When in Doubt Throw it out When in Doubt Stand up and shout When in Doubt Just do without When in Doubt What’s it about? When in Doubt Kick them out When in Doubt Prepare for drought.
When in Doubt Figure it out When in Doubt Follow the scout When in Doubt Take another route When in Doubt Go in or out When in Doubt Sit there and pout When in Doubt Hold your snout.
When in Doubt Better to be stout When in Doubt Follow the crowd When in Doubt Say it out loud When in Doubt Pretend you’re proud When in Doubt Hide in your shroud When in Doubt Water the sprout.
When in Doubt Open the spout When in Doubt Time to head south When in Doubt Shut your mouth When in Doubt It’s not allowed When in Doubt Fields should be plowed When in Doubt Do a recount.
When in Doubt Always in doubt When in Doubt Always in doubt
When in Doubt Close your account When in Doubt Pay any amount When in Doubt Prepare for draught When in Doubt Follow the crowd When in Doubt Say it out loud When in Doubt Shut your mouth.
Maybe I’ve been lookin’ for the wrong thing. Searching for the perfect harmony, When I can’t even sing.
Maybe I am way out of my depth. Thinking; just another minute Right when I lose my breath.
I have banged my head against every wall: Waited for anyone I know to call. Listened to the righteous, but above all Followed those thought of as weak or small.
Independent, courageous and defiant; Yet I can’t seem to help myself. Beat the dumbest giant.
So sure of myself all those years ago. Put everyone that I love on hold. Places I’ll never go.
I can solve everyone else’s problem. Yet can’t even see my own. The Wrong Thing lives again.
I have banged my head against every wall:
Waited for anyone I know to call.
I have banged my head against every wall:
Waited for anyone I know to call.
The Wrong Thing lives again. The Wrong Thing lives within.
These lyrics are a sister version of Deep Inside. Writing the song I think I had too much to say so I ended up writing two songs with similar themes and lyrics. Neither is what I had planned and I am not convinced it worked out for the best, but I like the lyrics for each. The meaning is too complicated to get into details. We all hold a lot deep inside. Life is a journey full of traps with no signs to tell you how to get out.
I wrote lyrics for Take Away One based on the idea of removing a particular note from a 4-note-chord. This leaves you with a specific 3-note-chord. Hence the name of the song and also the foundation for the original poem. I had to add a verse to the poem converting them to lyrics because for a few weeks one band member or the other could’t make a scheduled music jam. Often three members would drop out one by one leaving me as the only bandmate that made it for the jam! Sometimes we travel and jam in person, but more often we use a program for on-line musicians and connect from our homes. That is how we survived the Covid-19 lock-down.
You will notice the difference right away. This is another example of a song that came together really fast because it was based on a mathematical theme or idea. The chord pairs were based on the idea above, but the progression was completely random. The arrangement was pretty basic so it wrote itself. Once I had the title it was easy to think of examples in life where things get taken away. You’re probably doing it right now.
If you get writers block, try starting from a different point. I’ve never had writers block in my 50 years of writing and recording songs, so maybe I’m on to something.
I had fun with the ending and the arrangement has a few twists as usual. Enjoy Take Away One.
Every decade or so I think I have written the best song I will ever write. Then I get older and write another. That is how I feel about Enemies in Your Head. It is a simple, powerful, emotional and deeply moving piece for me. I recorded the song with a piano, bass guitar and one vocal track. A capsule of desperation and futility. No end in sight. Often the price is paid, though there is no reward.
I posted a poem called “Take Away One” recently. I knew this one was a song in the making so I started working on writing music around the theme. I tell my friends that I ‘feel’ music theory more than I know or understand it. Sometimes I look at the patterns and rhythms, often I get fascinated by melodies that twist within the chords. Often I get distracted by simple mathmetical relationships in music – ’cause that’s what it is.
There are many tonal relationships between chords in any arrangement. For background, two notes played simultaneously is an interval. With three or more individual notes you can form a chord. The more notes within the chord the greater the potential for complex tones. Some combinations sound calm, delightful and inspiring. Other combinations are uncomfortable or have a lot of dissonence. Some are downright ugly by themselves if truth be told.
Not to get too deep here, because I can’t swim in these waters, but the arrangement uses the relationship when you have a 4 note chord (of any root note you prefer). Start with a G Major 7th chord as my example. It consistes of 4 individual notes: G (the root here by definition of the chord name), B, D and F#.
If you Take Away One – the G in this example as root note of the chord – you have a 3 note chord called B Minor. The arrangement consists of alternating between pairs of Major 7th chords and their relative minor 2nd chord. (or is it its 2nd relative minor?). Then I pick another random pair of Major 7th/2nd Minor chords and continue. Hence the name of the song.
I am working on the melody line and recording the vocals but here is the instrumental version of “Take Away One“.
As with many authors, I often write about my personal experiences. For some, peace is not something to be attained but avoided. Quiet leads to suspicion and tension. Better to whip up some good old fashioned drama that helps you feel excited and important. In the center of the storm you can’t feel the winds ripping the rest of the world apart. This is what makes you happy, but there is only room for one.
This was just a fun song in so many ways. National news has always been a good source for ideas and material and Cut the Fat takes it all and smashes it into a kaleidoscope of political slogans to irrational fears. In the recording I got everyone including neighbors, my kids and other relatives to sing and read news sections. My wife Ellen did a quick run on the vocals to get a feel of the timing. We never recorded another take.
I have referenced members of my originals band many times in this blog. I was fortunate to meet Tom Robinson in my senior year of high school. It was a rough time in my life. Just finding people even similar to you was difficult let alone finding friends. TR and I became friends immediately. He let me borrow a guitar so I could learn how to play and we could play guitar together. That became the core of a song-writing community that would span decades. A number of local musicians, songwriters and interested observors orbited that core. Separate core members were discovered and their songs were also shared.
I moved up to Dayton, Ohio and became part of the Merchants of Death. (….story to that name and it is really cool but no time for that now) With percussionist/vocalist Tom Gorman and bass guitar genius Mike Wheeler, TR and I blended the Cincinnati sound with the Dayton sound. This was my first real band in that we only played out a few times for friends and family, but we listened to each other. We wrote great songs together. Members filled in for core members as needed. I recorded almost everything with two Radio Shack condensor microphones (that I still have) sitting somewhere on a coffee table on my 4-Track Tascam/Teac reel-to-reel tape deck. Yes, this was 50 years ago.
We got back together on-line during the Covid 19 lock down. The latency was difficult but the connection was priceless, and we started jamming regularly. Eventually we were brave enough to meet in person and had a blast dusting off the old tunes. From that we decided to begin where we left off and started to record our first album project entitled Reinstated. Thinking the ‘Death’ reference in our name was a bit too close to home, we refer to this project as The Merchants.
We have a collection of original songs and a few tasty cover tunes that we perform in our own style. I think you will like a number of these. The project includes 18 songs (18!!) and that might give you the impression that we are done. As logical as that might seem for a bunch of old guys, we are already recording our second album project!
TR was goofing around with some old pictures and I decided to make a short video to introduce the Reinstated project release. Unfortunately I do not have a whole lot of flashy media from those days but there are some pictures that are worth a thousand words. To visit Youtube click here.
I have an easy web page that links to most media streaming services so you can get an idea what we were playing last millenia. To hear more of The Merchants – Reinstated, click here.
Thank you all for the years of listening and sharing. MIDIMike.
MidiMike 