Monthly Archives: July 2006

Important

You must think you're oh so very terribly important

When I think of rich people I’ve known, I always forget about Howard Hughes.

Well, I didn’t know him, personally, but an ex-GF’s mom had been a very good friend of Hughes’ second wife, the actress, Jean Peters. Peters threw a party at Hughes’ estate for my GF’s little sister on the occasion of her baptism or confirmation or… something or other.

At one point, my ex-GF said, Hughes himself came out of an upstairs study, stood by a balustrade for a moment, looking down on scores of little girls in frilly dresses, shook his head, and went back into his study.

Yeah… that was my first brush with the super rich.

It didn’t really change my life.

But my intimate connection with Hughes didn’t really end there. Later, I would become friends with the daughter of Hughes’ most famous biographer, whose unpublished manuscript was stolen and became the basis for an infamous hoax, a Hughes “autobiography” that turned out to be eerily close to reality because it was based on years of my friend’s father’s reporting. (He went on to have a bestseller of his own but that’s another story.)

I go on at length really only to show that I have no clue how the super wealthy live their lives or how they think.

Hughes was a driven man, clearly, he made a fortune in aircraft and then, perhaps drawn in by his dalliances with starlets and actresses, became a movie exec and producer.

He was, in the thinking of the time, about as rich as God’s older brother but the end of his life was shrouded in mystery as a group of former CIA and other intelligence officers insinuated themselves as his “handlers” — allowing or encouraging doctors to keep Hughes, himself, loaded on deadening painkillers, barbiturates, and powerful opiates and hypnotics.

Hughes reportedly stopped cutting his hair and fingernails, and an incipient obsessive compulsive disorder began manifesting itself, perhaps aggravated or even caused by the powerful drug cocktails that kept him in a semi-stupor while his supposed assistants ran his empire in ways that often seemed contrary to his own interests but which, perhaps not surprisingly, seemed to benefit both the handlers and their associates in the US intel and covert action communities.

Eventually, Hughes died, misunderstood, unkempt, apparently even malnourished… he was, in essence, broken and alone.

 


[produced dub version on Soundclick | requires Flash]


Internet Archive page for this recording

previous AYoS version (30 September)

Spit in the Ocean

You must think you’re oh so very
terribly important
with your car, your house, your maid,
your butler and your porters.

But seen from the stars
you’re the same as all of us are.
And it might seem a queer notion
but we’re all just spit
in the ocean.

Hop upon a plane
run around the world
Tokyo, Paris, Rome, Berlin
and they’re all full of your kind of girl.

You can have all the ones you want
you can play with people’s lives.
You can have all the rope you want
but soon enough they expect that noose
to be tied.

Seen from above
just another slightly balding head
a little bit of dandruff on the shoulders
but you’ll be dead
soon enough, anyway.

Hiding in your villa
on the Dalmatian Coast.
Your blue ribbon Afghan hound at your feet
the one that you prize the most.

But your baby’s got the rabies
and he’s gonna bite your foot.
ain’t there an end to the indignities
through which a human being
must be put.

Seen from the stars
Just another chunk of rock in space.
little ones crawling about on it
but they’ll be gone
soon enough, anyway.

You must think you’re oh so very
terribly important
with your car, your house, your maid,
your butler and your porters.

But seen from the stars
you’re the same as all of us are.
And it must seem a queer notion
but we’re all just spit
in the ocean.

(C) 1975, T.K. Major

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The first time I saw her, I knew it was too late…

Baby was a friend of mine...

 

 

 
Loyalty…

I wanted to write about the wary, sadder-but-wiser loyalty of a prisoner for his favorite guard… or a guy for his ex-girlfriend. You know, the one he thinks wrecked his life.

I wanted to suggest the weary resignation as he stands one more time to defend her, even though he knows she’d sell him out in a second. Knows it because she’s done it a hundred times.

