Tag Archives: song

Listen, Rewritten Song

Mother Mary (Version 2)

Audio

I first wrote and recorded Mother Mary way back in 2012. I vaguely remember that I got the idea for the song whilMother Mary (Version 2)e watching an episode of the TV show Kitchen Nightmares. No, really. REALLY. I think one of the people that had a NIGHTMARE
KITCHEN was named Mary, but she was also an
older lady, so the host of the show, in all his frenetic glory kept calling her Mother Mary.  Anyway, that just stuck in my head and the original version popped out. Have a listen to that here. Then listen to the new version:

So why do a rewrite?

Well, it’s how I practice. How I teach myself to write completely new things. How I keep myself interested. I have a need I think to tear things down and rebuild them. Even if I really like or love the first creation. And I do really like the first version of this song.

And that made it hard to rework. Because I didn’t know how to even start to change it. Maybe that has something to do with letting my practice of songwriting slip into the trash heap the past couple years, but maybe also because Mother Mary is a song I still occasionally remember and play around the house to entertain myself.

Usually if I get stuck at rewriting a tune I’ll change the tempo and time signature. And that usually means the song becomes a waltz, but that didn’t really work for this one. All the words and names I had in the original lyrics fit too well with the original guitar part and melody and I couldn’t get that out of my head. So, I did the easy thing…edit out all the names.

But then can you still call this Mother Mary?

I think without any of the references to the Christian religious figures it’s still basically the same song. You can look at it two ways:

  1. Without the names the song just becomes a little more broad in asking for help from someone unnamed.
  2. The song becomes even more about Mother Mary since the title is the only reference to who it might be that the lyrics are talking about.

Now, that sure is a lot of explaining for a song that originally took me about 14 minutes to write and that I didn’t ever think about the meaning of. I still don’t ever think about the meaning of the first version. It doesn’t really mean anything to me. I just like how it sounds.

Listen, Talkin' Headline Blues

Pushing Daisies: The Talkin’ Headline Blues #178

Audio

The Talkin’ Headline Blues is a weekly series of recordings using unedited headlines from CNN.com written as a song. This week’s topic: Pushing Daisies.

Pushing Daisies: The Talkin' Headline Blues #178
Pictured here: Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump pushing daisies out of his mouth.

Silent president crisis!
Girl tests man.
Why flowers killed, tear-gassed?
Email diabetes: A death to Yahoo.

And here are your ever-relevant (for today, at least) CNN headlines:

Listen, Talkin' Headline Blues

Fart Trumpets: The Talkin’ Headline Blues #177

Audio

The Talkin’ Headline Blues is a weekly series of recordings using unedited headlines from CNN.com written as a song. This week’s topic: Fart Trumpets.

Fart Trumpets: The Talkin' Headline Blues #177
Two fart trumpets gesture at each other in a race to blurt out the longest and loudest wisp of noxious gas.

Convention will blame mob in shooting.
Demand these Trump-Pence sulfur guns for killing.
Cure policing again?

As if enough people didn’t already make plenty of jokes about the stench of Cleveland during the Summer when it’s hot and humid. Now they have to put up with an entire group of fart trumpets descending on their city for four days this week. Imagine the smell of all that wind. Imagine the foul taste in your mouth if you were one of the fair citizens of that town.

It’s somewhat similar to the blowhards in Chicago who have recently been making the rounds to insist that the 2016 Olympics would have been great for the city. But, also to insist that even though Chicago failed miserably in getting the Games, the city benefited handsomely.

Yes, everyone who lives in Chicago is benefitting. That’s why everything in Chicago is just so wonderful and works so well. The entire country, no, WORLD, looks upon Chicago as a bastion of hope and compassion and prosperity and equality and peace.

It’s been said before: Chicago is the city that works…for about one percent of the people.

Now, enough of that. Go read some happy headlines!

Listen, Rewritten Song

I Got the North Carolina Bathroom Law Blues

Audio

AKA Goodbye, Goodbye (Version 2)

I Got the North Carolina Bathroom Law Blues
Maybe the plumbing is just really bad in North Carolina and they’re trying to save on plunging bills?

Well how about this? Anyone remember that I used to rewrite and rerecord all my songs in an endless loop of songwriting practice? Anyone? No? That’s okay. I’ve written about a billion songs. In any event, I’ve reworked a song from way back in 2011, Goodbye, Goodbye, which was about the Arab Spring. Read up on and listen to the old version here. This new one is all about the bathroom law that was passed recently in North Carolina (among other places).

Wait, a song about a bathroom law?

