Désenchanté

Water beads on the shiny hood of the old Citroen as the girl's driver noses it out into the rain. A groundsman closes the tall door of the stable behind as you look over your shoulder through the sloping rear window.

The girl's knee presses against your thigh and she pulls at your hand, putting it on her own thigh.

It feels like someone else's hand on someone else's rich beautiful girlfriend's perfect thigh.

How did I get here? you ask yourself, as though a plot device in a cheap melodrama.

But no flashback rolls out... just the dull, internalized throb of what felt like 20 years of smoky northern european discos. Even when his girlfriend made him stay by the side of the lake at Interlachen for a week, he felt the throb, like a factory worker who can't lose the pound and grind of the machines, no matter how far away he goes. Or how drunk he gets.

He never used to drink that much. What happened there? he asked again, the words hanging like a bad digital reverb in the empty soundstage he imagined his mind to be.

But there was no threshold... no tipping point. Now, the alcohol was simply the sea that every night floated on. Every night a carefully measured voyage from wary alertness as he reached the club and set up to a deadened weariness as he got home at dawn... a slogging, dots-in-front-of-the-eyes almost deadness that was somehow both comforting and terrifying in its indistinguishable familiarity.



Of course, I didn't necessarily have the jaded turntablist/DJ above in mind when I wrote this song. In fact, at a time when I'd been writing a lot of blues, I found myself thumping out the familiar 1-4-5 of a 12 bar blues and heard myself sing: "I'm sick of the blues..."

But I thought to myself... yeah, the world's never heard a song about a guy or gal who's been down so long, down's got 'em down. How can I subvert this?

So I made the song a lament not about depression, loneliness, and heartbreak -- but rather about literally being bored with blues music. Which I was. (In a loving way, mind you.)

But I was also bored with a lot of music. The catalog of styles reeled off in the first verse of this song is suggestive of what I was listening to back in '94 (except for Madonna and Bono, of whom, indeed, I have always been sick).

By the time I got to the second verse, I realized that, while I could just spend three verses listing off music styles, maybe I needed some kind of development. So I started listing off trendy cuisines. And the last verse, a brief catalog of putatively desirable destinations, directly suggested the title I ultimately chose and hinted at the vignette above, variants of which I used in the past to promote the 'studio' version.

The studio version (and the studio, as I've noted before was some cheap gear hooked up to my computer, in mid 1999) was an instrumental -- or more properly, a dub. I did cut vocals and they did suck.

So I did some serious dub deconstruction and reconstruction. (I remember when we used to have to do dub mixes in realtime... imagine... jumping around, bumping faders back and forth, wiggling Echoplex levers, smacking guitar amp reverbs... how undignified it all was. Too much work.)


download [1.9 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

dub version (1999)


I'm sick of the blues
I'm sick of reggae too
I'm sick of rock and country
rap and techno too
I'm sick of Madonna and Bono
of course I always was
m sick of world music
ambient trance and dub
I am sick to death of everything
I always loved to do
I'm sick to death everything
but most of all of you

I'm fed up with cuisine nouvelle
I'm cuttin' off Cajun too
I'm bored with bouillabaisse
with Thai and Greek I'm through
I wish I had a dollar
for every overpriced Bordeaux
I wish I had a dime for every time
you blew my roll
I am sick to death of everything
I always loved to do
I'm sick to death everything
but most of all of you

I'm désenchanté with
Cannes and St Tropez
I cannot regain
that simpaticismo
I felt in Spain
I can't explain
this ennui borders on pain
but all around the world
everything's about the same
I'm sick to death of everything
I ever loved to do
I'm sick to death everything
but most of all of you

1/19/94
(C)1994, TK Major

Happy Birthday, Baby

We're coming up on the part of the first phase of AYoS that I like to think of as The Cavalcade of Dregs.

Now, yes, before you get started, I know I've been showering you with drinking songs, girl name songs, novelty songs, bad pun songs. I understand.

And, for that matter, I don't mean to suggest that all the songs I'll be posting here in the last week or two (as I finally run out of songs that haven't been in AYoS yet) are necessarily really, really bad. (Well, a couple are. A few.)

There are even a couple of my old faves coming up, songs I used to perform regularly at gigs. And there are a couple of others that I always felt had promise but couldn't seem to capture properly. But, for one reason or another, they are songs I've been putting off.

Sill, their time has come and that time is now.

But then, just like metaphysics bookstore reincarnation, the big wheel will turn back around and I'll redo, salvage or reinvent a number of the songs I've already done, linking different versions and related songs: exploring, probing, inverting, subverting, or just plain trying to do a better job. (Well... that's a baseline.)

And, while I've stayed pretty close to my basic format of a guitar or two and a single vocal, I may be stretching in the arrangement department, as well.

