The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyric: Sometimes that's just not enough
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “To ever pay the price” is from the song "It Works For Me”, written by Scotty Emerick & Toby Keith, and recorded/performed by Mr. Keith. It was released in 2002 as Track 8 on the album “Unleashed”. Produced by James Stroud & Toby Keith.
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
I just needed me some Toby last week. I sure miss that guy and his voice, lyrics, guitar and the friends he played alongside. This week’s “A Song To Play” probably isn’t his best known track but it sure is pure Toby Keith at his songwriting and singing best. A couple of challenging chords, but nothin’ a Toby Keith fan can’t handle….
Last week I wrote:
“Next week, I’ll republish a previous post where I show how to create your own complete chord chart for your personal use with lyrics and associated chord changes if you don’t want to go the Ultimate Guitar or other paid website’s service route.”
That post is here: "A Brief History Of A Song" from Feb 18,2022 - In that post, we took some lyrics from a “silly song”, which was really just some lyrics I made up to demonstrate how syllable counts and rhyme schemes in songs written by others, or songs that you write, go together to make the song “work”. We then double spaced between each line of the lyrics and sort of guessed/experimented with adding chords in the right place until we got the result we wanted, or at least could live with.
The process is a bit easier with the songs I feature if you want to make your own chord chart with lyrics, but don’t want to subscribe to Ultimate Guitar or other website that features chord charts, some professional, some amateur reader created (which is Ultimate Guitar’s model). The reason it’s easier is because I provide the lyrics, presumably already lined out in the writer’s original syllable count/rhyme scheme. And I provide the Chordify chords, without lyrics.
To utilize both, copy the lyrics, paste them into a word processor blank page and double space between lines. The new blank lines are where you type in the chord changes as you hear them while playing the YouTube video that I also provide. It might take a couple of play-throughs, but it’s good practice for preparing to play with friends in a jam or at an open mic night, or writing your own songs. I recognize that many, maybe most, of my readers may not be guitar players (I have no idea how many are or aren’t, or at what level they play), and most that are may already have a subscription to UG or other web site. Only one or two folks I know are capable of hearing the correct chords as they play “by ear”. If you can, you’ve got my vote, but “It ain’t me, babe, I said no, no, no it ain’t me, babe, it ain’t me you’re looking for, babe” is all I’ve got to say on that.
See also this post from December 3, 2021 Post on charts in general that may be helpful as well.
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Some Stuff:
The bottom right photo is of JJ Cale, one of my favorite singer songwriters:
“John Weldon "JJ" Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Though he avoided the limelight, his influence as a musical artist has been acknowledged by figures such as Neil Young, Mark Knopfler, Waylon Jennings, and Eric Clapton, who described him as one of the most important artists in rock history.”
Credit: Wikipedia Link: JJ Cale
A Song To Play:
4/4 common time, an extraordinarily quick 214(!) Beats Per Minute (you don’t really have to play it that fast, just work up to a tempo you’re comfortable with), in the Key of EMajor - a key that’s bit unusual with these chords:
E, F♯m, G♯m, A, B, C♯m, D♯(dim) [of course, play that 7 chord D#(dim) as D#m, unless you’re the “rara avis” who is really into diminished chords]…
Fortunately, Mr. Keith did not include a D#(dim) chord in this song. However, Mr. Keith did play the 2 chord and 6 chord (F#m and C#m) as 7th chords.He may have included a Bsus4 chord in measure 108 (or Chordify “heard” one that may not have been there). See chord diagrams after the Chordify chart for these chords. Just make sure to…
…have fun!!
Chordify Link: It Works For Me
Lyrics from Genius this week Link: It Works For Me
[Verse 1] Never owned a brand new car Never worked in a white collar Never held a woman longer Than I held one single dollar I never went out chasing rainbows ‘Cause there can’t be that much to it Even if I found my pot of gold I know I’d piss right through it I can’t remember ever wanting For one second of my life Even if I did it cost too much To ever pay the price I don’t dance out on the dark side Ain’t no secrets I have to tell So you don’t have to say a prayer for me I just said one for myself [Chorus] I’m living my life Under my terms I’m calling the shots As far as I can see I don’t owe nobody nothing I don’t answer to a soul Might not work for you But it works for me [Verse 2] I’ve been bent and bruised and broken And flat busted once or twice I brought most of it upon myself But I never compromised My pride’s too hard to swallow So I’ve chewed a lot of it Mild-mannered and soft-hearted And hard-headed as you get I live out on the back roads Where I walk my country mile And if it’s so good in the city Why don’t anybody smile? The traffic’s always heavy And the air ain’t fit to breathe I ain’t saying that it’s wrong for you It just don’t make sense to me [Chorus] I’m living my life Under my terms I’m calling the shots As far as I can see I don’t owe nobody nothing I don’t answer to a soul Might not work for you But it works for me
The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: Some Country Roads
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
If you’re enjoying our content, please let your friends and musician acquaintances know about us!!! Thanks for supporting this free newsletter!
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 embed or link to (such as some images) might…
-Michael Acoustic
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This Week’s Conversation With Mika, The Cat:
Me: “Did you chew the corner off my chord chart?”
Mika: “I have no idea what a chord chart even is. Why would I chew it? Weirdo….”
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”