First off, what the heck is a bathroom law? Try reading up on it here, here and here. I’ll give you a couple, two-tree minutes to read those.

So, yeah, it’s a law that some laughable people in North Carolina passed to say who can use what bathroom and where and when. Now, I’m too young to remember segregated bathrooms to separate people based on skin color, but this seems similar to that. No?

I may be simplifying it and I may have written a simple song about a complex issue, but what exactly are people in support of a law like this trying to accomplish? Some say it’s to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. I say that whenever I hear someone use that as a reason to do something, it’s probably for some other much more nefarious reason.

Then, why write a song about a bathroom law?

Especially a song that is basically saying, “See ya later, North Carolina. I can’t deal with you anymore.” Is that the true nature of the law? To make the LGBT community just get up and leave.

Is it better to stick around and fight for a place you call your home or just pack up and say, forget it. Who wins in either situation? You either keep your home, but have to live with terrible decisions by terrible people, or you move far away and have to leave your home.

How insane is that to make a law that causes someone to question their home, the place they were raised, the place they identify themselves with? That is not creating or maintaining a safe environment (PROTECT THE CHILDREN). It’s creating discomfort for everyone when one group is segregated. It highlights everyone’s differences. If someone is different than you, then you, in turn are different than them.

YOU’RE DIFFERENT TOO.

If they aren’t normal compared to you, then you aren’t normal compared to them. NO ONE’S NORMAL. And then where do you fit in if you aren’t normal? Who’s hand do you hold? Who’s lips do you kiss? What bathroom do you use? Where do you feel safe and secure and at home?

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake
Wait, a children’s book can be used to explain a complex adult issue?

So instead of thinking about any of that or questioning yourself at all, go ahead and make people that aren’t like you feel so unsafe that they don’t want to live by you.  But then, of course, that solution only leads to you seeing and feeling your differences. It’s like the book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. One thing ALWAYS leads to another. And thinking about that book leads me to thinking how at my daughter’s pre-school there are SHARED BATHROOMS. Boys and girls in there TOGETHER. Who’s worked up about that? Who’s protecting the children?

Maybe, in America, we should just all get our own personal bathrooms everywhere we go. (I think they call them colostomy bags.) Then you never have to be around anyone that isn’t exactly like you.

Listen, Talkin' Headline Blues

Got Pacifier? The Talkin’ Headline Blues #176

Audio

The Talkin’ Headline Blues is a weekly series of recordings using unedited headlines from CNN.com written as a song. This week’s topic: Got Pacifier?

Got Pacifier? The Talkin' Headline Blues #176
A man uses a large amount of food as a pacifier in order to make it clear that he has nothing to say, nothing to stand for and no one to help.

Everyone shot.
Most get the pacifism privilege.
Death poised to fire.
Advice consoles new black hole guard.

Have you got a certain thing that comforts you in a time of great need and distress? Something that cooes into your ear and calms your blood pressure? Something that fits in your pocket that you fiddle with when your palms start to sweat? Something that has only very significant meaning to you?

Or maybe you don’t need one at all. Maybe your life is all figured out and you can just roll along easy and free. Maybe in stressful situations you just smile to yourself and know that on the other side of your troubles your knees will come out unscathed on a bed of lush grass.

Also it could be that you do have a pacifier that you use all the time. One that is part of you that you don’t even ever really have to think about. One that every person in the world can see but never enters your brain as having any effect on you or anyone else. One that you’ll never escape from no matter what.

Someone will have to rip it away from you and never give it back. It’ll probably be violent and feel so sudden and strange. You won’t know quite what to think about yourself. You won’t understand why your cries and whimpers are falling on deaf ears.

It’s like being a baby and your nipple to suck on is gone.

How do you sleep at night now? How do you stay quiet in stores and restaurants and out on sidewalks? How do you go about your day with nothing to plunge into your mouth to quit your yells and whines?

How do you live without the thing that hides you from the world? The thing that protects you and keeps you safe. The thing that makes you sure and confident and brilliant and pleasing. The thing that makes you automatically special. The thing that describes and defines and differentiates you. The thing that you never even knew you had or needed or used.

I often wonder about all the pacifiers I surround myself with. I have so many to shield my self from everything else. Some I’ve collected and others I’ve had my whole life. Who’s gonna take them away from me? Who’s gonna be the one to show me I don’t need them? I sure don’t think I can do that on my own.

What I can do is keep reading thousands of different news headlines. That is something that definitely lulls me to sleep. Maybe you need a nap to? If so, read on: