Monthly Archives: July 2010

Listen

New Orleans

Audio

Songs About America Week

Last song of the week. This one is called New Orleans, or I was born in New Orleans. Either way, it’s a pretty close approximation of the song Portland Town, which I first heard done by Derroll Adams on the record The Ramblin’ Boys, which he recorded with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Map of New Orleans

New Orleans was written and recorded way back in 2006. I was really into imitating Ramblin’ Jack as close as I could back then. But Ramblin’ Jack is still alive and there’s not many people that could imitate him exactly. Bob Dylan tried and couldn’t. I tried too and couldn’t. I don’t talk that much.

So I changed the words of that Derroll Adams song because Portland just ain’t what it used to be when that song was first recorded and New Orleans ain’t what it used to be when I recorded this song.

I’m pretty sure I only ever played this out live one time. Probably at the Grafton open mic that I was frequenting back then. When I was still figuring out how to sing and how to play and how to make sense up on stage. I’m slowly getting back to that point now. Went to Gallery Cabaret again on Thursday night to try out 3 more new songs: Lawd Almighty, Mister Mayor Says, and Pray to your Lord. Went pretty well. Lawd Almighty I’d never played out before and it went a lot better than I ever thought it could’ve. But I was in a religious way that night.

Anyway…on to next week. I got a song to write for Monday and a theme to come up with. See ya…

Listen

The Mortgage Blues

Audio

Songs About America Week

Here’s a song I’ve never recorded: The Mortgage Blues. I’ve played it out probably only 2 times. And those two times were completely improvised. I didn’t even write down any official lyrics for this until about a month ago when I started getting some news songs together for to play in the jugband and to record.

My song is a complete rip-off of the Carter Family song the Coal Miner’s Blues. Check out the similarities here. I don’t care if it’s the same. It’s folk music. And, besides, both songs are just as relevant today…coal mining disasters are just as likely as foreclosures. It’s just that foreclosures affect more people now, not just coal miners and such.

I hope I don’t have to explain why this is an American song. It’s in the form of a traditional American blues and/or early country style. The lyrics were written in approximately the middle of 2008.

Here’s what a mortgage looks like:

Don't you just love your mortgage?!

Listen

Shock & Awe

Audio

Songs About America Week

This is one of the very first songs I wrote. (At least, in the past 4 years or so.) I wrote it sometime back in 2006, maybe even late 2005. This recording is from early 2008, though. I played this one out occasionally when I was first gettin going. It’s a relic now. It’s in the past. The title is Shock & Awe.

I got the idea for this song from the great old tune “Peg and Awl.” If you have the Harry Smith Anthology of Folk Music you’re probably familiar with that song. Here’s a link to that tune. I always loved it, but couldn’t sing it. It ain’t my life. Peggin’ shoes and then a machine comes along and does it for me. That sounds like science fiction to me.

Anyway. Shock and Awe is all about America. It’s about American war. American politics. American people. American fireworks. American money. American grub. It’s about as American as you could get. Mainly because the song could keep going on into infinity, adding a new verse about every new year. Eventually it would become a big circle again. That’s how every day is in America. You wake up and the sun is a-shinin and the birds is a-singin and by the end of the night you just lay down dead as a rat.

See ya, here’s some shock and awe for ya.

Nothing like some good hard shock & awe to whet an appetite.

Listen

Brown-skinned Woman

Audio

Songs About America Week

Here’s the song I was gonna post yesterday. It’s called Brown-skinned Woman. It’s a song I patterned after the Cater Family song Hello Stranger. Check out the Carter lyrics here.

I wrote this song back in early May of this year. I wrote it about the Great State of Arizona, which is part of the United States of America. That’s why I included it this week. I think it’s a good representation of what America and Americans hold most important. At least in certain places and at least about certain types of people.

The many different shades of color depicting the state of Arizona. Note, no brown-skinned colors allowed to depict the state.Anyway. That’s all I have to say about that.

Here’s one last note. This recording is probably the final version that will end up on the full-length album that I’m working on. It’s now all recorded and mixed. It’ll be sent off in a package to be duplicated by next week (or whenever I get the artwork done). So this is a sneak peek for you.