Saturday, January 22, 2005
Dennis Miller & Two Condoms
Inspiration is a funny thing. Being an amateur songwriter, I can never actually pinpoint where a song comes from. I had come up with a song idea once about how my romantic life had a lot in common with Wyle E. Coyote. It was an interesting idea, but I couldn't do anything with it. That idea kicked around in my head for a couple of years before pen ever touched paper. When I did start writing it down, it just came out like I was copying something someone had told me. It was almost like I wasn't writing it, quite an amazing feeling.
"Beer is the Answer" was similar. Glen Purdie (I do hope you're reading this Derek.....) said something as I walked across the bridge on my way to my control room at USSB. Strangely, I don't even remember exactly what he said, something along the lines of "What was the question?". It wasn't so much what he said, but how he said it. That soon turned into "Beer is the answer, what was the question?". An odd sort of philosophical thought on life followed, how life is a test that doesn't grade on a curve. I recognized that thought as the end of a song, a final verse, but what to write before that? The idea sat around for a couple of months. Then one day, back at work, I started thinking about how, even though I'd truely like to know everything, the only thing I really know is what I like - and I like beer. Two verses came out in a couple of minutes, to go along with the final verse that was pretty much written in my brain.
Those two songs were before I really understood how to play guitar. "Wyle E. Coyote Blues" had a harmonica riff that went with it, but "Beer is the Answer" was something that I could only sing. I knew how it went, but I couldn't play a harmonica part for it, or impart to anyone how to play it on guitar. After learning to play guitar a little bit, I started fiddling with some lyrics I had written over the years. I found that if I played G, C and D chords that I could make my lyrics fit. Since these are both basically blues songs, it made sense from a music theory point of view. Those are the I, IV, and V chords in the key of G. Good lord, I had written a song! I mean a real song, not just something a sang around a harp riff.
Now I admit that I'm not the most imaginative songwriter, particularly musically. I stick to the I, IV, V chord pattern, maybe adding the minor chords for that key or adding a seventh here and there. But at least I had a basis, an idea of how to arrange chords and put words to them. A couple of songs came quick after figuring that out. Generally stuff came pretty easy.
I used to work overnights at public TV, getting to watch all of those fine educational shows that get shown in classrooms around the state the next day. One program that struck me as very funny was called "A World of Polymers." In the introduction, the narrator proclaimed "We live in an age of Polymers!" For some reason I just couldn't stop laughing. I imagined future archaeologists, talking about the developement of man, listing stone age man, bronge age man and polymer age man. Then I started thinking about how all of these advancements that glorious polymers are helping to bring about aren't nescesarily for the good. Life was simpler when we killed our food with stone tools. I'm sure it was stressful, kill that mastedon or don't eat, but stone age man didn't have to sit behind a dozen container trucks, stuck on the 710 on the way to work.
So I started working on "Stone Age Man in a Polymer World." It was probably my favorite song idea ever. I wrote a verse and half of the chorus almost immediately. Then it just roadblocked. The next verse and the remainder of the chorus were like pulling teeth. I couldn't squeeze the lyrics out of my head to save my life. One Sunday afternoon, I sat down to my legal pad in the living room, convinced I was going to finish this song.
But sometimes you don't write what you set out to. For no particular reason, something Dennis Miller had said on Weekend Update during SNL years before came to me. Talking about safe sex, Dennis remarked that he wore two condoms during his every day life, then he whipped one of and felt like I wild man before he had sex. I had sat down to finish "Stone Age Man," but in less than ten minutes I wrote the following:
All day long, I wear two
All day long, I wear two
All day long I wear two condoms
'Cuz your virtue is untrue
Then I whip one off and feel like a wild man when I'm with you
Don't know where you been
Or what diseases you got
I just see your body, baby
And it makes me hot
All day long I wear two condoms
'Cus your virute is untrue
Then I whip one off and feel like a wild man when I'm with you
Where the hell did that come from? I grabbed my guitar and used my trusty G, C, D chord pattern. It worked! So I had two verses for a song, but it needed something. I wanted some sort of bridge to a third verse, but something just a little melencholy. For inspiration, I went to Mojo Nixon. I though about his "Vibrator Dependent" and how there's a vamping/rapping sort of bridge built on a single minor chord. I tried the E minor chord and it was what I was looking for. Mind you, I had no idea what words I would be writing here, I was looking more for a sound. I thought another minor chord would help me achieve that sound, so I played an A minor chord after the E minor. That was exactly what I was looking for. Now I wanted to build back to the third verse, climb out of the minor chords and back to the G, C, D pattern. A minor into a C chord is pretty easy to do and sounds kind of cool. Follow that up with something really bright going back into the verse. The D chord would work, but the D7 chord sounds brighter. I played it all together, it sounded exactly like I wanted it to. I had no idea what words I wanted in the little bridge I'd constructed.
The two verses come directly from a Dennis Miller joke. I think it's pretty cool that I can pinpoint exactly what my inspiration was. I have no idea where the lyrics for the bridge came from. All I can figure is that I can see the grocery store I shop at from my apartment:
You always tell me
It's just a silly habit
We ain't at the grocery store
And I don't have to double bag it
But darlin', your express lane
Is in an awful mess
And I don't think you know the meaning
Of fourteen items or less
I don't know how many items you can take through the express lane. Since I shop at odd times, it's really never been an issue with me. TSA joked that I called all the area grocery stores and asked, averaging the results. In actuallity I probably picked fourteen because twelve didn't fit the meter.
So I played my first two verses, added the bridge and then repeated the first verse. I had written a song in under 15 minutes. If it didn't have any effect on people, no amount of time it was written in would have mattered. But it got giggles from the first time I played it. It got me free beers and the admiration of the management at a small open mic. A musician with more talent than I will ever have has asked if he can cover it. I guess it was sort of successful.
