Tag Archives: trollop

Someone Said Something

I'll keep it on the VCR and watch it over and over again...

So you’re sitting in your favorite dimly lit cockail lounge in a strip mall not far from where you live and the local Eyewitness News comes on: coroner’s men hauling a couple of bodies out the front door of a tiny bungalow.

Someone says, “Hey, Joe, ain’t that your house?” And you look again, this time noticing the distinctive, worn-at-the heels cowboy boots sticking out from under a sheet. Your best friend’s boots.

And you look at the other body and you don’t need anyone to tell you your wife not only slipped back into her old habits but was slipping around when she did it.

Damn junkies, you mutter to yourself and then order a round for the bar.

produced version [soundclick]

Someone Said Something

Someone said something
or I’d have never known
Someone said something
and I never went home

They found you In the arms of another man
the needle still in your vein
You finally transcended
Now you’re cheating on a higher plane

Someone said something . . .

What are a few bad habits
between old friends?
You were a junky and a trollop
but I loved you to the end

Someone said something . .

Policemen and photographers
and a local station’s mini-cam
I’ll keep it on the VCR
and watch it over and over again

Someone said something
or I’d have never known
Someone said something
and I never went home

(C)1984, TK Major

[Updated: I’m just listening to Neil Young’s “Words” and realize his use of “someone” and “something” in that song must have been a just-under-the-surface influence on the title phrase of this song. Interesting. I remember trying to figure out that song when I’d only been playing a year or two and being completely flummoxed by the odd time changes in the song. Listening, now, I’m thinking I still might be.]

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Little Baby Doll

Vini, Vidi, Vici -- Baby said when she came home.
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.]

AYoS acoustic version:

produced version

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

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Don’t Let Dee Dee Dog You ‘Round

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.)


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.

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Paperback

Get Down BabyThere was one thing on my mind when I wrote this song.

I wanted to get in the line, “Get down, baby, get out tonight” — in something that couldn’t be mistaken for a party song.

And I think I nailed that aspect. No one will party to this song and if they do, well, I’m not responsible.

I was thinking about this song after the fact and realized that it fits nicely into my plans to re-invent myself as a bitter old has been. As opposed, you know, to a bitter old never was. It’s probably a minor distinction to most folks, I suppose, but I think my brothers and sisters in the music biz will appreciate it. At any rate, I have a song, Tell All the Kids, that’s specifically about my fall from grace. Or the fall from grace I never had. But, anyhow, that ain’t this song.

So, as this song spilled out not quite a decade ago, I realized I was telling its story from the point of view of some imaginary, long-suffering rockstar, addressing, for what he evidently hopes is the last time, his histrionic, soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend as she pursues a theatrically anguished voguing session attop the retaining wall of his penthouse terrace.

Get down, baby.

AYoS acoustic version:


produced version:

 

Paperback
AKA Get Down Baby (Get Out Tonight)

Everywhere it sez you love me
but ya never read the truth
’cause when I look into your eyes
I can see who’s getting screwed

Get down, baby. Get packed,
get out tonight.
You’re gone, baby,
that’s right you heard me right.


A secret’s not a secret
unless it has been told
our private life’s not really ours
until all the rights are sold.

Get down, baby…


you will get some mileage
from that small town trollop trip
but the journey’s strictly one way, babe
and heavenward ain’t it

Get down, baby…

history will tell us
all about the truth
until that time I’ll do fine
your quickie paperback will do

Get down, baby…
get packed, get out tonight
you’re gone
baby
that’s right
you heard me right

3/10/96

(C) 2005, TK Major

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