The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyrics: A sleepless night, a nervous wreck, a day ago
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “And it looks like I'm burning it down You won't ask and I won't say’” is from the song "Somewhere With You”, by Kenny Chesney. Written by Shane McAnally & J. T. Harding, it’s Track 10 on the album “Hemingway’s Whiskey", released in September 2010. Produced by Buddy Cannon & Kenny Chesney. Credit: Genius Link: >Hemingway's Whisky (Album) <
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today:
Last week we talked about demos, I finished the one I was working on and sent it off to my friend who’s narrating a documentary. He liked it (dunno why - I thought it was barely demo quality, but I can be overly picky about stuff….) and said he’d send it off to the director and let me know. We’ll see - if they like it, I think it needs a lot of work but probably doable. At least they’ll get the flavor and I emphasized the vocals in the mix at the expense of the guitar underneath so there would be no doubt about the lyrics. A final version would be more balanced with probably more instrumentation (drums and whatever else I think it needs). I’ll let you know in a future post. That poor song had so many rewrites….
A Song To Play…
…is “Somewhere With You”. Surprise! Not really and I think the chord chart disguised as sheet music from Chordify is at best suspect. To me, it looks like it changes from Bm7 to a Bm about halfway through - see line 44….but
…I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
Chordify somehow stopped hearing the 7 chord, but it’s a three chord song, so anywhere you see the Bm, just play it as the Bm7. I checked a couple of sources, every one of them I checked show it as a simple (but pretty cool) three chord song. Which just goes to show that simple three or four chord songs can be fun, too.
Key of B (with the capo on 2 it looks like A, if you take the capo off and play these chords, you’re in AMaj, but with the capo on you’re playing in BMaj using AMaj shapes - capos are magic!), 111 BPM, 4/4 (common) time
Chordify Link >Somewhere With You< I included the link if you want to play it without the capo in the original key of BMaj (probably) - but this is a lot easier to play with the capo - also, if that Bm7 looks intimidating on the chord chart, it’s not:
That’s not really the challenge here though if you’re an intermediate or better player; a GMaj7 isn’t a challenge either (note that Chordify stopped hearing it as GM7 about the same time as it stopped hearing the Bm7 - but play them both as 7 chords). It doesn’t have to be for a beginning player, either, it just may be unfamiliar. Here’s the easy way to play it, but if you’re looking for a challenge, check out Jguitar.com - that’s where I look up all the chord diagrams you see on here and there are plenty of more difficult ways to play most chords. If you’re into that sort of thing, I suppose….
What might be confusing in the Chordify chart is the little superscript triangle next to the G - that’s actually quick notation for a Major 7 chord, so where you see those above, this is the chord you play:
(Note: play this even if it dropped the “Maj7”little triangle from the G chord. I listened to the song very carefully as it accompanied the scrolling chord chart on Chordify - I’m pretty sure the algorithm just didn’t catch the 7 chords past a certain point. Or, play it any way you want to - have fun!)
That’s not difficult, just the usual GMajor shape, and move your little finger from the normal 3rd fret to the 2nd. A Major 7th chord is just: the root, Major 3rd, Perfect 5th and Major 7th - in GMajor that’s G, B, D and the Major 7th in a GMaj7 chord is F#. Thus F# is a half step lower in pitch from the octave G on the 3rd fret of the high E. Why? Because every fret on a six string guitar is a half step, so moving your little finger to the 2nd fret on the high E string is F# - a half step down from G - and that means it’s the Major 7th of the GMajor chord.
Somewhere With You (Lyrics: Genius >Somewhere With You<)
[Verse 1]
If you're going out with someone new
I'm going out with someone too
I won't feel sorry for me
I'm getting drunk, but I'd much rather be
[Pre-Chorus]
Somewhere with you, laughing loud on a carnival ride
Yeah, driving around on a Saturday night
You made fun of me for singing my song
Got a hotel room just to turn you on
You said, "Pick me up at three a.m."
You're fighting with your mom again
And I'd go, I'd go, I'd go somewhere with you
[Verse 2]
I won't sit outside your house
And wait for the lights to go out
Call up that ex to rescue me
Climb in their bed when I'd much rather sleep
[Pre-Chorus]
Somewhere with you, like we did on the beach last summer
When the rain came down and we took cover
Down in your car out by the pier
You laid me down, whispered in my ear
"I hate my life, hold on to me
Ah, if you ever decide to leave
Then I'll go, I'll go, I'll go"
[Chorus]
I can go out every night of the week
Can go home with anybody I meet
But it's just a temporary high
'Cause when I close my eyes
I'm somewhere with you
Somewhere with you
[Verse 3]
If you see me out on the town
And it looks like I'm burning it down
You won't ask and I won't say
But in my heart I'm always
[Pre-Chorus 1]
Somewhere with you, laughing loud on a carnival ride
Yeah, driving around on a Saturday night
You made fun of me for singing my song
Got a hotel room just to turn you on
You said, "Pick me up at three a.m."
You're fighting with your mom again
And I'd go, I'd go, I'd go
[Chorus]
I can go out every night of the week
Can go home with anybody I meet
But it's just a temporary high
'Cause when I close my eyes
I'm somewhere with you
Somewhere with you
[Outro]
Somewhere with you
I'm somewhere with you
I'm somewhere with you
Somewhere with you
Somewhere with you
Other Voices:
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The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: >Some Country<
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
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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
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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…
Found this on Twitter (X) - Apropos of nothing, but it did bring back some memories:
This is from an email by Mr. Graham English, who promotes his “Speed Songwriting” courses, but also sends out great informational emails (also there are a lot of ads for his stuff….just sayin…):
From Blues Guitar Unleashed:
The numbers here refer to pentatonic “boxes” - Mr. Hamlin is demonstrating a lick corresponding to a pentatonic box - there are five pentatonic boxes (hence the name), and he’s promoting his new course. If none of this makes any sense to you, you can skip to the next section…..
From Andrea Stolpe: (I admit I don’t know this author - I think I found the article in one of the regular sites I draw from - maybe American Songwriter, but it was awhile ago, so I just credited it to her as the author.)
3 Principles Of Songwriting - There’s some (ok, 3) big words in here and you should know them all…
From American Songwriter Magazine:
Sean Lennon and James McCartney - the children of a couple of Beatles collaborating - fabulous!
Songwriting With Bands - wait till you see who is giving this advice….
From Songtown:
Never Stop Writing - I tell myself this all the time. You should, too.
Writing From Inspiration - I’ve had songs like the one in this article. My advice: Even if you don’t like it, don’t throw it away. Sometimes, the lyrics just need a rewrite. Or something. You won’t know if you toss it out and then go back to look for it but it’s gone. Just sayin’…
From the Disc Makers Blog:
Navigating A Distribution Deal - If you’re fortunate enough to get a distribution deal, you should probably know how to navigate it. Here’s how.
Diagonal Pentatonic Scale - I have enough trouble with linear pentatonic boxes, but maybe this will help you…
Pick A Song For Your Voice - Sounds like a winning plan, but I kinda like the idea of writing a song for your voice more….
Thank You To Our New Subscribers and Followers!! This Week’s Conversation With Mika, the Cat:
Me: “Sleepy kitty…”
Mika : “Human, there is no need for you to speak, just keep rubbing under my chin….”
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”