Tag Archives: kiss-off

Those blues will sit on your head…

Special Feature: Feelin’ post-literate? Listen to the audio version of today’s commentary…

(music below)

LA's Not Such a Big Town

Ah…

The big kiss off… engine of ten thousand songs. A veritable cornerstone of pop music. Topic of some of the 60’s best rock and pop writers: your Dylans, your Stones, your Lennons and your McCartneys, et al.

It was a time when everyone seemed to be telling someone (and sometimes everyone) else to just go… jump in a lake.

My lost generation was telling our parents — who we now revere and lionize as the Heroic World War II Generation — to take their repressive social mores and rigid caste and racial divisions — and their “ugly little war” in Vietnam — and… take a hike.

Workers were questioning the advantage of the yoke. Foremen and bosses were telling their bosses to shove it up the executive elevator shaft. And the rich were ignoring the pleadings of their brokers and legal staffs to join monasteries and ashrams.

But me… I was trying to make my relationship with my GF of the moment work…

I can hear the eyeballs rolling up across cyberspace… but, honestly… oh, never mind…

Let’s say that I thought, then, that I was trying to make it work.

At any rate, I wrote this while I was still involved with my GF of the moment… and would be, on and off, for a couple more years, give or take…

And I told her it wasn’t about her or directed to her… but she was a very smart young woman and it took her about a half-minute to unscrew her face after she heard me play it the first time… which was gratifying.

LA’s Not Such a Big Town

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previous versions
Monday, December 12, 2005

lyrics
LA’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
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 through the night
thinking ’bout 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

Now, Baby, It’s Never [v.2]

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Now, Baby, It's Never

[Still spun from the creative frenzy of writing a new song, I’ll be taking a break from my normal scribbling, here, so that I can decompress a bit and blab about a new toy that may be of interest to some of you.]

previous AYoS version

The ever-minimal AYoS project ratchets up its minimalist impulses with today’s posted track, recorded strictly with my new $80 USB microphone and my laptop and a pair of headphones.

My fellow podcasters and musicians may want to take note of this mic, since it combines in one (roughly 2 pound) mic shell a reasonably decent mid-size condenser mic, a preamp, a 16 bit audio-to-digital converter, and a USB interface. For 80 bucks (US) at music gear discounters.
XXXXX
Because of the nature of USB, there is a delay in monitoring the incoming signal from the mic over headphones while performing — so it’s best to turn off input monitoring. That means you might have to use the old trick of partially lifting one headphone to better hear your voice, acoustic guitar, etc, when you overdub.

The newly recorded tracks should match up, though, on playback. USB uses a time stamping feature to realign synchrized audio data. That said, various DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) softwares have different ways of dealing with the tiny timing inaccuracies inherent in current digital audio applications.

I saw this mic announced early last fall and kep waiting to hear from someone who had bought one — which I thought would be almost immediately, since it attempted to fill a particular need and at a very low price.

I posted in a couple of audio forums about the mic, hoping to provoke interest, but month after month, no one reported buying XXXXX one. I finally got tired of waiting, picking one up at one of the local music megastores this afternoon. Packaged in a reusable plastic bubble pack that serves a moderately protective function, it came with a special USB cable [don’t mix it up with others] and a mic clip for mounting on standard or European stands.

It’s pictured here (on a sheet of standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper) with a stand I ordered online for about $19 with shipping. (Quiklok A188 Desktop Tripod.) As you see it here, the stand is still attached but folded back for transport.

I’m blathering, I realize, but I know there’s been a fair amount of curiosity about this mic among laptoppers and podcasters. Anyone who wants to ask me more about it can use my contact form to email me.

previous AYoS version

Now, Baby It’s Never

Everything you say
seems to mean goodby
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

LA’s Not Such a Big Town

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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

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

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