The Regular Friday Post
Rando lyrics: When you gets up in the morning, When that big bell ring
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “And somehow I got stuck Between the rock and the hard place” is from the song “Lawyers, Guns And Money”, by Warren Zevon and is “the closing track on his 1978 album Excitable Boy. Record World called it "rock 'n' roll at its angriest.”
Credit Wikipedia Link: Lawyers, Guns And Money
From Genius: “Lawyers, Guns and Money” is Track 9 on [the album] Excitable Boy , Produced by Waddy Wachtel & Jackson Browne
Zevon told a story about how he came to write the song. He said he was in Cuba with his manager and they were in a taxi. As they rode along, the driver said, “I gotta make a quick stop”. He pulled into a house and a few minutes later comes running out with his sister, who had apparently been kidnapped.
They jumped in the front seat of the taxi and took off while being chased by the kidnappers. From the backseat, Warren’s manager deadpanned, “Call my Dad and tell him to send some lawyers.” Warren replied, “Yeah, and some guns and money.”
That’s Warren’s story and I’m afraid, at this point, he’s going to have to stick with it.”
Credit: Genius Link: Lawyers, Guns and Money
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today, A Song To Play!!:
(Ed: Today’s “What I’m Listening 2” playlist (below) has this week’s Jackson Browne “song to play” included. I had already chosen it when I was making the playlist for this week, and it was completely serendipitous that I learned Mr. Browne was a co-producer on Mr. Zevon’s album “Excitable Boy” from which today’s rando lyrics selection came. Must be fate…)
From Wikipedia: “"The Birds of St. Marks" is a song by Jackson Browne. It was originally written in 1967 when he was 18 and returning home to California after a brief stint living in New York where he was recording with Nico. The song was recorded as a demo for Criterion in 1970. Browne re-discovered it in an interview from the 1994 concert video "Going Home" where he recalled it at the piano. It was again captured on his Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1 album [1] when at a concert a fan called out and requested it. Browne properly recorded it for the first time in 2014 and it appears on his 14th studio album Standing in the Breach.” Credit Wikipedia Link: Standing In The Breach
The Birds of St. Marks
Jackson Browne Track 1 on the album Standing in the Breach Produced by Paul Dieter & Jackson Browne
The Birds of St. Marks Lyrics
[Verse 1]
Oh how sadly sound the songs the queen must sing of dying
A prisoner upon her throne of melancholy sighing
If she could see her mirror now
She would be free of those who bow and
Scrape the ground beneath her feet
[Verse 2]
Silently she walks among her dying midnight roses
And watches as each moment goes that never really knows us
And so it seems she doesn't care
If she has dreams of no one there
Within the shadows of her room
[Chorus]
But all my frozen words agree and say it's time to
Call back all the birds I sent to
Fly behind her castle walls
And I'm weary of the nights I've seen
Inside these empty halls
[Verse 3]
Wooden lady turn and turn among my weary secrets
And wave within the hours past and other empty pockets
Maybe we've found what we have lost
When we've unwound so many crossed
Entangling misunderstandings
[Chorus]
But all my frozen words agree and say it's time to
Call back all the birds I sent to
Fly behind her castle walls
And I'm weary of the nights I've seen
Inside these empty halls
(Ed. This is cool):
Genius Annotation:
“Just 18 years old, with $50 to his name and new to New York City, he “lucked into” a job playing for the singer Nico. Suddenly he was an observer to the world of The Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol and their coterie.
On his new album, Standing In The Breach, Browne revisits a song he wrote during this time: “The Birds Of St. Marks,” a portrait of Nico that he composed as he was leaving New York.
“She was a big fan of The Byrds,” Browne tells NPR’s Melissa Block. “She would say ‘can you play something like Jim McGuinn?’ I’d go, ‘well, no.’ ”
“I guess I thought the song wasn’t really finished,” Browne says. “But when I dusted it off, it seemed fine. It seemed — matter of fact, there was something about it being something from a long time ago that gave it a quality that I liked. It was, you know, like a picture from [an] earlier time of my life. But I’d never done it the way I intended it to be when I wrote it, so I realized I could do it like The Byrds.”
Browne changed the arrangement to evoke The Byrds' sound, featuring a 12-string guitar and adding high harmony. But he says that, though he might write them differently now, he left the words preserved.
“C'mon. ‘Dying midnight roses’? That’s so extreme,” Browne says. “But that’s what I began to like about it. It’s just like — it’s a young song. It really is from my 18-year-old eyes, looking wide-eyed at this Andy Warhol scene in New York.” Credit: Genius
So, as performed on “Standing In The Breach”: Key of DMajor, 4/4 (common) time, kind of a quick 120 BPM tempo for a sorta pop ballad song (with definite Byrds influence), play this with no capo for some good barre chord practice - the Bminor, of course:
and don’t be misled by that “Gbm”,
it is of course just a pretty common F#minor,
but for some reason Chordify just has to go with the less common chord name….
“The Birds Of St. Mark’s” By Jackson Browne, originally written 1967, recorded on the album “Standing In The Breach”, 2014 (Ed. Charts below are from Chordify, but the desktop app is fairly useless at screenshots, so these are from my phone):
But if you’re just not that into barre chords, by all means just capo on 2 and play in the original key, or leave the capo off to transpose if you are more comfortable singing or playing in the Key of C without the capo.
So one reason I chose this song for today as a “Song To Play” instead of some other song on the WIL2 playlist is because it can be played without a capo using a couple of barre chords, and those 2 - Bminor and F#minor are probably the two that most guitarists learn first, in large part because they’re so common.
