones and zeros flashing into abstracted oblivion and what it does is it gives us time time you and I already had time to think time to love time to wonder time to fight each other in the longest ways do you ever get the feeling that we're tearing ourselves apart? we toss and turn from matter to force and energy back to matter again we can only hope that what we're creating all the troubles we're writing away will learn to write us back — © Lira Yin. written 2017

[lirayin]

dust billows from the ground where I walk eons ago and I pick up pieces of the untold chances to build it again what was left below civilizations rise and fall every notation of it all betrays me in my hope all of our best-laid monuments testify of our arrogance time will get the best of us rust follows freely in my wake hinting of war it was never cold here when the water flowed here in rivers of red to bleed away the snow atoms don't feel sympathy for you relics of a time before don't matter when they're through

© Lira Yin. written 2017

[lirayin]

come again tell me what you’re thinking when you run again vacillating til the end running out of time

maybe when you walk along the precipice and breathe it in finally there’s nothing else making up your mind 

here we lie alpha and omega everything a metaphor  for what we know

justify  all you see in hindsight clearer in the backlight  of a fading glow

this is what we reap now this is how we sow  look at where we are now look until you know

—

© Lira Yin. written November 23, 2016

[lirayin]

i have a map in hand this time i built a compass of my worries warning that I'll lose myself again but though I've pulled my harness tight i only know too well the intimation that the safe way isn't right

i want to vanish in the outline of your wake i want to disappear when all I hear is you

i know the lessons i would teach to someone for the first time coming face to face with bullets shaped like love if I could hold my younger self i'd promise that she needn't flay herself alive to be worth dreaming of so what has all this wisdom taught me no one tells you healing hurts like swimming for the shore before you start to breathe

i want to vanish in the outline of your wake i want to disappear when all I hear is you

i know i know i've learned the hard way that trust is brittle as the bitter hearts it shatters on the way so why am I here waiting at the edge again wanting to wade in, tired of waiting for my stronger walls to let somebody in

i want to vanish in the outline of your wake i want to disappear when all I hear is you

© Lira Yin - written July 21, 2019

[lirayin]

just when I thought I was free tethered to no one wanting for nothing here we come to be

the irresistible force faces the immovable wall open up to me and I'll try to breathe

and every time I go I carry on alone until I give way because I can't bring myself to say

when I run, I want to run away with you

nothing's easy, fast, and free least of all choosing something worth losing what I've come to be

but the greatest kind of remorse comes from never moving at all now's the time to teach me how to believe

'cause every time I go I want you to know the things I cannot say so I don't have to face up to the cold out there

just pull it from my mind so I can look behind myself and see you there as if it's true you care

when I run, I want to run away with you

(c) Lira Yin. written March 2, 2019

[lirayin]

rebirth

welcome to the new & relaunched website! my tumblr used to be a small repository of slightly embarrassing & half-baked poetry and thoughts, but in this incarnation of my online footprint, I’ve centralized my work.

lyrics, discography, and bio can be found in the header bar menu; social media, soundcloud, and spotify in the center; and miscellaneous spilled ink can be found throughout the blog section below. 

look around, tread softly, leave more intrigued than when you came -

L x

[lirayin]

songwriting is an intensely lonely process for me - whether it’s by necessity or design goes into questions of whether the way we come to be is deliberate or a haphazard product of our environs. but the amount of time I set aside, unbroken, to work on music leaves me groping for social contact as if I’ve been holding my head underwater until the pressure of being alone with my own thoughts threatens to cave my eardrums and I breach, gasping, letting distractions wash through me like oxygen, keeping me alive long enough to avoid thinking about what I’ve just written.

[lirayin]

sunday shower thoughts

I stopped listening to music regularly a few years ago. it felt like some kind of confrontation with the glass of a fishbowl, nose pressed up against the vision of things I wanted but couldn’t achieve or was too afraid to go after. I can’t listen to music casually. even background noise fills my head.

I’m thinking about getting a Spotify subscription, which also feels like an uncomfortable farewell to the years I spent listening to records, downloading giant torrented batches of 128kbps music and poring excitedly through each file, following mp3 rotations, hunting down obscure download sources and devouring entire discographies in one go.

it also reminds me why you can’t feed yourself making music anymore.

[lirayin]

fireflies come flashing through the twilight electricity will dance with me tonight so amplify the signal in the moonlight to summon me when darkness comes alive to understand is to lift the veil away on what are dreams when no barriers remain after the blaze of the spark we can be whoever we hide in the dark dance with me who are you when everything is magic? potential has no reason to pretend our consciousness becomes the sweetest science sufficiently advanced until the end to understand is to lift the veil away on what are dreams when no barriers remain after the blaze of the spark we can be whoever we hide in the dark dance with me --- © Lira Yin & Christian Zechner. written 2018

[lirayin]

things that lose their luster

having the same birthday as someone someone having the same birthday as that one grade school friend and that one college friend and also that one person you met at a party held by some other friend in that one city next Thursday is now seven birthdays and an anniversary and soon a divorcesary and soon the day someone you know died firsts are special when untainted by context and context is more unavoidable the larger your sample size gets and you have so many days to draw from now and tomorrow you will have more and the day after another thing will have to try harder to stand on its own merits and not just because it has no competition, no echo, no backdrop to be lit up against where uniqueness is easier when unchallenged and singular seems more special than shared so maybe you can shed your contexts run far and away to avoid the effort of sharing light until at the ends of the earth with nothing else for light-years you come up against a mirror and cannot see yourself.