For those who've suggested that I should start writing a song a day when I run out of songs, yeah... I should. But if I did there would probably be a whole lot more that turned out like today's opus: Happy Birthday, Baby.

download [1.2 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

image derived from a photo by Andrew Lih

[Lyrics? What lyrics?. I don't need to post no stinkin' lyrics. Bad enough I hadda sing 'em.]

Men Are Still Stupid

Sometimes a suddenly evident truth just reaches out, knocks you over the head and drags you to its cave.

You know, something you've really always known.

It was an August night in 1990 and my next door neighbor and I were sitting in her kitchen, which opened on my backyard, talking, as we often did, since we'd known each other for years, about our friends and about life in general.

Most of our mutual friends were then in their 20s or 30s, many of them musicians or other artists, and there was plenty of turmoil, of all varieties, not the least of it romantic and/or sexual.

I've forgotten what exactly, what scandal, what dilemna, what intricate arrangement, we were talking about, but I remember a few moments of silence, standing up, and saying, "Well... men are stupid. Women are crazy. It's a system. It's the way it's always been... "


download [2.4 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

MEN ARE STILL STUPID

When I was just a little bitty boy
sitting on my pappy's knee
he said hey TK listen to my story
take the word from me
dont let a girl get you in trouble
spend all your money make you see double
take this tip from your dad
don't fooled and dont get had

I said hey dad huh dont worry so bad
times have changed and that stuff's in the past
and then he rolled his eyes and he slapped his thigh
and he fell over laughing as he grabbed his sides
times ain't changed since the early days
men are still stupid and women are still crazy


When I was older growing up
not quite a man but not still a pup
I asked my mama for some love advice
and she put down her slide rule and she picked up some dice
she rolled a seven then he rolled 2 ones
she said snakeyes sonny youre just like everyone (because)
times aint changed since the early days
men are still stupid and women are still crazy


Now Caesar he told Cleopatra
I know baby just what youre after
you think your loves gonna wear me down
she said julie baby ya got it turned around
You think my loves some palace plot
but I dont even know what I want
cause times aint change since the very first day
men are still stupid anw women are crazy

1990-08-02
(C)2006, TK Major

The Slam

The original punk scene in LA was very small, scruffy, and thoroughly art geeky. When I started going to shows, there was maybe a hard core of 50 or so and maybe another 100-150 hangers on like me. It's safe to say that all of us had felt out of place for years, if not forever.

I remember the day I decided to cut off the long hair I'd been growing since I got out of high school (okay, there were a few trims along the way, but at its longest it was maybe 6 inches above my belt)... it was a Traffic concert at the Santa Monica Civic in 1973.

There I was, in line, waiting to see one of my favorite bands. A band I thought of as artful and smart... even when they were playing stoner grooves like "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys."

But as I looked around me, I felt as though I might as well be at a Grand Funk or Deep Purple show. Wherever I looked, there were long haired dooods... I could feel the IQ points ticking away. The next day I arranged to get my hair cut.


It was a long wait, waiting for something to happen. There were glimmers along the way. In 1975 or so I stumbled onto the nascent Hollywood scene. I was shocked to find young people with short hair (Like me! They were like me!) and straight leg jeans. (It hadn't occurred to me... I hit the thrift store the next day.) I remember seeing a Sparks-like band called The Quick a few times. In some ways they were what would later be called power pop, I suppose, but at the time they seemed almost revolutionary.

Few small venues even booked original music. If you were not in a touring act, you'd better be prepared to spend your time playing Doobie Brothers covers. When my friends and I found even a cover band with a few shreds of personality or originality we cherished them as a few drops of water in a barren desert.

So, when a few signs of life started poking up around 1976-1977, I was practically beside myself. The year before the first (and, for me, only really satisfying) Patti Smith album came out, with its strange blend of arty pub rock and drug poetry lyrics. A Tom Verlaine/Television cassette made its way around. The first singles started coming out of the British punk scene.

At first I didn't get the Brit scene. When I read about the Pistols, they seemed plastic, like the Monkees. The first time I heard them -- on a really crummy portable stereo -- it really did sound like noise to me. (And you have to realize that I'd seen Captain Beefheard a couple times by then. We're not talking about a Loggins and Messina fan, here.) But after I'd heard the first single a few times I decided that, whatever the background of the band, there was something really going on there, no matter how bogus the motivations behind the project or culturally suspect such the media manipulations seemed.

Flash forward a few years.

It's early fall 1980 and, after I'd predicted the demise of punk as we knew it the year before, it really had looked like it was dying out in LA. Silly me.

By mid-1980, a new suburban punk was then beginning to leave its heavy Doc Marten bootprint on the scene. The result was that most of the early scenesters were gone.

This was nothing like the arty, ultra-boho scene of '77 and '78. The new, rapidly expanding scene was made up of dudes, suburban headbangers, their own longhair recently shorn, exuding all the mindless conviction of any new and rabidly fanatical set of converts.

