Again with the Cowpunk

Posted on 13/11/2015 by admin

The problem with the previous effort is that what starts out being a mildly novel take on the naming of US states, the roadtrip song, and ends up sounding more like the cross between an oily crooner and a fratboy than anything cowpunk could throw up.

That doesn’t mean we need to abandon this taxing subject. It’s just sometimes not the best move to be led by the pun.

Folk is interested in the plight of the commoner when the rich are not paying their share and punk is angry at the system. Country could certainly canvass the application of tax on fresh food since their audience are the growers.

Is there more of a rootin’ tootin’ angle to take on tax? It’s not the most promising subject since no one wants to be reminded why they’re already so down when they’re getting down.

Very Taxing Times

They tax the air
of my despair
The circled oircus isn't fair
These are very taxing times

They tax the packs
of fictive acts
suggestive tracts
selective facts

They take a part of every art
chart the ads add to the cart
saw before it starts to smart
Very taxing times 

They press the button get their cut in
on the lam dressed as mutton
shoulders back and suck your gut in
Very taxing times

They leave some figures at your door
Accounts amount a numbered score
saying you'll be paying more
in these very
taxing times

Cowpunk

Posted on 06/11/2015 by admin

Tempering the maudlin and sentimental of country and the snottiness and aggro of punk while bursting with its own energy, this is a form to be reckoned with.

Let’s fit in the constraints of our former approach of letting outside events choose our subject matter or inspiration for a song. For instance, taxes are in the news. Another ‘great big new tax’ but lets just play with this idea

Start with a couplet

They tax us in Texas We never a tenner see in Tennesee

and then you just somehow build

I let a lass go in Alaska in the end Idaho

Alt who goes there

Posted on 31/10/2015 by admin

I Can’t Be Scene 2 could be alt-country because it uses familiar heartbreak territory from traditional country and blends it with imagery a little wilder and at turns whimsical.

Alt-rock is exemplified in It’s Your Loss

See if you agree

I Can’t Be Scene 2

I can be the opening shot
on some as yet empty lot
I can draw you out or I can draw you in
beg something big for the chance to begin

But I can't be scene 2
fall apart
I can't be scene 2
 return to start

I can advance the plot
 be something that I'm not
Emerge unscathed with this demiurge 
the hour is now a powers purge 

[Chorus]
I can stem the tide I can stop the rot
  and more besides what have you got
Place the case inside the zone
 A catalyst to call my own

[Chorus]

It’s Your Loss

If you'd led with your head
What you've said given cred
But now you're stuck with this instead
    It's your loss
 
If you pulled apart the stop and start
 The dearth of earth as sudden art
 Certain that was the pertinent part
   Well it's your loss 

In describing the bribing of those still subscribing
 to the pitch of the rich how they're arriving
  at first in best served survival
     there's always a cost
        and it's your loss

As those you love have moved above
The ebb and flow the push and shove
Foot in mouth goes hand in glove
           your loss
              it's

Americana flagged

Posted on 25/10/2015 by admin

What is it that bounds Alabama Shakes with the Grateful Dead? I’m not going to pretend I understand the distinction between Americana and alt country but it’s big right now. And it has been the ground for some great artists and songs.

There are some bands like The Knitters that I’m happy to be reminded of. And seeing them here is going to make me want to get at least a sample of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

While the name suggests that it, by definition, represents gathered cultural facts and observations about life in America, there is its further description of incorporating a mix of roots styles, which can – and inevitably do – leave the shores of the continental United States.

With all this hoeing going down, I’m ready to write another rural piece. What’s another piece of my childhood I can coopt? Well, while it’s not the experience of every farm kid, we had a bren gun carrier we used to play on.

We converted it to a cubby; the coolest cubby yet

This isn’t a story or experience that I’ve wanted to put into song as it is awesome all within itself. In fact most of the memorable tales from living on the farm were meant to be in that form; a simple retelling.