Why? Basically it’s because not everyone wants to, or can, sing (well) in the Key of CMajor or it’s relative minor, Aminor (the unique keys that have no sharp or flat notes). If you’re going to sing and play in some other key, there are going to be chords that just don’t work as cowboy chords. Playing only in the key of CMajor would be boring and the ear wants to hear different sounds, and regardless of key, the intervals (in Western music at least) are still the same. Also, we use non-diatonic notes or chords that aren’t part of the basic key in order to add variety and interest, and some of those non-diatonic chords may have to be played as barre chords.
Which leads to a topic which can be confusing for new guitarists - How does a capo solve the “problem”? And, perhaps more fundamentally, how does a capo “work”?
Thus: The Capo And How It Works:
So a 6 string guitar, acoustic or electric, in “standard” tuning means the lowest tone, thickest string is going to be tuned to the frequency of the note “E”, which on the piano is the E note in the second full octave from the left end of the keyboard. That note, and the tone to which the low E on the guitar is tuned, is commonly called “E2”. That’s because a “numbered” octave on a piano runs from C to C, and the first octave on a piano begins on the 4th key from the left end of the keyboard. For obscure, historical reasons, the notes of the first 3 keys of an 88 key keyboard at the left end are A, A#/Bb, and B (see: 88 Key Piano).
Since a guitar “low E” (the unfretted 6th [thickest] string), is E2 on a piano, we can tune (by octaves) the other 5 strings on a 6 string electric or acoustic guitar to A2 for the A string, D3 for the D string, G3 for the G string, B3 for the B string, E4 on the “high E” string. For reference, the note “middle C” which occurs in the center of the piano keyboard, is on the first fret of the B string on a 6 string guitar in standard tuning.
When we use a capo at the first fret we effectively “shorten” the fretboard a half step, and we’ve sort of “retuned” the strings a half step higher in pitch. You can check this with your tuner - place a capo on a standard tuned guitar at the first fret and with your tuner you should now see from low to high F-A#-D#-G#-C-F, every string now sounds one half step higher in pitch (remember - no half step #/b between E and F or B and C). Now when you use a capoed chord “shape”, it will be a half step higher than the original chord shape. When you use a capo, even though websites like Chordify may now list a common chord, keep in mind that playing the “shape” of an open G, C, Am Em, D, or any other common shape, no longer results in that chord tone. If you’re capoed on the first fret, playing an open G shape, you’re playing G#/Ab chord tones.
So, let’s say you want to play Mr. Browne’s song “The Birds Of St. Mark’s”, but those barre chords are just not that much fun, so you capo on 2 (meaning you’ve placed your capo just on the “headstock” side of the second fret). Now when you play that Am “shape”, the chord tones you’re actually playing are those of a Bm, but you don’t have to deal with the barre to get there. That’s because instead of being tuned to E-A-D-G-B-E, your guitar is now (albeit temporarily, until you move or remove the capo) tuned as F#-B-E-A-C#-F#. - You need not, and probably don’t, realize these are now your guitar strings tunings. In one sense, so long as you can replicate the chord shapes, it doesn’t really matter, again, because you’ve replicated the correct intervals. And that’s why, if you don’t particularly want to sing in D, but you’re okay with singing in CMajor, and using the (easy) chord shapes of CMajor, you can just leave the capo off. The reason it’s fine to leave the capo off is because as long as the intervals are the same, the overall sound of the song remains the same, you’ve just transposed it to a different key - transposed meaning “different key, same intervals”. When you use a capo, you’re not transposing - you retain the notes/chords in the original key and their intervals, the only thing that’s changed are the “shapes” of the chords on the guitar. Keep in mind the term “chord shapes” is utterly meaningless (and potentially bizarre) to musicians who play piano, brass- or woodwinds, violin/viola/cello/double bass, drums, or really anything other than guitar/ukelele/bass or baritone guitars.
Some Links for today:
ASCAP Copyright Office Comments
Sylvia (of Ian And Sylvia) Sylvia Tyson (of Ian and Sylvia, and solo) was the subject of a recent Michael Acoustic post mention
(Ed. Had to cut this section short for today - near email length limit - I’ll catch up next week)
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
Thank you, new Subscribers!!!!!! Mika, the Cat, welcomes you!!
This Week’s Conversation With Mika:
Mika: “I hate this thing soooo much!!!”
Me: “You’ve had that for 3 years and you walk by it every day and ignore it….”
Mika: “It was looking at me funny…”
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)
What I’m Listening2: This week’s WIL2 playlist is not particularly a happy place. Fair warning, if the changes in the weather, fall coming on, or whatever might trigger a bit of seasonal affective issues, this might be one to skip….
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
My goodness, big Zevon fan here. Such a great and underrated songwriter. One of my dearest friends wrote a wonderful book on him a couple years ago if you are interested: https://shorturl.at/nyK69
I feel like a dodo for not recognizing those lyrics! A band I played percussion for used to play "Lawyers, Guns, and Money." But then again, I was busy trying to mesh with the rhythm section. I will also admit to being late to board the Zevon train. I of course knew the hits but it wasn't until maybe 20 years ago or so that I delved deeper into his catalog.
And like Jim commented below, it's also taken me years to fully appreciate Jackson Browne. I still have a ways to go (not to appreciate, but to listen to his extensive discography!).
I'm looking at this week's lyric and am drawing a blank, so it's likely a line from a song of a favorite band!:) Like Brad Kyle, I've always been music first, music second and words third.