While the LA Times pop music coverage was lucky enough to have a couple of writers at the time who actually got into the scene and participated (Craig Lee, RIP, bro!), much of the paper's coverage was dominated by a sort of culture-vampire perspective, seemingly slightly revolted by this new music scene -- but afraid to look "out of it" or stodgy.

Near the beginning of fall of 1980, the Times' Sunday entertainment magazine featured a lead photo spread and article on, and I quote, "The Slam" -- which was, according to the culture mavens at the TImes, taking the local music scene by storm.

I am absolutely positive that I had never, before that article, ever heard anyone describe what the Brits called "moshing" as "slamming" (people slammed heroin, y'know?) but -- hey, there it was in the Times.

And, for awhile, particularly among the newly buzzed and mohawked suburban converts, the term actually stuck.

Which provoked near endless amusement among me and some of my friends... what had once been so fresh and genuine and interesting was now just the latest prepackaged plop on the big conveyor belt of American pop commercial culture.

The original version of The Slam by my band, Machine Dog, didn't sound much like this acoustic version, below, lemme tell ya.

download [2.8 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

The Slam

Went to the Whisky just the other night
did a little dance that I learned in the Times
Beach punk made a grab for my date
smashed by beer bottle right in his face

La La La La La La

Aint it great how the media
regulate your culture -- tell you just who you are
10,000 kids and they just found themselves
cause they saw the punk report on the Evening News

La La La La La La

They threw me out on my face but that didn't phase me
cause The Dance is Art and Art ain't free
Well, I'm proud to be a Punk and I proved that's true
when I pogo'ed through the window of the Emergency Room

La La La La La La

Fall 1980
(C)1980, TK Major

The Company Says

I've never been a union member -- I don't really think I'd be a good fit. I have worked (in non-union jobs) in a union environment (though it was a Teamsters shop in the '70s... not exactly the best showcase for the postive aspects of trade unionism).

I understand the collective bargaining system and -- though it is clearly far from perfect and may not be well-suited to modern, progressive companies -- I think over the last century and change that it has, on balance, worked fairly well for both US workers and companies, bringing some much needed stability to employment relations at the end of the 19th century and laying the foundation for the 20th century American middle class, which, itself, nurtured the enormous expansion of US manufacturing in the last century.

But at the dawn of the union era, it was a different matter. Around the globe, workers in the industrializing nations of Europe and North America faced unsafe working conditions and violence and intimidation from privately held companies. While stockholders might blanch at the thought of company-hired goons firing what we now call "live rounds" into crowds of workers and splitting heads with metal clubs, individual mine and factory owners all too often didn't.

It's a different time, now, of course.

But only a few days ago with the Sago mine disaster/debacle, we had a grim reminder that even modern, publicly held companies can fall down and fall down hard when it comes to treating their workers with common decency and regard for their safety and health.

And the part of our federal government devoted to policing those conditions fell down hard, as well, handing out scores of hazard violation citations -- but backing them up with trifling punishment. In one case -- at a Sago mine -- the company was cited for "significant and substantial" violations and ongoing dangerous conditions that led to the death of miner -- and then fined the minimum possible -- $60.

Maybe we haven't evolved beyond the need for unions, after all...

download [2.1 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

The Company Says

You walk into town
and you look all around
and it doesn't take long
to see that something is wrong
very wrong

the people stand around
with their eyes on the ground
it doesn't take long
to see that something is wrong

and the company says
it's a company town
now, if you don't like that
don't ya hang around

and the Company says
it's a company town
if you don't like that
sell a penny on the pound
give 'way

One man stands
says I won't run
but the goons come around
with their clubs and guns

and they knock him down
and they kick him around
and they drag his body
to the edge of town

and the company says
he's better off dead
than fightin' with us

and the company says
it's a company town
if you don't like that
we'll put you in the ground

and the Company says
it's a company town
now, if you don't like that
don't ya hang around

and the Company says
it's a company town
if you don't like that
sell a penny on the pound
give 'way

and the company says
he's better off dead
than fightin' with us

and the company says
it's a company town
if you don't like that
we'll put you in the ground

(C)1986, TK Major

I Saw My Baby on the Street Today

You see a lot of homeless people near the ocean, at least around here.

If you ask them, often as not they'll tell you, if you have to be homeless somewhere, you might as well be homeless by the beach. And there are often pick-up jobs and day labor opportunities near the waterfront, and sometimes hideaways in coastal estuaries.

But sometimes I can't help wondering -- as I'm sure others have wondered -- whether they end up along the water because other people keep pushing them away and, eventually, there's just nowhere else to go.


The protagonist of this song finds himself torn between pity and forgotten love as he struggles with the natural inclination to turn away when he sees his estranged wife homeless on the street and she doesn't recognize him.

