Little Baby Doll

It may be time to address the "Baby" issue.

Those familiar with my work will probably already know that, not only did I break my long-ago vow to "never write a song with the word baby in it" (made when I was a TS Eliot and Upanishad infatuated college poet just discovering that -- for getting girls -- a guitar on the quad beat a stack of dog eared poems in a basement reading on the second Monday of the month in the bowels of the Student Union building), but that at some point I became obsessed with what we shall henceforth refer to as "baby songs."

Or, perhaps more properly, capital-B Baby songs, since, in many of these songs, "Baby" is more character name than endearment.

So, who is "Baby"?

At first, I thought, myself, that Baby was what some of us, back in the cosmic-gestalt enthralled 60s, called The Other -- which, depending on context could refer to everything from God to one's girlfriend, boyfriend, or pet dog.

And there is certainly something to that notion.

But as the character of Baby continued to develop over a number of songs (yes -- someday there will be a Baby opera), I began to realize that Baby was also me -- or some perversely vexing, chronically importunate, and ultimately, thoroughly disquieted part of myself.

[It should also be noted that I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the man who wrote what I consider the Grandaddy of All Baby Songs, Brian Eno, and who gave us all some of my first and most important lessons in postmodern pop. That song, of course, would be the brilliant paen to a truly smoldering beauty, Baby's On Fire. In fact, Little Baby Doll even contains a passing reference to that 70s underground classic.]


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Little Baby, Little Baby Doll

Baby started something
back in 1986
Baby started coming home
and showing me new tricks
Little Baby
Little Baby Doll

Baby said forever
just takes too much time
but Baby said "I'm here right now
so that should work out fine"
Little Baby...

"Veni Vidi Vici"
Baby said when she came home
I said that's fine for Caesar
but Babylon ain't Rome
Little Baby...

Baby liked to gamble
with the things she said she loved
but Baby blew her hands
when push came to shove
Little Baby...

Baby played the vagabond
Baby played the whore
Baby played with fire
she's not playing any more
Little Baby...

Saw her on the street one day
but I didn't call her name
After all this time
I know that Baby's still the same
Little Baby
Little Baby Doll
Little Baby...

(C)1993, TK Major
(C)1993, TK Major

Having Fun

The admittedly sardonic lyrics in this tune might make it seem like I think life is meaningless. But that is far from the case. Now, I don't know what it all means... and I don't think anyone can tell us or that we'd even understand if they did. But meaningless?

No.

That said, I was a lot more habitually sardonic in 1980 when I wrote this song. And I did consider myself a hedonist... but I was lying to myself, even on that count.

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Having Fun

There's a startling new religion
sweeping through the subdivisions
Having Fun is what they call it
Soon you'll be a Fun-a-holic

Well, there isn't any priesthood
doctrine's anything that feel's good
It's the one true religion
There'll be no more revisions

Having Fun (on the job)
Having Fun (while at play)
Having Fun (all night long)
Having Fun (all through the day)


Well, we're all upon a journey
going back unto the Funhead
When we finally arrive there
we'll have all the Fun we wanted

There are some say Fun is boring
but to them I'll give this warning
Have Fun while there's time
because the Fun stops when you die

Having Fun (on the job)
Having Fun (while at play)
Having Fun (all night long)
Having Fun (all through the day)

Having Fun
Having Fun
Having Fun


Blog Within a Blog...

One of my friends died unexpectedly a few days ago. It wasn't natural causes. It was an accidental drug overdose.

He was an amazing man in many ways. Not an intellectual, but whip smart. He was, as he sometimes liked to say, the baddest white mofo in all of Compton when he was growing up. Which probably wasn't too hard. There weren't many white mofos in Compton. But he did grow up wild, got into drugs and what it takes for a poor kid to get money for drugs.

Still, after some very hard knocks, he got clean and sober and remained that way for over a decade. In fact, he was one of the people who gave me the courage to quit drinking in the mid-90s. I figured if he could turn his back on some very hard drugs, I could certainly crawl out of the bottle.

But, like so many of us who are drawn to substance abuse, he was a very complex and volatile guy; a very moody guy, at times.

Those of us who knew the public side of him rarely caught glimpses of this troubled man that he usually kept hidden. But his closest friends knew that he wrestled with some very powerful and troubling demons. Still -- all too often -- he seemed to want to fight that fight in private, away from those who might help him. Call it 'drug shame' if you will -- but in the last several years he would disappear from those who loved him most when the demons got the best of him, sometimes for weeks or even months.

