Category Archives: acoustic

LA’s Not Such a Big Town

LA's Not Such a Big Town

This is one of literally dozens of kiss-off songs I wrote for this one girl. We kept breaking up and getting back together. We did it for a couple years. Our relationship was the engine that drove much of my creative output in those days. If we weren’t cursing each other’s shadows and vowing never to have anything to do with each other, we were falling in love all over again.

It irritated the hell out of our friends, without doubt. And, just between you and me, I don’t think I could put up with that kind of nonsense, now. But when I was 25, it was kind of what I expected in life…

I’ll likely be doing this song again a bit later in AYoS — and I’m sure I’ll be anxious to give the next version a properly s— kickin’ feel. I’m afraid I recorded this version when I was dead tired night before last after a long day of web database work.

Still, the other songs I recorded that night (“Magic” and tomorrow’s “Have You Embraced the Beast?”) had a bit more spunk. This work business… I’m sure no one mentioned it when I was signing up for earth duty…

L.A.’S NOT SUCH A BIG TOWN

Well, I hardly know where you’re coming from
but it ain’t hard to see where you’re going to
what you’re coming to)
Hey hey, Darlin’
I just can’t save you now

You hold on to me, so damn tight
then push me away — I walk home alone through the night
thinking about how
I’d be seeing you around

Hey, hey, Darlin’, guess I’ll be seeing you around
After all L.A. ain’t such a big town
Hey hey Darlin, I hope you ain’t feeling down
cause those blues will sit on your head
jack your heart and turn your life around

Now you always argue about everything
In your domain irrationality’s king
I got a list of topics
a mile long that can’t be brung up

You called me up on the telephone
and asked me if I was alone
I said yes —
you said good –and you hung up

Hey, hey, Darlin’, I guess yer feeling proud
after all) ya cataloged my faults told the whole
goldang world out loud
Hey hey darlin, I guess it ain’t so strange
You tore up my body,
broke my heart, and threw away my brains

Well, I tried to talk out all those things
but your inattentive condescendance stings
Hey hey darlin
there’s no point in talking now

Well I never had the money for diamond rings
nor the guaranteed returns wise investment brings
Hey hey darlin,
I guess I’ll be seeing ya around

I Don’t Believe in Magic

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I Don't Believe in Magic

Ok… I don’t believe in “magic” exactly — but I do believe in mystery in the esoteric sense.

This song doesn’t reflect that because it was — like many of my songs — not written from my point of view. Rather, it takes the form of a (hopefully) character-revealing soliloquy from the song’s protagonist.

He’s clearly a guy at a point in his life when he feels everything of significance is known and those clinging to the idea that life has purpose or meaning or mystery are simply fooling themselves, unrealistic pollyannas clinging to a foolish, if comforting, self-deceit.

And, yes, I guess, maybe that was me, once, at a time when I was overwhelmed by the implications of the anachronistic and simplistically determinist world view I had at the time.

As a teenager, my extremely conservative school district had little use for science, offering the bare minimum to support state requirements. And that, unfortunately, left me with a stunted, 19th century view of the world.

It wasn’t until I got to college and was exposed to a proper exploration of the scientific method and contemporary scientific findings and explorations that I started seeing the world as the wonderful and mysterious place I now find it to be. And I don’t think that’s actually a paradox.

Most folks think they know a lot more than they actually do. Their lives are a gloss of undigested facts, false assumptions, and irrational misapprehensions they’ve simply been indoctrinated with or adopted to fill ontological voids.

I’ve long tried to balance my own skeptical nature and the respect for science fostered by my classic liberal college education against my perhaps juvenile lust for the unknown and the just plain weird, all the while still accommodating my rediscovered sense that there is some mystery central to life that is perpetually just on the verge of being answered — but that never will be.

For me, that balance means using the eyes and brains God and/or nature gave me to observe and measure the world, to collect facts and use my intellect to weave those facts into knowledge. It also means not assuming that everything — or almost everything — is known or that authorities, whether spiritual or intellectual, are always right.

The more I find out about how the world really works — the more mysterious and “magical” life really seems.