If we’re going to focus less on significant occurences and more on impressions then we stray from Americana I’d venture.

Roots music, even a combination thereof, suggests – as with the previous genres we’ve canvassed – detailing a narrative, perhaps even one based on real events. I don’t think this narrative needs to be based on a ranch or in some forest for it to ring true as the music will convey the sense of the genre.

It’s debatable, in any case, if cubbies make the list of topics covered by Bruce Springsteen or Bruce Hornsby. Even if they once played in one.

I’m not familiar with Hornsby’s ouevre but the Boss is very strong on storytelling; that’s his base. He also ‘gives us permission’ to use urban themes.

The Band, too, write about their experiences on the road. At first I wondered about Beck’s inclusion then it made me realise his imagery may be colourful but its captured from life

It seems I’ve strayed from both current affairs and personal reflection in looking at what reasonably constitutes Americana. I don’t know if Dylan is Americana in some phases, folk in others and rock in still more. Certainly, pondering these distinctions for too long gets in the way of the writing.

Since I mentioned it last week, I’ll pitch Pitch

Pitch

Black marks across the page
Acute curls at some stage
Editing edicts becomes addictive
The selling point is this predictive

Players plural and all Plus One
Business baseness comes undone
Pour out upon the track
Looks like alack

Consumer condition connect
Prude pride protect
Tamp down stamp down in the clampdown
  and tinny tunes in a tame town

Wretches reach for riches
But they're too big for their britches
Carried out in stretches
Leaving us in stitches 
 with their pitch

Death mettle

Posted on 17/10/2015 by admin

When it comes to murder, there’s a number of genres and subgenres that find it as fascinating as the producers of film and television. Just as there is detective mystery and horror that deal with violent death in pulp novels, the Goths and emo kids signaled a desire to hear about the darker side of life and the death metal crowd wanted to feed the interest and morbid outlook.

It’s not something I have any great interest in and I’m known for dodging murder mysteries, cop shows and forensic series. If I see homicide as part of a story then I have no objection but tales that are built round it are just so plentiful.

Since the last entry, I have two songs Slew and Pitch that are being edited close together, three drafts of Bad Day at the Office, a rather dubious piece called Power to the Peephole, three or four other poems and just writing I Can’t Be Scene #2

Slew came about with the sudden realisation that there are the two meanings: past tense of slay and a big conglomeration of things. Pitch followed because of the quite clear multiplicity of meaning. It just so happens that Slew, because of its subject matter, has a few potential audiences.

Slew

A batch of butchers bitched and botched the act
Dumb down the damage peer through the cracks
The array have been arrested
displayed waylaid time tested
           Slew
            a slew
           Slew
The colour of killers collected
The squalor of skills selected
 For as you say slay
  is still in play

Knives drawn
see what's sawn
Gruesome how some grew
           Slew
            there's a slew

More do murder
scene and heard

Am I late annihilate
Ex tempo exterminate
Sassy mates assassinate
             the slew
            Slew

The grass is always bluer (on the other side)

Posted on 12/09/2015 by admin

We know how to retrofit songs to genre or not as the case may be. There’s always a fall back if you do have to write a bluegrass number for instance.

Rely on your knowledge of the work of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs or Bill Monroe to inform the way you construct the song
Use classics to define the mood
Look at the earliest songs and then note the amount of movement, if any, lyrically
See the way the words fit with the song

When I was looking at what I could bring to bluegrass or take from it, I settled on two things: locale and narrative form

I live in mountains but not Appalachian Mountains so how do I navigate to that form of storytelling. Well, I grew up on a farm but I’ve always understood that to mean, at least in the Australian outback, country (or, as it used to be known at times, country & western)

The standards all have narratives but they vary between first, second and third person and ‘Oh Death‘ and ‘In the Pines‘ switch narrative voices in a kind of one-person call and response. They can be about one person in particular, such as John Henry or about the place they live and the conditions they operate under. For that reason I didn’t think this other song I was writing about Boxes had the right sentiment or style.

