The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyrics: Thinking one thought only
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “Well you're blessed I guess” is from the song "The Lucky One”, performed by Alison Krauss and Union Station. Written by Robert Lee Castleman, it’s Track 3 on the album “New Favorite" by Alison Krauss and Union Station, released August, 2001. Produced by Alison Krauss and Union Station (Ed. - Alison Krauss - co-producer -on lead vocals and played viola on the track - second time in two weeks a producer played viola on a Rando Lyric track…..just sayin’).
Credit: Genius Link: >The Lucky One<
From Genius: “Alison Krauss and Union Station are a singer/bluegrass group combination signed with Rounder Records.
They have been releasing albums together since 1989. Starting with “Two Highways” to their latest joint release “Paper Airplanes” in 2011.
Current Members:
Alison Krauss, Barry Bales, Ron Block, Dan Tyminski and Jerry Douglas.
Past Members:
John R. Bowman, Alison Brown, Dave Denman, Larry Atamanuik, Viktor Krauss, Mike Harman, John Pennell, Tim Stafford, Adam Steffey, and Jeff White.”
Link: >Alison Krauss And Union Station<
This Week’s Documentary Film Recommendation:
“Enormous: The Gorge Story” - a documentary (I found it on Amazon Prime, may be on other services as well) about the Gorge Amphitheatre in central Washington State (about 3 hours drive from my house) - and how it came to be a concert destination. I saw the Beach Boys there in 1995 or 1993 - apparently they did shows there both years and I’ve long forgotten which we attended. Flicker.com user “Hama-2000” posted this photo (copyright by Hama-2000) from the 1995 show (We were a looong ways back, so it might have looked like this. Sound was great though.):
Whichever one it was, it was a great show and a great venue. Very cool documentary on the origins.
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today:
Alison Krauss and Union Station have long been favorites of mine. Most of their songs require a capoed or transposed version. You may be telling yourself, “This is not my beautiful house!” Actually, that’s a lyric from a Talking Heads song, so instead of that you may be asking yourself, “I wonder if Michael will tell us what the difference between transposing from one key to another and using a capo to accomplish the same thing is?” Yes. Yes I will….
The difference is the capo. A capo allows you to play in the same key as the original key while using chord shapes that are familiar and easier to form with your fretting hand - just in a different starting place on the fretboard. So the original song “The Lucky One” is in the key of BbMajor. Lots of barre chords and whatnot in that key. So the first chord shape in the capoed version is a GMajor. The uncapoed GMajor shape has the root note of G on the low E string at the third fret. Using a capo across that third fret “pushes” your fretting hand down the fretboard 3 frets. From G, that’s a G#/Ab, to an A, and finally to an A#, which is also named Bb. Great - that’s the key Ms. Krausss is singing in!! Now playing all listed chords while capoed has the effect of raising the root (and because all strings are affected, the entire chord) by 3 half steps, each fret being one half-step from the frets above and below it. Result? BbMajor.
What if you don’t put the capo on, but play the chords listed normally? Then you’ve transposed the key. In that case the key will now be GMaj and all the chord shapes will be those of the the key of GMaj.
So why wasn’t it in GMaj to begin with? Good question and the answer in almost all cases is the change accommodates the most comfortable vocal range for the singer. And that’s fair, if Alison Krauss is less comfortable singing in GMaj than 3 half steps higher in pitch in BbMaj, she should be able to and the musicians should accommodate that. Look closely in the video above and you’ll note the two musicians on the acoustic guitars (both look like Martins to me) each have a capo on the 3rd fret. The musician using the resonator guitar like a lap steel also has a capo on 3. Good for them, especially because it appears no one in the video is actually being recorded - no guitar cords plugged into any of the guitars and Ms. Krauss does not appear to be mic’d. But if she’s actually singing with the musicians, even if it’s not going to become the video’s underlying audio track, she should be able to hear the musicians playing behind her in the correct key, and they should be able to use a capo to play much easier chords for that purpose. That’s kinda why (plus I like the song and it’s fun to play) “The Lucky One” is today’s….
