The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyrics: Fly the great big sky, see the great big sea Kick through continents bustin' boundaries
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “Doesn't have a vicious bone in her body Well, it ain't tasteful” is from the 2000 song "Blonde And Blue”, by the Canadian band Headstones. The writer is either uncredited or credited to the band as a whole (at the end of the YouTube video below there is a notation “Composers: Headstones”, none of my other usual sources list a composer). It is Track 5 on the album “Nickels For Your Nightmares", released in 2000 as both a single and on the album. Produced by Paul Northfield.
Lyrics Credit: Lyric Advisor >Blonde And Blue< Verse 1 She makes me crazy Doesn't have a vicious bone in her body Well, it ain't tasteful She says she hates me And later on, she says she's sorry She's sorry Pre Chorus Thinking of these things, hold it down Holding him down, pulling off his wings Thinking of these things, hold it down Holding him down and pulling off his wings Chorus Blonde and blue, troubled and misused Living without you, my heart is yours Nothing lasts forever, we'll always be together But nothing lasts forever, my heart is yours (Instrumental Break) Verse 2 It's armor plated You hooked up your heart And amplified it Now if you're hated You do so much to override it They override it Pre-Chorus Thinking of these things, hold it down Holding him down and pulling off his wings Thinking of these things, hold it down Holding me down and pulling off my wings Chorus Blonde and blue, troubled and misused Living without you, my heart is yours Nothing lasts forever, we'll always be together But nothing lasts forever, my heart is yours Instrumental Break x2 Repeat Chorus Blonde and blue, troubled and misused Living without you, my heart is yours Nothing lasts forever, we'll always be together Nothing lasts forever, my heart is yours Outro My heart is yours, my heart is yours My heart is yours, heart is yours
Instrumental Outro
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today: That’s A Song To Play!
I kinda made the lyric chart above a little more musician user friendly than usual. When I got the lyrics and Chordify chart up, I decided to run through it a couple of times along with the (decidedly cheesy….) video, and quickly made a chord chart (Yes, with a little help from my Ultimate Guitar subscription…). “A couple of times” ended up being an hour or so of playing a really fun song. The chords are pretty easy, Key of DMajor, 115 BPM and 4/4 time - but the time is what makes this fun. And I don’t mean just the common time signature. - I was going to actually strum it, which I almost never do anymore, but as soon as I started playing my fingers said, “Nope! - we’re picking it!” - yeah, it’s pretty much that kind of song…. It’s got a kind of 1& 2 3& 4 (I wish Substack had more options for emphasizing certain words or phrases or whatnot … like a font or size change… I was trying to convey an emphasis on the 1 and 3 beats, just sort of an extra something on those beats that the song seemed to be asking for - meh). What makes it fun is the sort of oddly timed chord changes within lyrical phrases. Rather than being the usual sorts of chord changes at regular lyrical changes spacing, this song sort of extends some chordal passages past what is “usual” in some cases and makes some very quick changes in others. I know “usual” is a little too vague, but if you play this, or even listen closely to the timing of chordal passages with the lyrical phrases you may catch what I mean. Ya gotta pay attention and it takes a couple of times through it to get what they’re doing. Once you do, it’s more fun to play while singing without the YouTube video because you can sort of create your own arrangement of the song, playing longer or more complicated riffs on the instrumental breaks, coming in on the phrases at different spots with changes. I stuck to the original key of DMajor, but I’m sure you could keep the same intervals (I iii- IV V) and customize the song’s key to your own voice and and especially lyrical and instrumental timing. Have fun!
So - while I don’t feel right for both copyright reasons and simple respect to the artists/composers about just posting the lyrics as a chord chart here, I’d be happy to send my version of the chord chart, with lyrics for purely educational purposes, on an individual basis to anyone who wants it via the new “direct message” (found under the “Chat” button on the Substack app but looks like a couple of intertwined thought bubbles on the Substack web page). I think that leaves me within the “Fair Use” doctrinal exceptions for copyright. I’ll probably add a caution that if you perform their song publicly or record it for commercial play, you owe the copyright holders some $$, but if you’re using it to just play for yourself or with your friends at a non-commercial jam, have fun. Also, once you kind of get the feel of the song, change the chord chart to however you want to experiment with key, timing, chord or lyric emphasis for an extra challenge.
The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: Spring Is In The Air!
Ed. - I had to go back to Spotify, despite my annoyance with the company, because I couldn’t get the Amazon playlist (same songs!) to play when I wasn’t logged in to Amazon, even though it was supposedly a “public” playlist. Maybe that meant “public” to other Amazon users, dunno. Maybe it’s been like that since I switched to the Amazon playlist but I didn’t realize it because I was always logged in to Amazon. If so, apologies, and I’ll do better.
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 (boo, hiss) Spotify
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Disclaimer Section
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 interesting
From Blues Guitar Unleashed:
3 Steps To Better Practice - Only 3? Sounds like a good deal, though I suppose the first step for anyone is getting off the couch and getting a guitar (or whatever you play) ready to go….
Make Any Chord - not gonna lie, there’s a bit of music theory in this. Don’t be frightened!! It’s good stuff!
The 5 Chord Shapes - This could go along with the “Make Any Chord” article above.
Practice App - This app that Mr. Hamlin describes (not sure if he’s receiving compensation, but I know I’m not) is pretty cool in terms of being able to slow down, repeat sections, etc of a practice session. Seems like a good way to learn, not sure of price.
From Guitarworld Magazine:
Jeff Beck On Mark Knopfler's "Going Home" Charity Release - this is cool and sad at the same time…
From Reverb:
Cool Origins Of Some Of Gibson Classic Guitars - love the original concept illustrations!
From the Disc Makers Blog:
An Explanation of Sound Exchange And Why You Should Be On It - They collect royalties for you, that’s why….
Themes In Songwriting - Songs need a theme, usually….
Pre-Performance Plan For Vocalists - If you’ve got a show coming up, here ya go!
From Carvin Audio:
5 Effects - This is pretty cool, I’d never heard of some of these - worth the read, but sounds expensive….
From Songtown: Songtown is a website for songwriters, by a couple of great ones. The link titles pretty much describe interesting themes:
The KISS Principle Applied To Songwriting
How To Shoot Yourself In Your Songwriting Foot
From American Songwriter Magazine:
Some Background On The Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs Duet - this is pretty cool, lot of behind the scenes
Thank You To Our New Subscribers!! This Week’s Conversation With Mika, the Cat:
Mika Qián Guānchāng: “Do you understand the power of my Cat-fu, now, human?”
Me: “Yeah. Treat time’s still 4:00 PM, Kwai Chang… How’s that quest for opposable thumbs coming along?”
Mika Qián Guānchāng: “I could kill you right now with my mind alone if I knew where the treats are….”
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”