When he moved in across the way from a friend of mine, a former college teacher, who knew my friend through me and through the coffee house where we had all met, she was delighted, because she knew the affable, often wildly funny public side of him. But she didn't see him much. He was a contruction crane operator and when he worked he worked a lot and hard.

The last few days, she didn't really think twice when she saw his front door open and music coming through the screen door when she left for work and came home in the evening -- figuring our friend was simply taking a few days off. But when a note on the door went unanswered, the landlord finally let himself in.

He leaves behind his mother and stepfather, his grandmother, and a teenage daughter he cherished dearly.

And a lot of confused and and very sad friends.

I'd like to turn to you out there and give you some advice, a warning, anything... but, honest to God, I just can't think of what to say.

Circuit Breaker

I don't know if we all know the feeling... but some of you surely do.

I'm not talking about the feeling of blowing it, flaming out, wigging, flipping your lid, or otherwise losing control.

No... I'm talking about that world-weary feeling you get when someone you've cared about, agonized over, loved, lamented, and forgiven a thousand times, someone you have lost control over in the past, someone who was once your everything, pushes too far once too often and you realize that, instead of anger, or sorrow, or rage or pity -- you feel nothing.

Now, the electrically minded among us (and I know a lot of you geeks because I am one of you geeks) will be compelled to point out that a better analogy might be an old fashioned fuse since once they blow you have to put in a whole new fuse, whereas, with a circuit breaker, you just flip a switch and you're ready to go again (but hopefully you've unplugged a leggy blonde or two).

But fuses go out with a flash and a loud pop... what I was really after was the precise, businesslike click-thunk-thank-ya'-ma'am-I'll-find-my-own-way out of a circut breaker relay. No muss, no fuss, no blackened fuse box. Just a clean, emotionless shutdown.

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Honey there's a circuit breaker
deep inside my heart
late last nite I felt the whole thing blow
I felt all my feelings stop

Isn't it amazing, doll
how fast it all can change
the twitch of a tiny hand
and today is yesterday

The love l felt for you
was like a frozen photograph
where you watch the ghosts appear
baby, step into the past

Isn't it amazing, doll...

Wasnt there forever
at least for a little while
wasnt there a time for us
too bad that's out of style

Isn't it amazing, doll
how fast it all can change
the twitch of a tiny hand
and today is yesterday

Losing Lisa

Ah... the once ubiquitous present participle title. Actually, the original title of this song was Looks Like I'll Be Losing Lisa. Then it was just plain Lisa. But the Goldilocks in me said the one was just too long and the other too short. Still, the cynical iconoclast in me is gritting his teeth and saying, geez.

Anyhow, this song is about a sap, er, a guy who just can't throw enough bling at his enamorata to make her happy and content.

A note on a couple of cultural references in the song, which was written way back in 1996 (as part of the Barista Cycle album project mentioned in a previous entry). Specifically, the lines: 'Got a second job just to buy nice things for Lisa / Laptop, cell phone, wetbar in her car -- all for Lisa.'

Obviously laptops and cellphones are now commonplace.

So, if you're old enough, roll your mind back to the previous century, to a naive, much simpler time... a time of long, lazy summer days, and evenings by the radio in the parlor with the family, listening to The Green Hornet and The Great Gildersleeves and sipping lemonade from the family lemon tree...

Hmm... that was 1996, wasn't it? It's all so hazy, now. (See yesterday's song.)


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Losing Lisa

Lately it looks like I'll be losing Lisa
Danged if there's a thing I can do to keep her
It scares me what I used to do to please her
'Cause now I know there's just no pleasing Lisa

Now I know -- there's no pleasing Lisa
Now I know -- there's no pleasing Lisa

Gave all my records and my stereo to Lisa
gave up my band and dropped out of school -- all for Lisa
Tattoed her name in a secret place -- it said "Property of Lisa"
What a waste of time 'cause nothing ever pleases Lisa

Now I know -- there's no pleasing Lisa
Now I know -- there's no pleasing Lisa

Got a second job just to buy nice things for Lisa
Laptop, cell phone, wetbar in her car -- all for Lisa
But she's not impressed, she's not happy yet -- that's just Lisa
'Cause nothing in the world will ever please that girl -- that's our Lisa

Now I know -- there's no pleasing Lisa
Now I know -- there's no pleasing Lisa

(C)1996, TK Major

Someone Was Watching

I like to get out ahead of the curve.

