Think of this new song as a kind of Gnostic blues song, a sort of House of the Rising Sun — but not about prostitution and gambling — rather, about the trap of desire, itself.
Or… just think of it as an excuse to write a song about playing cards with the devil… which was, itself, an excuse for some devilish alliteration.
Next, I’m going to write a song about playing cards with some dogs.
Now I’m not a betting man but I’ll play
these chips in my hand are just good for today
I thought I could buy a chance this way
but now I see that the devil just doubled down
It’s only a game if you think you can win it’s only a bet when the fix isn’t in it’s no fun playing if you know how it ends so how come I keep putting my money down
When you gamble in the devil’s house — you will pay
you can bet the odds are stacked and they’re stacked his way
maybe you can win but you won’t take it away
At he end of the game it’s you on the table face down
It’s only a game if you think you can win it’s only a bet when the fix isn’t in it’s no fun playing if you know how it ends so how come I keep putting my money down
Or whatever you call it when your studio is your living room. The world is so big
then again it’s all so small…
I might be in your arms tomorrow night
or I might never make it home to you at all.
Anyhow, here’s a new recording with drums, bass, guitars, even a little electric organ kinda thing.
Well… I mean… that is to say, there’s this particular one that’s vexing me right now.
(Hell… I’ve got so many mental blocks, I don’t even know they’re there anymore. Like navigating one’s bedroom in the dark, I automatically circumnavigate them. They’re as unnoticeable to me now as a distortion in the space-time continuum, part of the field of everyday reality.)
Fortunately, this one is not exactly earth shaking.
But it does seem, for now, to be, once again, standing in the way of getting a decent version of this song, below, up on the web.
I keep hoping some singer or band out there will take the poor thing under their wing and do a decent version of it and send me a link… [hint, hint] … or something.
Previous versions have been shaky for a number of reasons — even within the wobbly quality orbit of AYoS — not the least of them being that I wrote a melody that was just a bit over my head as a singer (we’ll leave aside argument that, perhaps, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” isn’t just a little bit over my head as a singer).
This time, I tried to disguise my shaky grasp of my own melody with a willfully sloppy self-duet (of the midnight drunken choir variety). Unfortunately, the logsitical challenges of coordinating my small ensemble of personality fragments for the modest task of recording a couple of vocal and guitar tracks was apparently so great that I forgot to perform an important part of the song.
Midway through recording the lead guitar accompaniment I found myself thinking: Where’s that confounded bridge?
All Because of You [this recorded version omits the bridge]
lyrics All Because of You
[includes lyrics for that confounding bridge]
[E~ g#m g#m] He should have
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
[g#m ~ f#m]
Baby Doll, it’s all because of you
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
[missing bridge:c#m ~ g#m ~] (look here) 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
[E~ g#m g#m] He should ‘a seen it coming but he never dreamed he’d have to watch her leave (C)2007, TK Major
I was hoping for the kind of gritty neo-realism that informed some of the best songs of bands like Eric Burdon & the Animals… but what I ended up with was a couple of local insider references and a sadly obvious yet actually unintentional central pun. (Yeah, yeah, there are no accidents, I hear you. Nonetheless, I was oblivious, even when the first verse began with “junkies” and ended with “final score”…)