There isn’t a lot of metaphor in bluegrass (to the point that that’s really Death talking) so I kept returning to the childhood home. If it wasn’t about rodeos or mustering, or the lives and loves of the countryside then perhaps I could cleave closer to bluegrass than its kissin’ cousin, country

And then I thought about the verandah and that seemed underexplored enough to give fresh paint. At first I was influenced by what I was learning about existing bluegrass numbers and kept the scene literal but once I had that first draft I was able to move into a more poetic but, hopefully, still authentic recreation of a mood or feeling or impression

The Verandah

The verandah the verandah
 I'll see you out there on the verandah

 A day out in the paddock as your thoughts go round and round
 and it's you and other tractors that make the only sound
 Some solvol and a wash bowl it's time to scrub clean
 Waiting for tea and there is me finding a place to lean
 on the verandah

Cosmopolitan capers occur in cafes far away
 but out here in this red dirt is where I've said I'll stay
 With books borrowed from the library
 and a paper a week old
 Where the main instruction is
 just do what you're told

and the only place to escape
 is the verandah
 go outside and play
 on the verandah

I wrote that on the thirtieth. It wasn’t til the third of September that I wrote two more drafts; this time the song had not only loosened its style, it had made other changes that had an effect on both narrative and structure. And it had changed name

Side Verandah Blues

All day long I've been going round
Sharing sounds with my surrounds
Solvol and a wash bowl it's time to scrub clean
Waiting for tea and there's me find a place to lean
 on the verandah

Cosmopolitan capers in clubs far away
While here in the red dirt I've said I'll stay
Read the papers weak and old
The main instruction 'Do what you're told'

and the only place to escape
 is the verandah
go outside and play
 on the verandah

Side Verandah Blues (3)

All day long I've been going round
Sharing sounds with my surrounds
Solvol and a wash bowl it's time to scrub clean
Waiting for tea there's me finding a place to lean
 on the verandah

Cosmopolitan capers in clubs far away
While here in the red dirt I've said I will stay
The news is a week old, weak and old
The only instruction to do what you're told

and the one place to escape
 is the verandah
go outside and play
 on the verandah

Genreveal later

Posted on 15/08/2015 by admin

I believe songwriting is less about authenticity than it is fidelity to the song. While you can play games that you know beforehand are not going to come off, the preponderance of time spent in serious purpose, as it were, is on working up a song rather than working out a song or shoehorning a song.

That said, you have to know what you’re treading lightly around before you can do so successfully. The folk musics of Macedonia or Malta or Madagascar or Mali or Mexico are bound to have exerted their influence at some point in history and we have learnt from our own traditions as much as we have ignored, say, ritual music or rural music found nowhere else. It’s true that the blues and other regional music forms do make their presence felt in far off approximations. Regardless of what you think of the Bluesbreakers or Blues Influence or other variously identified by the music they play, bands. No matter what opinion you hold on the Yardbirds or any white group that did a blues cover ever.

One can readily say the same for jazz and rock’n’roll. Not to mention disco, funk, rhythm’n’blues, soul, gospel, rap,

Two things to bear in mind:

in the early pre-recording days of field music, songs were passed on from one musician to the next, often with embellisments or swapped lines;
nobody preaches authenticity to the makers of Moog sythesizer recordings nor trouble to argue the origin or adherence of someone with an emulator under their arm

I’m going to do something foolhardy and argue with the viewpoint of a black female singer and touring band leader, and say that I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as saying that it’s rock music when some white band plays it and then R & B when the black guy does it. Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley are in all likelihood the premier rock’n’roll singer-songwriters. What Buddy Holly wrote and Bill Haley didn’t write are essential part of the canon but they don’t have either the number of classics nor the resonance. There are enough covers of Who Do You Love? out there to sink a rockin’ battleship.