Internet Archive page for this recording
previous AYoS version – 30 March
previous AYoS version – 18 November

Baby Was a Friend of Mine

the first time I saw her
I knew it was too late
a shadow fell across my soul
I asked her for a date

baby was a pistol
way too hot to hold
baby was a big mistake
some things you cant be told

but baby
was a friend of mine
baby was a friend of mine
she couldn’t keep from cheating
she never did stop lying
but baby was a friend of mine

Now, baby drove me crazy
for almost seven years
then she drove away one day
with a repo-man from Sears

I found her in a Motel Six
out in San Berdoo
she was watching Lucy re-runs
and sniffing airplane glue

but baby
was a friend of mine…

Now the last time I saw her
she said that it was fate
I thought for sure you’d save me
(she) said as she turned away

I thought i saw a tear
slide across her face
I thought I saw forever
just as it slipped away

but baby
was a friend of mine
baby was a friend of mine
she couldn’t keep from cheating
she never did stop lying
but baby was a friend of mine
(C)1992, TK Major

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Once you behold her, nothing will ever be the same…

Once you behold her...
Ah… memory. Frail sibling of the dream, grandchild of illusion.

Don’t ask me how I ended up doing this twice in three weeks… I had my mind on other, thoroughly mundane things like trying to make a living, mastering evolving toolsets, and meeting yeterday’s challenges tomorrow… or something like that. It’s not all a blur but I kind of wish it was.

Anyhow, this seems to be a better version in some ways, though both are painfully sloppy (yeah, like that makes them stand out, here) and both are far from living up to the song’s potential. It’s this damn heat and humidity… it sits on the brain like a hot, steamy fog…

Internet Archive page for this recording

July 2 version
January 1 version

songwriter demo version‘ [soundclick page]

Just Like a China Doll

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

All around Long Beach
and all the way to LA
the shattered lives are scattered
the hearts are spiked up on staves
— From the Ocean to the mountains
from the birthplace to the grave
Once you behold her
nothing will ever be the same

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

Everywhere you go
everythings about the same
they wander around dazed
just barely whispering her name
— They walk in front of buses
they throw themselves under trains
but the sick smile on their faces
show those sorry saps are still glad she came

[bridge]
well I looked into her eyes
and I saw my life flash by
Now I wake up screaming
everytime I see a doll’s eyes

I looked into the void
and I saw myself fall in
i see it every time
i see it in her eyes
t’s always been

Here I stand the last man to fall
under her spell
a moment close to heaven
an ice age on the cold side of hell
and how can I face
the other lost souls I find
When I laughed at all of them and then now
here am I the last in line

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

(C)1997, TK Major

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Willful

It's all because of you...
[New, improved recording version links below, 2006-07-21]

He watched himself… just to see how far he’d go.

And, when it was all over, he looked back and realized he’d watched himself, wide-eyed, as he threw away every single thing he cared about and everything he used to think he stood for.

Thrown away for promises he never believed for a moment. For obvious lies, crazy, outrageous, insulting lies… lies he still looked for reasons to believe.

Thrown away for dreams so real that each waking broke his heart all over again.

Thrown away: the life he’d been building since he was a kid, his home, his job, the high school sweetheart he’d settled down with, and the love that was unexciting, yet dependable and familiar.

Still, he knew in his soul that he would do it all over again. With no more hesitation than a deep breath and a silent, “God help me.”

this track on Internet Archive
previous AYoS version

All Because of You

He should have E~ g#m g#m
seen it coming
but he never dreamed
he’d ever have to watch her leave
She laughed all the way to Austin
And she cried the rest of the
way to New Orleans

Baby Doll, it’s all because of you g#m ~ f#m
You always sew destruction
No matter what ya say you’re trying to do
Now always get
whatever it is
you want
and as long as I’ve known you
You always want
what you ain’t got

I have known you
such a long long time
and you know I wouldn’t say
it if it wasn’t true
You don’t have a heart I know
but I’m recently convinced there’s no soul
inside of you

Yesterday’s toys you
throw them all away
you dont even watch
to see their paper hearts in the flames
Like a goddess before
the gods learned how to feel
In your universe your world is the
only one that’s real

bridge: c#m ~ g#m ~
(look here baby)
Baby I got the map on you
Every lie you tell
I can drill right through
Baby Doll the fall is coming soon
and when it falls
it’s all gonna be on you

He shoulda E~ g#m g#m
seen it coming
but he never dreamed
he’d have to watch her leave

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