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If One Won’t, Another One Will

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Protest Week

Here’s the Fourth Installment in honor of National Protest Week. Today’s song is called If One Won’t, Another One Will. It’s another re-write of an old Carter Family tune (do you see a pattern here?). Their’s was called If One Won’t The Other Will. You can check out the lyrics here. The Carter Family cut is about spurned love. Mine is more of proselytizing-type piece. I wrote this one probably about 3 years ago. It’s pretty obvious that I had no idea what I was trying to say and no idea what I was actually saying. This would probably be a great theme song for the Tea Party, don’t ya think?

I used to sing this one out live and I’d play the melody a lot around the house, but not anymore. Whenever I did perform If One Won’t, I never felt really good about how it went over. I guess it’s because no one wants to be told what to think or believe or how to see the world. Plus, it’s a completely direct story-song. There’s no over-arching metaphor or hidden meaning or anything. You get what you get with this song. I guess I still like it, but it just ain’t were I’m at anymore. It’s a blame song. I’m trying to blame someone else for something I don’t like instead of just going out and fixing that thing myself. I’m not saying there’s never anyone at fault, but just complaining about those at fault, especially those at fault that you coulda stopped in the first place, is just a waste of time and of happiness.

Okay, so tomorrow will probably be the last song in honor of National Protest Week, cause no one protests on Saturday or Sunday. Those are for taking it easy.

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Who Juiced the Major Leagues?

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Protest Week

Today’s protest song (the Third Installment) in honor of National Protest Week is called Who Juiced the Major Leagues? It’s a song about baseball written about one year ago when a certain star hero baseball player was accused of and then admitted to using steroids. The song is patterned after Bob Dylan’s song from the early 1960’s Who Killed Davey Moore?

I’m posting this from the road on the way down to Mississippi so there’s not gonna be a whole lot of self-inflicted discussion about this song. There’s not much to say anyway. It’s a song about baseball. Baseball’s the American game. It’s a song about America. We’re all Americans. That’s it.

Tell me what ya think of the song.

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We Don’t March

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Protest Week

Okay. so here’s the Second Installment in honor of National Protest Week (which just happens to be this week, if you didn’t know). This is a song that I wrote way back in 2008, probably around the springtime. It’s called We Don’t March.

This one is a pretty straight-forward, over-the-top, preachy protest song. I don’t sing it out live anymore, and hardly ever play it around the house, except that I’m still really in love with the melody. I stole it from an old Carter Family song (again) called We Will March Through the Streets of the City. You can check out the lyrics to that one here and see the similarities. Or just go listen to it.

For one reason or another I find it pretty easy to rewrite Carter Family songs, probably because the melodies are timeless, but the words aren’t. Maybe the words are too. Words never go away. Maybe it’s the ideas, but I don’t think they were trying to say anything different than what I’m trying to say. It just sounds that way because a lot of their songs have the word “jesus” in them, and the word “god” and “lord” and “pray” and those seem to be strange words for a songwriter these days. Either they mean something different in 2010 than they did back in 1925 or maybe we all understand a little less about the words or ourselves.

Anyway, I wrote We Don’t March kind of as an anti-protest protest song, although I’m not sure it turned out that way. There were a lot of immigration rallies going on back in 2006 and 2007, and then, either they fizzled out or everyone turned their attention to something else. And that puzzled me a little. I always thought, and was brought up to believe, that Americans never give up and that they always lend a hand to someone in need. I guess that hand’s gotta be the right one though. So I wrote this one, and I suppose I’m kinda shaking my finger at everyone else and at myself (even if I don’t say that in the song).

The recording was done live at the Elbo Room on July 21, 2008.

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The Sinking of the Deepwater Horizon

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Protest Week

So, here’s the first song in honor of National Protest Week. This is a new one that I finished on Friday last week. I’ve had the chorus running around through my head for a few months now. I picked it up from the old Woody tune The Sinking of the Reuben James. It’s a song I’ve really always loved and I couldn’t quite understand why until I sat down and went about learning the guitar parts a few weeks back. Turns out it’s just an adaptation of the Carter Family’s Wildwood Flower, which is another really great song and probably one everyone knows, or should know, on guitar. Anyway, this new song kinda fell into place over the next couple weeks pretty easily. It’s called The Sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. It’s what you’d call a current-topical-protest-song, I guess.

I really struggled in the beginning with this one because writing a good protest song is really hard. I’d say 99% of them get up there on a high-horse and don’t ever come down. They preach and they yell and they don’t say very much. The first few drafts of mine were exactly like that and lots of other songs I’ve written are exactly like that (some of which I’ll post this week in honor of National Protest Week).

So, this song (hopefully) does not tell you what you oughta think or believe or be fighting. I think it just states some facts and then puts the bulls-eye right squarely where it oughta be placed.

Okay, that’s enough talking. Listen to this first installment of my protest songs in honor of National Protest Week and let me know what ya think.

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Hammer ‘n’ Nail

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I almost didn’t get Hammer ‘n’ Nail done on time, but it’s 11:12pm and here it is. I just got back from a jugband show at Reggie’s down on the South Side. I skipped out on my check, I feel bad, I’m wearing tight jeans, my hair is greased up, my wife was up when I got home. I’m in no condition to write a song.

This song is a sketch of a song from a few months back and in no way finished and probably never will be finished, but I needed to do something today. I added a “gospel choir” effect and recorded through one condenser mic in the mono setting. I thought that was appropriate to capture the mood and feel of the moment. I’m pretty surprised this one clocked in at almost 3 minutes. I guess lots of obnoxious guitar notes will do that to a song.

What do you think?