The Regular Friday Post

Rando Lyric: I want a life on fire, going mad with desire

Jan 24, 2025

Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “There is no meaning For this to happen” is from the song "Strange Days”, written and performed by JJ Cale. The song was recorded as Track 5 on the album, “Roll On” released in February, 2009. “Roll On” was produced by JJ Cale and Mike Kappus.

Credit: Wikipedia Link: JJ Cale Roll On (album)

Note: Wikipedia shows the producer as Mike Kappus. SongFacts shows JJ Cale and Mike Kappus as co-producers.

Welcome to The Regular Friday post!

JJ Cale has been a favorite of mine since I had a discussion about my appreciation (okay, fanboi - “squee”) for Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits with a guy I worked with. He mentioned that JJ Cale was an inspiration for Mr. Knopfler. I began listening to Mr. Cale and never quit (along with Dire Straits and Mr. Knopfler, of course!). Many of his hits have been covered by other artists, but I often enjoy the lesser known gems in his discography. I think today’s “A Song To Play”: “Strange Days” fits that description.

Some Stuff:

Note: that last (final or lower right corner) picture is concept art - the planets will never actually look like that, no matter what, or WE’D ALL BE DEAD… You probably knew that aleady, but just sayin’…

Some Links (Ed. - limited to timely links this week from Music Business Worldwide - more general but less time sensitive links in a Saturday post in a week or two as they pile up) :

More Copyright Infringement - why do people/companies/conglomerates think they can get away with this now that “sound recordings” are subjects of copyright? The arrangement is right there! SMH…

Another! - Crazy amounts of $$$

A Song To Play: “Strange Days”

This is a really fun and interesting song to fingerpick, and features a unique lyrical style. It is, however, another of those songs that doesn’t fit neatly into a key. Chordify (see chart below) hears it (legitimately, it appears) as the Key of Eminor. Note the Key signature of one sharp (#) is valid for both G Major and E minor, the Em being the relative minor of G Major. So how does that work? As we discussed last week, relative minor keys begin at the vi- (spoken as “6 minor”) chord of the relative Major key, but the chords are the same. The vi- of G Major is E minor, and that’s the key “Strange Days” is in. With only 3 chords, Em, Am, and B7 we’re left with another non-diatonic conundrum (see last week’s Friday Post on the unusual musical issues in David Bowie’s “Heroes”….). This week, the “B7”in “Strange Days” is a “chord extension” - the basic triad is a B Major chord, with a 7th note added. A BMajor triad consists of the notes. B-D#-F#. The “B7” chord is a “dominant 7” chord - we play the notes of the chord as B-D#-F#-A, the 1, 3, 5, and b7 of the B Major scale. The most common way to play this chord is this way:

https://jguitar.com/images/chordshape/B-7th-B-x%2C2%2C1%2C2%2C0%2C2.png

In standard E-A-D-G-B-E tuning the played notes L-R on the diagram (skipping the low E string) are B, D#, A, B and F#. so we get all of the notes of the chord as extended, with the B twice, an octave apart. The B that establishes the chord name is on the second fret of the A string. If we happened to play the open low E note, either intentionally or by accident, the chord would be called a B7/E, indicating the chord is intended as a B Dominant 7, but there just happens to be an extra non-diatonic “scale tonic note” in the bass chord.

“Music Theory Is Fun!” -say it with me….

See Guitar Note Frequencies in Hz for extra credit delights!

There are a number of other ways to play this further down the fretboard, but since the only other chords are Em and Am, you can probably just stay with the cowboy chords. Chordify hears the intro chord as a BMajor - maybe it even is, but no one is really going to call you out for just playing the B7. See this link: jGuitar for variations.

The “issue” is, I guess, how do we account for a B7 Major chord with extension in an Eminor key? It’s not really an issue, it just means the B7 is non-diatonic to the Key of E minor, and in this case, the resulting chord progressions are fantastically cool!! The cool 😎 factor completely overrides the music theory frowny face for this song….😒

The Key of Eminor, as we learned last week, is: E minor - F♯ diminished (F♯°) - G Major - A minor - B minor - C Major - D Major.

So our chords, the diatonic Em and Am, and the non-diatonic B7 (spoken as the “B dominant 7”) are repeated and once you get the sequence down it’s mostly back and forth between the Am and Em, then the B7, sorta for flavor. I certainly can’t play like Mr. Cale, but it’s still a fun song and if you can finger- or flat-pick it, even more fun. Like, literally a BLAST!! I started playing it according to the chord chart below, and stopped looking at the chart after a couple of minutes. What a fun song to improvise! Just play these 3 chords in any order, changing on the beat, and then maybe adding the “dawdles” below on the beat, then back. No matter how you’re playing it, it’s so easy to start improvising with the chords - for instance, play the Am as below, but then drop your little finger on the 3rd fret of the B string while keeping your index finger on the 1st fret, “dawdle” there briefly, then just lift your little finger - so the sequence with the beat is Am- Asus4 -Am. Do that over a couple of measures,

then do the same sort of thing with the Em - Em7 - Em sequence - for the Em, ignore the 2-3 fingering and stay with the 1-2 fingering on the A and D strings, then drop your ring or little finger on the 3rd fret of the B string for a beat or two, then off again:

It’s not exactly JJ Cale level, but if you can do it on the beat for a couple of measures, you may start to feel just a little JJ Cale-ish…

You can get a bit of the same thing with the B7:

Just lift and then replace your index finger on the first fret of the D string, or experiment with the other fingers - the important part is getting a different sound on the beat, for just a beat or so and then back. That’s pretty much a “dawdle”.

I was a bit hesitant at first, but if you can pull off the chord changes on the beat, with or without the dawdle, you’ll start to appreciate Mr. Cale’s wonderful musical sense. It’s a progression probably heard in many songs, but it’s kind of special when you do it yourself, on the timing and on the beat. And it sounds soooo cool! Do it with the chord chart below or just play the chords and “dawdle” as you wish for a surprisingly fun time.

Ed. The chord graphics above are (obviously) from different source pages, none of them seemed to have exactly what I wanted for every chord, but these were close enough…probably.

The “ME!” Section…..

What I’m Listening2: Whimsy - a great jam playlist for sure with 25 playable songs (Note - you may have to go to Ultimate Guitar or Chordify - subscriptions required, but worth it - to find chord charts for them)!

Shameless Self Promotion Section:

My song is out! Link: “>Long Road Back<”click on this 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

This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention (except when you click on one of the links above for my song - then I might make 0.003 cents - yes 3/1000ths of a cent… just sayin…). 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 for any of the text that’s found here, things I link to (such as some images) might…

-Michael Acoustic

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This Week’s Conversation With Mika, The Cat:

Me: “So, casual night tonight? No emergency, instantaneous combat expected?”

Mika: “Shut up! Boys don’t understand ANYTHING!!“

Cheers and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic

“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”