Category Archives: blues

Slide Interlude

Slide interlude

Q Lately it seems like your AYoS posts have been increasingly late and increasingly brief. Where are all those goofy little vignettes I’ve gotten in the habit of reading while listening to your podcast?

What gives?

A We musicians and songwriters have a technical term for the answer to that question. We call it the day job.

It’s both the engine of freedom which keeps us from having to perform back-to-back versions of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” in subway stations and on popular promenades as well as the perennial distraction that drags us away from the important business of making original music few will likely ever hear and even fewer will care about.

Which might seem to provoke the question: Why bother with music at all in the first place?

Might as well ask the caged bird why he sings…
SLIDE INTERLUDE

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Turn your dimmer way down low…

Turn your dimmer way down low...

previous AYoS version

Dimmer

Wake up baby, turn your
dimmer lights down low
When it gets yellow like this it hurts my
eyes — but it eases my soul

Come here baby pay those
monkeys in the shadows no mind
Those monkeys are my demons — they been
waitin’ for me such a long time

I been down — but it
never looked like up to me

I been down but I guess
down isn’t what it used to be

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She couldn’t keep from cheatin’ — she never did stop lying [Baby Was a Friend of Mine]

Baby was a friend of mine...

previous AYoS version

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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War on Alcohol [Another Dead Soldier (in My War on Alcohol)]

War on Alcohol

 

 

I lay awake at night, baby
but it ain’t because of you
I’m just listening to the plaster crack
and the clock tick in the next guy’s room…

ANOTHER DEAD SOLDIER (IN THE WAR ON ALCOHOL)

Woke up this morning
wondering about last night
kinda think I coulda took some drink
but my memory just don’t serve me right

Now the last thing I remember
You were walking out the door
My hand reached for the bottle
and then there ain’t no more

Just another dead soldier
in the war on alcohol
put him with his brothers
line ’em up against the wall

Just another dead soldier
in my war on alcohol
I won’t be satisfied
til I’ve killed them all

I lay awake at night, baby
but it ain’t because of you
I’m just listening to the plaster crack
and the clock tick in the next guy’s room

You’re just a blue recollection
but that ain’t nothing new
I’m gonna drown than memory
it’ll be the last thing I do

Copyright 1982, T.K. Major

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