Category Archives: acoustic

Paperback

Get Down Baby There 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

There Ain’t No Heart in My Heart Anymore

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Ain't No Heart in My Heart No More

Sometimes, back in the days of my fitful career as punkrocker-turned-folkie, I used to tag myself as the Bard of Bitterness, Denial, and Regret.

My ol’ man used to always say, If you’ve got a lemon tree, make lemonade.

[This was written on a stormy Saturday in Mexico I wrote about in the first week of the AYoS project, in my post for the song, Looking for Trouble. It was the second of three songs I wrote that day. I subsequently posted the third, Not One of Those Dreams.]

There Ain’t No Heart in My Heart Anymore

There ain’t no heart
in my heart no more
I don’t know where it’s gone
but it’s gone for sure
Maybe it went with you
when you went out that door
but there ain’t no heart
in my heart anyore

I feel like giving up and maybe I should
I cant go on and I know it’s no good
There aint no meaning
in life any more
no there aint no heart
in my heart anymore

The end just means
we begin again
where did you say I signed
I’ve lived this life
one two many times
I don’t think I can take it twice

Too many loves
too many lies
too many broken lives

too much night
too little love and way too little love
and nothing to show for a life

refrain
There ain’t no heart
in my heart no more
I don’t know where it’s gone
but it’s gone for sure
Maybe it went with you
when you went out that door
but there ain’t no heart
in my heart anymore

I Can See Myself in My Guitar

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I Can See Myself in My Guitar This is the headstock of my first guitar. Sharp-eyed comics fans will note the faded image of the Silver Surfer, which was sliced off the cover of Silver Surfer issue # 2 with an X-acto knife. This, I believe makes it the most expensive (if not valuable) guitar of its class, ever. Well… how was I to know? It was 1971 and it felt like the whole world was tipping on the edge of the apocalypse. The last thing on my mind was the future value of a comic no one else I knew had ever heard of…

But, actually, it was my third guitar (below) that was the first one I really fell in love with… a love affair that has mellowed with time but is no less deep to this day.

I Can See Myself in My Guitar That battered old Yamaha came to me at a time when I was really down. My little house had been burglarized and my big, shiny dreadnaught steel string had got sucked out into the night with 300 of my most recently played LPs, my turntable, my tape deck, a bunch of my tapes… a bummer.

I moped around for a couple weeks without a guitar, being a broke student with a couple of part time jobs. Finally one of my friends mentioned his brother in law had an old guitar he wanted to sell. I was a little let down when I heard it was a nylon string classical — the Silver Surfer guitar was a nylon guitar and it was virtually unplayable, and had a flat, lifeless sound I could never make work for anything but scratchy rhythm.

But I came over and met his brother in law, a young hippy guy. He pulled out this Yamaha G-130A classical, a little dinged, the plastic (!) varnish worn away a bit on the butt, in a cardboard case. But it had a sweet, warm tone, completely unlike the ‘Surfer. I asked him how much he wanted for it.

Thirty-five or forty, he said. I offered him $37.50, which gave him a chuckle and we shook hands.

I’ve loved that guitar ever since.

I Can See Myself in My Guitar

I can see myself in my guitar
I can see myself in my guitar
It’s getting kind of old but it’s shiny
I can see myself in my guitar

I can see myself in my car
I don’t care what anyone says we’ll go far
I can see myself in my car
out in the country, we’ll go far, we’ll go far

I can see my self in everything
ain’t nothing cosmic, it’s just there
I can see myself in you
and you know and you know
I see you everywhere

I can see myself in my guitar
I can see myself in my guitar
It’s getting kind of old but it’s shiny
I can see myself in my guitar

Spit in the Ocean

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Spit in the Ocean
I wrote this song when I was working in a gas station in a very rough part of town. You might think, from the lyrics, that I was feeling small, myself, but, much to the contrary, I felt like I was on top of the world. I had a job. I had a car. I had a nice little house I was renting in a decent neighborhood. I had a beautiful, whip-smart girlfriend. And the people around my gas station, by and large, had nothing. So, in a sense, I was writing about myself.

produced version [dub mix – on Soundclick]

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.