2007 was the year I recorded what was my first and currently only “solo” album. As I was driving around with my kid Anna, (a 19 year old who was named after the song Annabelle) I was telling her about the songs on B&C and she was surprised as it was recorded right before her third birthday.
“I though this was out way before I was born!”
“Well, the song with your name was written and recorded in the early nineties, but this version was in 07. You were named after the song.”
She flashed her smirk.
“Yeah, I know.”
It’s an old story, but as I started to tell her about the writing of the other songs I saw how engaged she was, laughing at the funny bits and getting wide eyed about some of the other stories. Like road stories. Who likes road stories?
My kid does. Maybe even you do too.
Here is the tale of Blood and Cigarettes and some tales from the tour that followed.
(Yes, there was a tour.)
HELLO
The opening and closing tracks of Hello/Goodbye are, essentially the same song. They bookend the album nicely I think and represented the very first song written specifically for B&C. It was a simple idea and because I hadn’t written music or songs in so long, the song poured out easily.
Hello, hello
It’s been a long long time
Hello, hello
I hope you’ve been doing fine
A million conversations start
Hello, hello
I didn’t become a star
Hello, hello
But I’m better off by far
A million journeys start and end hello
The dream didn’t go away, it changed so much
It’s something different now
I got everything I didn’t even know I wanted
And it took me by surprise
Walked on up and told me
“Hello, hello
All that you need is found right here.
Hello
And everything else will become clear
All you need to say is
Hello”
It’s is a song that really gives a very vague yet happy overview of what I had been doing since moving out of New Jersey.
I’ll post the lyrics to Goodbye later as I sort of intend to go in order. But, as you can see, it’s not a very difficult concept; It’s called Hello after all, and what a nice thing to say to an audience I was absolutely positive didn’t exist.
VICTORIA
The band I was part of in the early nineties was called The Automatics. (There is a whole story about them waiting to be written.) I was one of two main songwriters and there was a healthy competitive stockpile of material from either of us at any given time. He’d come in with a song, then I would; we’d go
back and forth. We had about three hours of original material at any given time for the time the band was in operation.
There was a lot of ‘over writing’ at least on my part. For every one song I’d bring in, there were three more waiting for their moment to come out in a pinch if need be-and it was kind of cool to have that kind of volume. I still like working that way to be honest. If I only need one story, I’ll write four just to have options. “Under promise, over deliver” I think is how it’s referred to sometimes, but really, it’s just a love of the work.
It’s slightly noteworthy that, as the majority of my writing these days is mostly prose, I have to say that I love songwriting. It isn’t poetry set to music as some folks would tell me (although it’s an easy assumption to make.) There is a craft to it and once you start doing it for a while, it gets fairly addictive. It was great having a band to unleash the output which was a lot more than I thought.
One day (yes it was a whole day) I did an experiment and recorded myself fooling around with making songs up on the spot. I had never tried it before and I don’t think I have since. One of the songs was Victoria and was almost extracted verbatim from the cassette. The first line popped out and the rest of the song followed suit.
You could be my heroine
And I could be your man in distress
Tied to the tracks
And you could swing on a vine
And save me in a tight leather dress
I had a type at the time…
There were a few adjustments – the Gulf War had been over for about a year, but there were still a lot of NO BLOOD FOR OIL signs everywhere. In the last verse, the original line was
“No blood for oil”
That’s what you told me
And I will break you arms
If you just won’t hold me
But it was out of place and was changed almost immediately.
You could be my heroine
And I could be your man in distress
Tied to the tracks
And you could swing on a vine
And save me in a tight leather dress
Indiana’s a better name for a girl anyway
Swing on your whip
And carry me away.
You wouldn’t look bad in a fedora
Anything looks good
On you Victoria
You could be a pirate
On the endless sea
If I were a country
You could conquer me
I would surrender quickly for ya
Hey I give up!
I love you Victoria
You love it when I call you by your first name
Even though you don’t know mine…
You could be a Tarzan
In a better looking suit
If you were a knight in armor
You’d still look really cute
“You better stay right here.”
That’s what you told me
“Or I’ll Break your arms
And then who would hold me?”
I’d never leave
And ruin our Euphoria
I’d never leave
The amazing Victoria
I still like this song and a few years ago I added some harmonies to it that I had always intended to put in, but I never brought the song in for the band.
WORST THING (YOU COULD DO)
Worst Thing was one of the very first songs I brought into the Automatics and remains an anomaly at least in my own eyes. It’s a lot of things; the biggest being an absolute dyed in the wool silly pop song. The hook was really good as it even got caught in my head. It was so sugary, it was borderline parody a la The Turtles or at worst, Flo and Eddie. It was pop. It wears that like a badge of courage and situationally, it was a badge of courage.
Dig this-You ever try to sing a pop love song in a shit Greenwich Village bar at 11:45PM on a Saturday night? Yeah? Well, how about a Wednesday night in 1993 in a New York winter snowstorm, wearing bell bottoms and you aren’t in the fucking Black Crowes? Oh, and no one in that bar is there to see you.
Add to the fact that despite all of the work we did as a band, two thirds of the band (myself included) were absolute assholes who treated the audiences everywhere we went like we were doing them a favor. I remain impressed that no one ever threw shit at us like chairs, or actual shit…but I digress.
Worst Thing was written the same day as Annabelle and
although the songs have nothing else to do with each other, they are spiritual siblings. The hardest part about Worst Thing was the music. The first chord is a G#maj7 which is a sort of odd chord to begin on a pop song, but it opened up all of the really great open chord phrasings in the rest of the song. For the uninitiated, an open chord phrasing is often time where you make most of the chord, but not the whole chord and you let all the open chords ring out.
The best analogy I can think of is if you’re making a cheeseburger on the stove and you use shredded cheese; some of that cheese misses the burger and winds up in the pan and melts and gets crispy. The crispy bits are an awesome tasty party of the burger.
So, the progression from an open barre B to B (with an A bass note) to G# has a ton of cheesy crispy bits.
The music came first on this one and I did a first for me-I allowed space for a guitar solo. (If you have ever been nervous about a guitar solo, some advice-your first solo should not be in G#maj7)
The lyrics were very much tongue in cheek with their sappiness. Especially in the bridge in it’s abject simplicity.
Just because I’m in a rock and roll band
Doesn’t mean I won’t hold your hand
That line gives a smile even after all this time. It’s still a favorite and the original version is available for a free download here if you’re curious.
Why don’t you call on me
I love you yes indeed
Show a little sympathy
Don’t let a poor heart bleed
Cos it all belongs to you
And if you leave me that’s the worst thing
You could do
Don’t ever leave me
Don’t ever let me go
Dontcha even love me
One thing I don’t know
If you go your love just ain’t true
And if you leave me that’s the worst thing
You could do
Just because I’m in a rock and roll band
Doesn’t mean I won’t hold your hand
Why don’t you let me
Why don’t you let me in
You say “We’re over”
I say when did we begin
If you go my skies aren’t blue
And you know our love is so true
You know my heart belongs to only you.
Next week, Tracks 4, 5 and 6!
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