Category Archives: Chicago Song

Chicago Song, Listen

Song Post: The Talkin’ CTA Blues

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Songs from Someone Else’s Perspective Week

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Here’s a song I wrote a few years back. It’s a true story. So true that when I play this song out I usually tell people it happened to me. It felt like it happened to me. Here’s what actually happened.

But, then again, you could just search for “CTA Blue Line Crash” and you’d come up with a thousand different examples, the most recent being this: http://www.wgntv.com/wgntv-blue-line-smoke-aug28,0,5246199.story

Anyway. It’s a funny song about a sad thing. It’s almost as funny as this article: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=155614

Finally, Chicago is tops in something.

So I took the point of view of someone on the train. But, really, we were all on that train because we all ride every train and if you haven’t yet been in a CTA accident then you surely will soon.

The Talkin’ CTA Blues is also on my new album “It’s Chicago!” that just came out on August 10. You can buy and download either just this one song or the entire album, which is all about Chicago, at CDBaby.com or through iTunes.

Or, you can always come out and see a live show and I’ll have real, touchable CD albums.

Hope ya like it.

Chicago Song, Listen

The Talkin’ Tax Blues

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Mass Media Week

Here’s a song about tax I wrote just about exactly 2 years ago. I guess 2 years ago I was really upset about something to do with the city of Chicago and a bunch of talkin’ blues songs came spilling out of me whenever I read or heard about what was going on.

I’ve expanded my boundaries a little bit lately.

Although, I do have a new album of Chicago-inspired songs. I plan to have the songs available for download and purchase, but, apparently, that takes a lot of technical know-how. Anyone ever told you about a FLAC file? Or bit rate? Or pixel laxness?

Anyway, eventually it’ll be up on CDBaby and itunes and all that mess.

For now, though, you can get an album from me out at one of my shows. Next one is this Saturday, 8/14, at Jerry’s in Wicker Park.

But, this song here. I ain’t got much to say about it. I’m not that mad anymore, I guess. It was just something I read in the newspaper again and I wrote this song. Don’t mean nothing. Cause I know there’s a lot of people now-a-days that’s getting all worked up about taxes and government. I ain’t one of them though. I like black coffee. I like to be regulated. I like to be a hypocrite and admit it.

Pay your tax, okay? They support the things that you use in this country.

See ya.

Chicago Song, Listen

The Talkin’ CTA Bus Blues

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Mass Media Week

Here’s a song I wrote about the great CTA bus system back in the wintertime of 2009. I jotted it down after reading this newspaper article.

Now, I first read it in the Chicago Tribune, that great Mass Media Establishment of Reputable Degree, and I just kinda had to write a song. This one wasn’t a struggle at all. I think I remember I wrote it all in about 5 minutes and probably didn’t go back and edit it at all, except for a line or two.

You have to read it online, though, cause all the old papers have been burned up, so I couldn’t scan in the original.

A CTA bus running a red light. Yippee!
It’s perfectly okay for a CTA bus to run a red light.

I think I only played the Talkin’ CTA Bus Blues out once, maybe twice. The one time I definitely remember was right after I joined the Barehand Jugband and I played a quick “break set” in-between our multiple sets back when we had a regular show at the Horseshoe. Anyway, probably 3 people heard it that night. And the band doesn’t play at the Horseshoe anymore, at all, ever.

So, read that article and listen to the song and leave me comment if you’re feelin friendly.

Chicago Song, Listen

Big Cat Blues

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Blues Song Week

Last song of the week. This one’s titled Big Cat Blues. I wrote it back in May of 2008. Pretty much right after this happened. Go ahead. Click it. I’ll give it to ya again, here.

It’s a news story about the Great Chicago Police Department That Protects Us All protectin us from a big old cougar. The cougar killed no one. Hurt no one. Scared no one. There’s rats in the city bigger than a 150 pound cougar. It ain’t nothin.

Here’s what the “crime scene” looked like:

Have a big cat? The CPD will shoot it for you.

It was all over the news. People were frantic. Do you notice the guy on the left side of the picture? Is he clapping because he’s proud? Did he make the shot? Or is he dusting off his hands due to a hard-days work? Or maybe the guy in the bulletproof vest made the shot? How many guys does it take to catch a cougar? How many tax dollars? And how many bullets?

Anyway. This week’s song is a pretty standard blues song. There’s some yelpin. There’s some harp blowin. It goes fast. Then it goes slow. Then fast again. Then it ends on a sorta sour-weird note. I played this song out a lot over the summer and into the fall of 2008. It always went over pretty good. But I don’t play it anymore. It’s one of those topical songs that has a shelf life. That’s mainly cause no one really tries to remember anything anymore. It’s all about what’s happening exactly, directly, right now. What’s happening right now to you? You’re reading this. What happened to you one year ago? And where ya gonna be in one year? If ya run into the Chicago Police you’ll probably be dead and in the ground.

Stay safe out there.

Chicago Song, Listen

Post Nasal Drip Blues

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Blues Song Week

Here’s another of my blues songs. It’s called Post Nasal Drip Blues. It has the word blues in the title so it has to be a blues. It sounds a little more ramshackle than that to me though and I don’t think the pattern is really a blues song pattern, but oh well.

I wrote the song a long time ago…about 3 and a half years, back in the winter of 2007, probably in January or February. It’s one of the first songs I wrote. Or, at least, one of the first that I wrote that I felt was pretty good and could get behind singing and liked singing. And then I sung it into the ground, so I don’t sing it anymore. Probably haven’t for a year and a half or so. It hurts my throat to even think about sining a song that way.

Anyway. So I wrote this at the beginning. When I was first starting to go out and perform around the city. I was hitting a lot of open mikes then, in late 2006 through 2007. That’s how I kinda found out what to do up there all alone. I played a lot at the Grafton Pub open mike. That one is gone though. They don’t have it anymore. There’s other things on Monday nights now. Like Jonas Friddle’s Old Time and Jug Band jams. You should check those out.

Okay…the Post Nasal Drip Blues. I wrote it while sitting by the fireplace in the Grafton after downing a couple pints. It was one of those bad-cold, but still wet and sloppy winter nights in Chicago. I wrote the song in probably 3 minutes and then didn’t add or change anything. This recording is from December 2007 (so one year after I wrote it), but it’s still exactly as how I wrote it. It’s not any other melody. Nothing stolen. It’s just fast and choppin along. It’s gettin out of the cold quick and movin to a warm place somewhere.

One side note…I did suffer from post-nasal drip back during that winter and a doctor prescribed some sort of addictive nose spray that I have since discontinued using. Instead, I’ll, from time-to-time, use a neti pot to get that drip a-flowin and a-bubblin. Here’s what post-nasal drip looks like:

 

Diagram of post nasal drip.

See ya, friend.