The Regular Friday Post
Rando lyrics: But what you break is what you get You wake up in the bed you make
Note to Substack overlords: Can you PLEASE give me (us) a way to turn the God forsaken LATEX Block Beta feature the hell OFF? I’ve no idea what it’s supposed to do, unless its entire function is solely to piss me off! Mission accomplished, if so!
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “I wish I still had you around Oh, I want to know what can I do” is from the song “Hey Renee”, which is Track 2 on the May 2012 EP “Complete Control Sessions” by Smoking Popes on the Side One Dummy label. Credit: Genius Link: Complete Control Sessions
Smoking Popes is an American pop punk band from the northwest suburbs of Chicago. They are composed of brothers Matt Caterer (bass), Josh Caterer (lead vocals/guitar) and Eli Caterer (guitar/backing vocals) and Mike Felumlee (drums). Credit: Wikipedia Link: Smoking Popes
(Ed. - Yeah, a little different - surprisingly somewhat acoustic song, along with Track 5 “I Dreamed A Dream” on the EP, kinda cool - still lots of drums and bass, but caught my ear as interesting. The rest of the songs from the EP are in today’s WIL2 playlist below.)
RIP Shane MacGowan, lead singer of The Pogues. Our sympathies to Mr. MacGowan’s family. (Ed. I want to mention what a shameful obituary “The Guardian” [some British birdcage liner] published commenting on Mr. MacGowan’s appearance right at the top of the piece. Extraordinarily poor taste.)
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today:
I want to tear something apart… Nah, not Spotify again - I think they think they’re too clever by half and I’m frankly just tired of them, so I’m moving on. Today I want to tear apart a song, see what makes it very cool while breaking as many of “the rules” as possible. Below are the lyrics and chord chart to Jay Farrar’s song “Station To Station”. Lyrics and such are a bit hard to find for a couple of reasons, probably. For one, the hit 1976 David Bowie album “Station To Station”, with Side 1, Track 1 being the song of the same name likely crowds it out a bit.
Mr Farrar is a very impressive musician: Jay Farrar
Mr. Farrar’s song, “Station To Station” is Track 5 of a 5-track EP, entitled “ThirdShiftGrottoSlack”. That EP is said by some to be the “also ran, but didn’t make the cut” songs that were proposed and possibly recorded for his 2001 album “Sebastopol”. Link: Sebastopol
Wikipedia manages a one-liner for the EP: “An EP of songs from the Sebastopol sessions, entitled ThirdShiftGrottoSlack was released in 2002.”
A review by Pitchfork writer Jason Nickey is even less impressed:
“Jay Farrar has been on a long losing streak. It's been nearly a decade since his genre-defining band Uncle Tupelo split up, and despite a memorable debut album from his post-Tupelo band Son Volt, the man has long skated by on past glories. With each new album, it's getting harder and harder to justify his continued relevance. The last two Son Volt albums, Straightaways and Wide Swing Tremolo, were largely monochromatic and lifeless, and that the gravel-voiced Farrar seemed to have run out of things to say and has appeared content to dwell upon the same sad-sack mold he'd been carving out for years isn't helping any.” [and about the song:] “"Station to Station" (not the Bowie song) is a pleasant enough piano-led track,…” Credit Pitchfork Link: thirdshiftgrottoslack EP Review
The YouTube video can only be found as a cut from a sort of compilation album of what are apparently considered “leftovers” called “No Depression What It Sounds Like Vol 2”. That’s where I found it anyway, and it’s now:
A Song To Play
Here’s a chord chart - Instead of the unwieldy original Key of Bbminor, capo on 1 for chord shapes in what is probably the Key of Aminor (relative minor of CMaj) - or leave the capo off to transpose to Aminor. 4/4 (common) time, a sprightly 120 BPM, a nice cowboy chord workout capoed or transposed, I imagine it would be a good barre chord exercise in the original Bbminor key. Have fun!