I've seen the mutation and destruction of personality that can result from some sickness and injury and I don't know that I would have the kind of selflessness it takes to make the sacrifice he makes by eventually taking her back in. (Eventually, meaning by the second short verse in a two verse song.)


download [2.8 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

I saw my baby on the street today


I saw my baby on the street today
she didn't recognize me I turned away
I shoulda said
come back baby
come back home
how could I leave ya out here all alone(in the cold

I know youre crazy
and it's tearing me apart
but I vowed to love you
til' death do us part

come back baby come back home
i jusc can lveave you out there in the cold
unpack your shopping crat
take a nice long bath
it ain't like the old days
but the worst is past

I know youre crazy
and it's tearing me apart
but I vowed to love you
til' death do us part


(C)1990, TK Major

Download Cheater's Blues

Once upon a time there was a magical kingdom, ruled by a magical king.

The king had himself once been a knight errant but through his adventures he'd earned a small fortune -- more importantly, he'd learned magical powers from the wizards of the east.

In those days, the most powerful magic in the in the land was so potent, it was known by just three letters -- IPO. Even today, though the magic has faded, those letters are still very powerful.

But, in those days, the magic of the IPO was everywhere.

And most notably in the magic kingdom founded by the wandering knight. Through the magic of IPO, the knight was able to raise almost a half billion pieces of gold. (In our time, that would buy 33 thousand Toyota Corollas, fully equipped with factory air and power windows and locks.)

But the magic of the IPO required that the kingdom appear to be a happy and prosperous kingdom -- so the king decided to give money to his citizens every time someone heard one of their songs. (Did we mention this was a kingdom of musicians? Weird, huh?) The king called it Pay for Play... PfP.

As one might imagine, this was greeted with great joy by the citizens of the kingdom. Most of them had never received a single shekel for their music and never expected to.

But with great good fortune, sometimes comes danger. And in the magic kingdom, this danger showed the face of greed. Soon, the musician citizens were learning devious magic of their own, pretending to listen to each others music, and pocketing the money.

The king seemed oblivious to the trouble in his streets. But he must have realized that, in a kingdom of musicians, there could only be so many people listening at a time -- for he tried various means to lure travelers in to hear his musicians.

One of the lures was in the form of big lists of the most popular songs, which he called "charts."

Soon, the biggest cheaters in the land were at the top of the charts, based on music that no one really heard. And sometimes the greedy musicians were also magicians and they plied the devious tactics of their trade, esoteric magic like IP Masking. They even used soulless robots to listen to music for them...

But a few musicians in the magic kingdom raised their voices in protest [that's where today's song comes in. --TK] , calling out for their fellow musicians to eschew greed and trickery... to do the right thing and to stop tricking the king and working the evil magic that kept the banal and vapid music of IT wizards at the top of the charts.

But it was already too late.

Unknown to all but those who were conversant in the esoteric writings of The Business Section, a strange and terrible new magic was eating at the very foundation of the magic kingdom...

And it was this strange and terrible magic which brought down the magic king, who was forced to sell the magic kingdom for little more than a song to one of the old kingdoms once known as The Seven Sisters. But that's a story for another time...


[I'd like to acknowledge that the story above is hardly the first fairy tale telling of the rise and fall of a rags-to-riches-to-rags internet/IPO story -- probably not even the first to apply such a format to the story of the not-quite-named startup above. BTW, all that remains of that once-high-flying company is its dot com nameplate, now simply a portal for commercial music promotion.]

download [2.5 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

original 'studio' version [soundclick]

Download Cheater's Blues

Spent all night on the DSL
downloading music straight to hell
I got the PfP
Download cheater's blues

I'll download your page you stream mine
Neither one listen that'll be just fine
I got the PfP
Download cheater's blues

I used to play music now I just swap downloads
cause sharpenin' my chops is too darn slow
I got the PfP
Download cheater's blues
I use to play music now download swappin's all I do


Didn't I see you
on the bulletin board
You were waving your T1
and lookin' to score
You had the PfP
Download cheater's blues

Y' offered two whole pages
for just one song
you seemed kind of desperate
seemed like something was wrong
You had the PfP
Download cheater's blues

You said I.S. was on your trail
they were sniffin your packets
like a hound after quail
You got the PfP
Download cheater's blues
And you thought chart position
was the only thing that you had to lose.


[bridge]
I used to write songs I don't do that no more
Now I spend all my time on the bulletin boards
With crazy vampires, psychos and more
just swappin those downloads and bumpin the score
I used to love music and I listened all day
Now I ripped out my speakers and threw them away
Cause there's swappin to do and there's stations to play
I got 5000 songs to download to day


Spent all night on the DSL
downloadin music straight to hell
I got the PfP
Download cheater's blues
I'll download your page you stream mine
Neither one listen that'll be just fine
I got the PfP
Download cheater's blues

(C)2000 TK Major