Bluesed and bettered

Posted on 31/07/2015 by admin

As with the other significant genres, blues has many variations: jump blues, country blues, folk blues, Chicago blues. I have delved as far as I care to in the appropriated form (and I know that all the great genres and offshoots are appropriated)

I think some of the language in death cafe is a little dense for the blues, which comes right out and says it. Or, at least, provides a colourful metaphor that gives us the full nudge and wink.

The humour is earthy not esoteric. The drama is in real life depiction of what the songwriter experiences. Stories are about the protagonist in situations. There’s a lot of first person: I’m a back door man, I’m a hoochie coochie man, I’m the seventh son

You know and I know that that is the same man. One Willie Dixon. In my opinion the greatest blues songwriter.

The blues has such diversity that these observations can’t cover all of the genre all the time. But they’re a good field guide.

Swing and round about

Posted on 10/05/2015 by admin

So has ‘Out of Town’ succeeded where ‘Firing Squad’ failed? Well the whole notion of virtually placing the listener in peril – ‘you’re facing the firing squad’ is anathema to all forms of jazz. It dealt with controversial subjects aplenty but it did so in third person. Any second person would have been the more typical ‘how could you do me wrong’ variety.

By avoiding topicality, we’re left with a narrative familiar to many traditional structures. It is natural and neutral so there’s not a major stretch to have grouped instruments blasting in unison (in this respect, it has the cheek and irreverence; the upbeat stroll, to suit the cacaphony). No one will mistake it for something that Calloway left in a cab or Miller left in a glen but we are faced always with that dilemma whether to replicate the sentiment of the time in mere pastiche or adapt our own sensibilities and observations to the form.

Can we finish with ragtime, given that bebop is not a lyricist’s medium:

I’m Holding Out

My hands are tied
Around for the ride
I take it in my stride
I'm holding out

The place  has changed
The people estranged
Gone to great pains
to say I'm holding out

My friends already fled
No accounting for the dead
Exhibitions in 
Inhibitions ex
shed 
still I'm holding out

Dicks see land

Posted on 03/05/2015 by admin

For those pupils who are inclined to the view that this is not Dixieland; that it is, in fact, the style of writing I employ on a regular basis, I plead guilty.

This ain’t no Jazz Era number. Let’s keep going. My father was into Swing before he migrated to Australia took to the bush and embraced country. I’m sure I can make a hash of swing just as easily.

Now we don’t want to leaden proceedings by referring to things topical and sombre so let’s think of words worthy of accompanying all those instruments blasting off.

Hitherto I haven’t touched on the discard pile. This is often a scrap of thoughts or partial phrase that sounds promising until you see the blind corner and veer to something different.

Here is one I just experienced:

I move in the circles with Angela Merkel

The idea was to meet the prime requirements of remembering you have people out there on the dancefloor and inject a bit of wayward humour by playing on diplomatic circles and social circles and dance moves into the bargain. But what do I want to say about the German chancellor? She’s a strong sensible leader whom I’ve no wish to mock and she doesn’t have the traits that lend themselves to a metaphoric whirl.

Nor is it necessary to point out to the dance crowd that they are dancing. This happens throughout all styles and eras but it’s not what dominates Swing. It’s more about taking you out and being part of the hip and happenin’ times. There’s a lightness and joviality but you need that in wartime. Screamo is of a later age.

I think, if you are going to light on a clause or phrase that makes good material – still the way I proceed with many poems and songs – then just bear in mind the genre you’re in. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Out of Town

I could tell straight away
You were from out of town

Too neat to compete for our streets
far too fey for our gay cafes
Too beautiful too dutiful 
too dashing too smashing
Too altogether  taboo
from our point of view

You must be from out of town

Apart from how artful  you are
we have a fear of those from afar
We're just a sample of the simple way
Still stand strong for those who stay

But you're from out of town

From the Sound of It

Tag Archives: lyrics