I wrote this (happily fictional) first person account of facing Alzheimer's not long after I turned 40. (I know. I know. Textbook stuff, huh?) Anyhow, a decade and change down the road the gaping maw of nescience doesn't look any more appealing.

Yet, only a few years ago, I became reaquainted with an elderly man who had lived down the street from me as a toddler. He was in what turned out to be the final phase of his life. He'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years before and as he explained, while he could easily remember the 50's when we lived on the same block, he also realized he wouldn't remember tomorrow -- or even in a few hours -- that he'd talked to me today. Still, rather than bitter, angry and afraid, as I would be afraid of being, he was sunny and cheerful.

Sadly, the end of my own grandfather's life was nowhere near as sunny. A man who had always prided himself on his intellect and his self-control was robbed, over time, of both. And the toll on my proud, strong grandmother was, in some ways, worse...

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someone was watching
I dont care what they saw
this terrible truth is a
secret all over the block

someone has fallen
someone can not get up
someone forgets what
someone was thinking of

now I don't know what's become of me
now I don't know what's become of me

toys sparkle in the sunshine
sixty-five years ago
I reach out and touch them
but it's not like I dont know

whatever was just happening
its all just like a dream
but this time I cant wake up
this time -- I can't even scream

now I don't know what's become of me
now I don't know what's become of me

Don't Let Dee Dee Dog You 'Round

I figured that things were getting far too serious, what with all this talk about betrayal, dissolution, and futility. So I thought, what better to lighten the tone a little, than a loving broadside directed at a small-town trollop... (Part of my 1996 girl-name album project, The Barista Cycle.)


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Don't Let Dee Dee Dog You 'Round

Don't let Dee Dee dog you 'round
If you knew her old tricks you'd haul yer bones outta town
Let me share the wisdom that the pack has found
don't let Dee Dee -- dog you 'round

You're new round here
so let me clue you in
there's a firestorm of trouble
you're about to jump in
her name is Deborah Dale
won't wanna hear that again
'Cause Dee Dee means danger -- and damnable sin

We all 'round here we've seen it before
we pretty much know what you've got in store
she'll rip out your heart and tear up your soul
there ain't a man here in town that she can't control
--all the same, we all love Deborah Dale


In the trailer parks
and the liquor stores
in the strip mall lounges
'midst the strip mall mores
one light shines above all the rest
its the same flame that draws
the moths to their deaths

Don't let Dee Dee...

A fool and his money are soon famous round here
and the vampires have radar for a fool full of beer
most suck out your money then they leave you alone
but Dee Dee don't stop til she's drained out your soul

We all 'round here we've seen it before
we pretty much know what you've got in store
she'll rip out your heart and tear up your soul
there ain't a man here in town that she can't control
--all the same, we all love Deborah Dale

Don't let Dee Dee dog you 'round
If you knew her old tricks you'd haul yer bones outta town
Let me share the wisdom that the pack has found
don't let Dee Dee -- dog you 'round.

Not One of Those Dreams

This was the third of three songs I came up with on a rainy day in Mexico I wrote about here a few weeks ago. (That would be in the Looking for Trouble post. The second song was There Ain't No Heart In My Heart No More, though I didn't think to mention it in the write-up.)

Rainy days and recent relationship breakups are, of course, great fuel for creative venting. Set that rainy day on the rugged and rocky coast north of Ensenada at a remote and run down motor court, and you might as well throw an open bar party for the muses. Still, by the time I was scribbling this one down, I think a lot of the muses had paired up and were down on the rocks by the stormy sea making out, leaving me to try to make something out of this...

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Not One of Those Dreams

If I had time to count the lies
or the hours that you stole
but it ain't like me to wonder why
all the same there are some things one needn't be told

I can see it in your smile
it's there behind all your words
something dancing behind your eyes
I can tell that you think it's
gonna be me that's gonna get burned

It ain't like you're the only one
that ever threw away love
I've sinned your sins and some again
it's all the same, it's all been done

I'm not saying that I'm sorry
I won't say I didn't love you
I won't say I didn't have some dreams
but not one of those dreams
did I ever dream could come true
... not one of those dreams
did I ever dream could come true
not one of those dreams...

1981