Here are the lyrics:
Jay Farrar - Station to Station lyrics (7 second instrumental intro - Ed. overly long intros are one of my pet peeves, this is great) Time is the standard, bruises will heal in matters We feel have taken over the rhythm of living Out of the gate amid opposing forces really keeping it The revolving door of station to station It's not the end of the world Can't even see it from here Really care about everything especially now Really care about everything Tell them to let us in before they run us out (instrumental break) Fresh into contra dance, out of another chance Up against the wall until it all just makes sense Feeling no drain, staying in motion side Saddle the river away from the flooded stage for awhile It's not the end of the world Can't even see it from here Really care about everything especially now Really care about everything Tell them to let us in before they run us out (instrumental break) It's not the end of the world Can't even see it from here It's not the end of the world Can't even see it from here Credit: AZLYRICS.AZ Link: Station To Station
So, how am I going to tear this apart? I’m not, at least not in the sense of criticizing anything about it. I think it’s brilliant! It breaks a lot of “rules” and I love songs that do that. So how would we describe or analyze this song? There are two sections of lyrics (Ed. at least in this lyric source, AZ Lyrics.az). Both pretty much defy definition as “verses”, there is no “hook” as we think of the hook. The lyric that forms the title only appears once, definitely not a hook, it’s just a portion of a lyric line. The most repeated lyric line, “It's not the end of the world Can't even see it from here” is sort of hooky, but maybe not intended as a hook (or maybe it is, I dunno). It’s a cool lyric, a play on the old saying about remote towns and locations: “It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there”. Sort of like Montana in places, but Montana’s also really cool…. There is no bridge. If I had to, I guess I could say the line “It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there” serves as both a pre-chorus and as an outro, with the lyric "Really care about everything especially now Really care about everything Tell them to let us in before they run us out" serving as a chorus. Still, I see the two blocks of lyrics as integral, and even though the first 4 lines of each block could be separated out as verses, I like the way the whole thing flows as two separate thoughts, overlapping a bit, certainly. I dunno, maybe Mr. Farrar, meant it to be more traditionally sectioned, and just decided to forgo the bridge, or maybe he wrote one and didn't like it or didn't think it fit or whatever and just left it out. So, I love the song, I'll probably just learn it as I see it with the lyrics in 2 separate blocks with a repeated lyric outro, and with no capo, transposed to Aminor. It doesn't hurt that Mr. Farrar's vocals are, to me anyway (though I've seen other comparisons, and he covers Mr. Van Zandt's songs), very reminiscent of Mr. Townes Van Zandt, never a bad thing for me. Having said all that, I have no idea whatsoever of the meaning or message Mr. Farrar was trying to convey. My guess, and it's only that, is it's a sort of cryptic message to critics and reviewers of his work (or potentially aimed at previous bandmates, I dunno, kinda hope not), maybe he's telling them nothing they say is leaving a mark on him ("it's not the end of the world"), and their criticism is insignificant ("can't even see it from here"), but I dunno. If it is the critics, cool, and good for him. I always think of how Mr. John Prine was very up front in calling them "syphilitic parasitics", but I can see where a veiled approach might be effective. But could also just go over their heads.... Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning this and adding it to my "just for fun" songs... I hope you will, too.
Thanks, Subscribers!! This Week’s Conversation With Mika, the Cat:
Me: “What are you doing?”
Mika: “You can’t see me.”
Me: “You’re sitting right there! Of course I can see you! Are you crazy?”
Mika: “You’re the one talking to an invisible cat, sport….”
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Some Links for today:
From Berklee Online (Berkley College Of Music Online Offerings)
Music Supervisors Music Supervisors are the folks who decide which songs and how much of any particular song or musical piece make it into a film, television or other visual medium production. It’s by no means exact, but they’re sorta analogous to the Artists and Repertoire peeps at a record label. Life and death, in or out, money or no money sorts of decisions by these types of folks on where your bux deluxe come from (or not). Interesting read. I like most of the free content from Berklee - it’s interesting, authoritative, and persistent if you get on their email list. Choose wisely.
From Acoustic Guitar Magazine:
Spread Triads (Sponsored) I included the word “sponsored”, because it is - by a well known guitar string manufacturer. It’s informative and not just an infomercial (though there’s a bit of that for sure) - the informative part is about finding your way around the fretboard, which is a very important skill to develop. Also, “sponsored” in this case just means AG magazine made a couple of bux off the article by featuring a product. Not me, I don’t do sponsored, but I thought this was more than a puff piece, and had some really good information. FWIW
Several from the Disc Makers Blog:
Best Day To Release New Music - Friday? Monday? Any day but St. Simeon Stylites Day? (that’s coming up on Jan 5 - make your holiday plans now!)
Finding New Music - This isn’t a tutorial for finding new music, it’s a guide for artists to make sure the marks, umm, excuse me, the customers can find your music….
Set Lists - I dunno what’s up with Disc Makers Blog - this isn’t about making “a” setlist - it’s about planning the order of your songs that are intended for play at a gig for maximum audience appeal and impact. After you figure all of that out, I suppose you could write down the songs in the order you intend to play them in and call that, dunno, something or other…
From Songtown:
Is Your Song Idea Worth Pursuing? - Songtown is gonna tell you how to answer that question. Me? I say write it anyway! I’ve written some crap that I wouldn’t want to share with anyone, but sometimes a line or a hook or something worth saving will emerge from the steaming pile and find a new and more loving home… My advice: Write everything down, no matter how stupid it sounds at the time. Go back later. If it’s still really stupid and not worth salvaging, bin it. Every once in a while there might be a glimmer of something useful though… I will say I’m never as annoyed with stupid stuff as I am with myself when I remember writing something that might just fit, but it’s now gone because I thought it was too stupid to keep. Just sayin’
From Reverb:
Pedal Philosophy - I’m the first one to admit I have no idea who this artist is, or why she decides on the pedals and pedal chains she does. Thought you might find some useful suggestions though, and yeah, it’s Reverb, so kind of another sales pitch hidden inside an article, so there’s that. FWIW - I AM a big fan of Carvin preamp pedals, Earthquaker Devices, and Boss pedals, but no one’s paying me to say that, so just sayin’…
Some Memes And Stuff
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)…
What I’m Listening2:
LINK»> WIL28Dec23 - just click the underlined link, it’s on Amazon
Ed. - This playlist features some of the artists from Chuck Ragan’s “2011 Revival Tour” such as Frank Turner and Kayleigh Goldsworthy, as well as bands that Brian Fallon (who was also part of the 2011 Revival Tour) played in; the Smoking Popes EP (as above); a song from Tommy Prine (John’s son), a Blue October song, an The Airborne Toxic Event song that is one of my favorites to play when I just feel like playing cool and kinda challenging songs, the Alison Krauss song from last week that fits the same description, and a Pogues song written by Shane MacGowan. Enjoy!!
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”