…A Song To Play…
Again - you don’t have to put the capo on. If you don’t and play the chords listed as common cowboy chords, you’re in GMaj. That’s all good, unless you try to play along with the YouTube video. Since that’s in BbMaj, it’ll sound off-key. Because it is.
Lyrics
Credit: Genius Link: "The Lucky One" Lyrics
You're the lucky one
So I've been told
As free as the wind
Blowing down the road
Loved by many, hated by none
I'd say you're lucky 'cause I know what you've done
Not a care in the world
Not a worry in sight
Everything's gonna be alright
Cause you're the lucky one
You're the lucky one
Always having fun
A jack of all trades a master none
[Chorus]
You look at the world with a smiling eye
And laugh at the devil as his train goes by
Give you a song and a one night stand
And you'll be looking at a happy man
'cause you're the lucky one
Well you're blessed i guess
By never knowing which road your choosing
To you the next best thing
To playing and winning is playing and losing
You're the lucky one
I know that now
Don't ask you why, when, where, or how
[Chorus]
You look at the world through your smiling eye
And laugh at the devil as his train goes by
Give you a song and a one night stand
And you'll be looking at a happy man
'cause you're the lucky one
Well you're blessed I guess
By never knowing which road your choosing
To you the next best thing
To playing and winning is playing and losing
You're the lucky one I know that now
Don't ask you why, when, where, or how
No matter where you're at, it's where you'll be
You can bet your luck won't follow me
Just give you a song and a one night stand
And you'll be looking at a happy man
Cause you're the lucky one
Credit: Genius Link >The Lucky One<
The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: Link: >Feelin' Lucky?<
A murder of randomness - oh wait, that’s crows. So, bonus Counting Crows….
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back”click on link for streaming options, then scroll down for links (or just click on these links) to Amazon, Apple, Pandora, iTunes and even Spotify
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Disclaimer Section (Just so we’re clear…)
This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention. Some linked or quoted material may be copyrighted by others, and I credit them. I rely on the “Fair Use” doctrine for educational purposes (Link: Fair Use). *I do not use AI, things I link to might though. -Michael Acoustic
*Exception: For the next few weeks at least I’ll be testing out a beta feature offered on Substack that produces an AI image based on a text input - the image of the week can be seen in the upper left corner of this post…
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Some Links For Today
ED. None of these result in compensation to me in any way, and I’m not endorsing any of them, but some of my readers may find them as interesting as I did…
From Soundfly:
Soundfly - “Balancing chance & intentionality, doing the work, engaging summer mode, & the punk ethos”
- an editor’s note covering all of those topics - Soundfly is one of the better sites at getting straight to it. That said, there are a couple of ads at the bottom I wasn’t able to edit out, but the main article is great.
From Blues Guitar Unleashed:
Acoustic 8 Bar Blues - Mr. Hamlin does a lot of posts for electric guitar, so I try to highlight the acoustic guitar ones when they come around.
Build A Blues Song - he’ll show you how it’s done…
Blues Turnarounds - Take it back to the top - but how you make your turnaround cool is one of the key parts of the blues….
From American Songwriter Magazine:
Oldest Rock Stars Still Touring - You can probably just guess - but check your answers here…
Which Fabulous Act Did Lennon Consider In The Same Class With The Beatles? - Find out here… Yeah, surprised me, too…
From Songtown:
Keeping Your Songs On Track - I have to admit I don’t do any of these things, routinely at least, and if I do it’s more accidental. Your mileage may vary….
Melody And The Power Of Three - Yes - there is something to this! It’s kinda difficult to wrap your head around, but read this and you may start to see the patterns…
Why Do You Write Songs? - Maybe you do and maybe you don’t even… Still, you may want to at some point and this might be good to read before that…
From the Disc Makers Blog:
Tik Tok Royalties - Find out how that works right here…
And this:
Not entirely sure where I found this, but if you can sound like J.J. Cale, you should sound like J.J.Cale…
Thank You To Our New Subscribers and Followers!! This Week’s Conversation With Mika, the Cat:
Me: “Hey!”
Mika : “You should have planned on sleeping somewhere else, human…”
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
I meant to say this earlier, but Alison Krauss has the voice of an angel.