Steven Drozd - Dear Old Fredonia

A beautiful piano piece by the multi-instrumentalist from The Flaming Lips, which he can be seen recording during the 2005 Bradley Beesley movie 'The Fearless Freaks'. Just thought it deserved to be up here - Kliph the band's former drummer posted it on their message board several years ago. Think the photo is by Michelle Martin. Will obviously remove if there are any copyright issues.

[JettJamesGD]

Hey. I know this is a very late and sudden comment, but I just want to talk about Steven Drozd, and my connection to him. I pretty rarely bring this up, but he's my uncle. My mom's sister, (my aunt) lives in Oklahoma City, and has been married to Steven Drozd for 16 years. They have two kids, a son and a daughter. My mom and I live in Saint Louis, so I really only get to see them on holidays or breaks. But when I do, it's always a great time.

Steven is just as incredible as a father as he is a musician. He's always there to bring light to a situation, saying something that puts a smile on the face of everyone in the room. My cousins sometimes seem a bit annoyed by his comments, but I just can't help to appreciate how much he cares. I could talk to him about anything and he would be more than happy to listen to all I had to say, no matter how boring or pointless it sounds.

I found this song when skimming through an old iTunes library my dad created, which has a lot of various works done by The Flaming Lips over the years, as well as more personal works by Steven Drozd himself, like this. There's even a track he made for me: Infinite Jett, a beautiful lullaby-sounding track composed in 2004 to pay tribute to my birth. To my knowledge, the track has never been released in any public capacity, and due to how different software was back then, it could very well be that the only surviving version of the track is a highly-compressed mp3 version on an external USB drive, most likely compressed to send over whatever email service was ideal at the time (Probably Yahoo, if I were to guess).

That just goes to show how much he cares. He made an 11-minute song, just for a little newborn baby he may have not even seen himself yet. There's no reason for him to share it elsewhere, no reason to sell it for profit. He made the song out of heart, not for a paycheck. That means so much now, with so many popular musicians just making songs to get rich, and nothing more. Steven Drozd is an incredible person, and deserves all the praise he gets. Thanks for reading.

[timsmusicstuff]

Thanks for the upload! Amazing to hear the full track nearly a decade and a half after first hearing it. I learned what I could based on what appeared in the film and really wished I could hear and learn the rest of the chords. The time has come!

[spacealienjesus]

Stunning..
Steven is such a wonderful artist.

[NatePaulMN]

This song would have fit right into Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. Reminds me of his music in a good way