Every song is a story, but every song also has a story.
BOJ
"Beer is the Answer" was similar. Glen Purdie (I do hope you're reading this Derek.....) said something as I walked across the bridge on my way to my control room at USSB. Strangely, I don't even remember exactly what he said, something along the lines of "What was the question?". It wasn't so much what he said, but how he said it. That soon turned into "Beer is the answer, what was the question?". An odd sort of philosophical thought on life followed, how life is a test that doesn't grade on a curve. I recognized that thought as the end of a song, a final verse, but what to write before that? The idea sat around for a couple of months. Then one day, back at work, I started thinking about how, even though I'd truely like to know everything, the only thing I really know is what I like - and I like beer. Two verses came out in a couple of minutes, to go along with the final verse that was pretty much written in my brain.
Those two songs were before I really understood how to play guitar. "Wyle E. Coyote Blues" had a harmonica riff that went with it, but "Beer is the Answer" was something that I could only sing. I knew how it went, but I couldn't play a harmonica part for it, or impart to anyone how to play it on guitar. After learning to play guitar a little bit, I started fiddling with some lyrics I had written over the years. I found that if I played G, C and D chords that I could make my lyrics fit. Since these are both basically blues songs, it made sense from a music theory point of view. Those are the I, IV, and V chords in the key of G. Good lord, I had written a song! I mean a real song, not just something a sang around a harp riff.
Now I admit that I'm not the most imaginative songwriter, particularly musically. I stick to the I, IV, V chord pattern, maybe adding the minor chords for that key or adding a seventh here and there. But at least I had a basis, an idea of how to arrange chords and put words to them. A couple of songs came quick after figuring that out. Generally stuff came pretty easy.
I used to work overnights at public TV, getting to watch all of those fine educational shows that get shown in classrooms around the state the next day. One program that struck me as very funny was called "A World of Polymers." In the introduction, the narrator proclaimed "We live in an age of Polymers!" For some reason I just couldn't stop laughing. I imagined future archaeologists, talking about the developement of man, listing stone age man, bronge age man and polymer age man. Then I started thinking about how all of these advancements that glorious polymers are helping to bring about aren't nescesarily for the good. Life was simpler when we killed our food with stone tools. I'm sure it was stressful, kill that mastedon or don't eat, but stone age man didn't have to sit behind a dozen container trucks, stuck on the 710 on the way to work.
So I started working on "Stone Age Man in a Polymer World." It was probably my favorite song idea ever. I wrote a verse and half of the chorus almost immediately. Then it just roadblocked. The next verse and the remainder of the chorus were like pulling teeth. I couldn't squeeze the lyrics out of my head to save my life. One Sunday afternoon, I sat down to my legal pad in the living room, convinced I was going to finish this song.
But sometimes you don't write what you set out to. For no particular reason, something Dennis Miller had said on Weekend Update during SNL years before came to me. Talking about safe sex, Dennis remarked that he wore two condoms during his every day life, then he whipped one of and felt like I wild man before he had sex. I had sat down to finish "Stone Age Man," but in less than ten minutes I wrote the following:
All day long, I wear two
All day long, I wear two
All day long I wear two condoms
'Cuz your virtue is untrue
Then I whip one off and feel like a wild man when I'm with you
Don't know where you been
Or what diseases you got
I just see your body, baby
And it makes me hot
All day long I wear two condoms
'Cus your virute is untrue
Then I whip one off and feel like a wild man when I'm with you
Where the hell did that come from? I grabbed my guitar and used my trusty G, C, D chord pattern. It worked! So I had two verses for a song, but it needed something. I wanted some sort of bridge to a third verse, but something just a little melencholy. For inspiration, I went to Mojo Nixon. I though about his "Vibrator Dependent" and how there's a vamping/rapping sort of bridge built on a single minor chord. I tried the E minor chord and it was what I was looking for. Mind you, I had no idea what words I would be writing here, I was looking more for a sound. I thought another minor chord would help me achieve that sound, so I played an A minor chord after the E minor. That was exactly what I was looking for. Now I wanted to build back to the third verse, climb out of the minor chords and back to the G, C, D pattern. A minor into a C chord is pretty easy to do and sounds kind of cool. Follow that up with something really bright going back into the verse. The D chord would work, but the D7 chord sounds brighter. I played it all together, it sounded exactly like I wanted it to. I had no idea what words I wanted in the little bridge I'd constructed.
The two verses come directly from a Dennis Miller joke. I think it's pretty cool that I can pinpoint exactly what my inspiration was. I have no idea where the lyrics for the bridge came from. All I can figure is that I can see the grocery store I shop at from my apartment:
You always tell me
It's just a silly habit
We ain't at the grocery store
And I don't have to double bag it
But darlin', your express lane
Is in an awful mess
And I don't think you know the meaning
Of fourteen items or less
I don't know how many items you can take through the express lane. Since I shop at odd times, it's really never been an issue with me. TSA joked that I called all the area grocery stores and asked, averaging the results. In actuallity I probably picked fourteen because twelve didn't fit the meter.
So I played my first two verses, added the bridge and then repeated the first verse. I had written a song in under 15 minutes. If it didn't have any effect on people, no amount of time it was written in would have mattered. But it got giggles from the first time I played it. It got me free beers and the admiration of the management at a small open mic. A musician with more talent than I will ever have has asked if he can cover it. I guess it was sort of successful.
Every song is a story, but every song also has a story.
BOJ
# posted by Blind Orange Julius @ 9:23 PM 