MAGIC

I don’t believe in Magic
that stuff’s for young girls
Self-deception is tragic tragic
I’m a true believer in the real world

I don’t believe in love
that’s just a social fiction defined by pain
I don’t believe in the meaning of life
it’s just a meaningless story scrawled by a fool in the dirt
again and again

I don’t believe in magic
I’m a true believer in the real world
Self deception is tragic tragic
I’m a charter member of the real world

I don’t believe in god
I don’t believe in humanity
I don’t believe in abstract knowledge
ideology is insanity

I don’t believe in destiny
any fool can see
the world’s just atoms floating in space
that’s the bottom line on reality

I don’t believe in magic
I’m a true believer in the real world
Self deception is tragic tragic
I’m a charter member of the real world

Now, Baby, It’s Never

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Now, Baby, It's Never

I‘ve got a sixth sense for when things are over. Little things like the suitcase on the lawn, changed locks, restraining orders. There are subtle signs a man of the world can pick up. Call it a vibe if you will.

One of those things is the icey kiss.

For my generation, one of the most famous is the scene coming out of the tunnel in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

That kiss is burned into my consciousness. It’s a scene of exquisite subtlety. A single arched eyebrow reveals that the heroine is, for all purposes, dead, her body taken over by an unfeeling alien. Ah… it really speaks to me — for me, really…

Anyhow, in this song, I was going for that moment of shock — a kiss that reveals everything the hero of the song knows is wrong, that burns him to his soul. A kiss that makes a mockery of love. Or something. Actually, I just wanted to write a song with the word aqueduct in it. And I think I’ve succeeded. Success is all about setting attainable goals.

Now, Baby It’s Never

Everything you say
seems to mean goodbye
Though we talked forever
I never did know why

Now baby its never
our time wont come again
This time forever baby
This time it’s the end

Tonight when I kissed you
it burned me to my soul
Everything I thought I knew
was all a lie I know

Now baby its never…

I walked along the aqueduct
just before the dawn
The sun looked old and tired as it came up
but at least the night was gone

Now baby its never
our time wont come again
This time forever baby
This time it’s the end

So, How Does It Look from the Stars?

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So, How Does It Look from the Stars

The sweat stung his eyes as he wiped his forearm across his grimy brow, shifted his weight to the broom he’d been using to sweep in front of the little bodega, and looked up toward the 7th floor penthouse terrace.

For a few moments that steamy summer night, the city was quiet and he heard melodic laughter skitter across the rippled surface of some subdued piano jazz. It sounded like a real piano and he knew from delivering there once that they had a big white one shaped like an ocean wave.

A handful of people drifted out to the edge of the terrace and he saw her once again. She leaned back against the terrace wall as she seemed to listen to someone he couldn’t see, her pale hair drifting in the summer air as though in the languid waters of a rowing pond.

In the apartment over the bodega, he could hear his kid sister suddenly rolling through the city’s radio stations on her big old portable aimlessly, looking for somewhere she’d never been before.

So, How Does It Look from the Stars?

I’ve been up to your penthouse but
I… I was afraid to look down
I’ve been all around the world
but I’m only at home on my own side of town

I’ve been up all night
trying to find
the right way to come down
I been inside out and I know all about
the emptiness all around

everything happens for reasons
but we never get to find out what they are
from way down here it all looks pretty big
so how does it look from the stars

you laid it all out
and I wanted so much
to just pick up
what you put down

I can taste it right now
but still somehow
I’ve finally found
the power to shine on

everything happens for reasons
but we never get to find out what they are
from way down here it all looks pretty big
so how does it look from the stars

[full version on Soundclick | requires Flash]

Fans of this song take note: this is among the songs I plan on revisitng a time or two during AYoS, so I hope you won’t feel shortchanged by the not-quite-there version above or by my reprinting the vignette I wrote in 2001 to promo the online release of the ‘studio version’ of the song.

In fact, next time, I plan on writing a bit about Dead End, the play (and movie) that helped inspire this song. Recently, I was lucky enough to see a big budget revival of the stage play and it was pretty amazing. Think looming, chaotic tenement stage set and — get this — a wharf over a huge tank standing in for the East River. Anyhow, that’s next time.

By the way, if you listen to any of the studio versions of AYoS songs, I would recommend you listen to this one (or perhaps the studio version of “Baby, I Just Got the Blues“). If you’re not familiar with my (one man) band one blue nine, you may be surprised.