Having barely written anything over what was a fairly dismal 2022, I suddenly can’t stop writing songs. This is cheerful indie nonsense and I won’t have a word said against it. Usual drill: have a listen, read the words, and then I’ll bore you with some details. Much love.
Lyrics
Everything I heard about you makes me think that you’re the one for me
I heard you’re footloose, and you’re fancy free
So do you want to hook up?
Everything I heard about you makes me warm – and in my fantasy
You’re close enough that I can hear you breathe
When you’re drifting to sleep
I hear your hair is blonde
Your eyes are green
Show me everything that I’m going to see
I’m so dizzy I can’t breathe
People tell me that you put out – I gotta tell you that I really need
Some human comfort and your lips on me
So please tell me it’s true
On the bus over to yours, I felt nervous like I’m hypnotised
I bought some flowers cos I was advised
You’re a romantic at heart
I hear your hair is blonde
Your eyes are green
Tell me everything that I’m going to see
I’m so dizzy I can’t breathe
Everything I heard about you turned out to be a fantasy
Your teeth were crooked and unsanitary
I had to make an escape
I couldn’t bear to tell you to your face so I’m afraid that I crept out of bed
Crawled out and snuck off to the pub instead
Cos christ I needed a pint
You smelled of Vaseline
Your teeth were green
Everywhere I turned there were socks on the floor
Even when we kissed I had one eye on the door
You were so much older than
I’d been informed
When I saw your wig I’m afraid I freaked out
If there’d been a way I’d just have sneaked out
Everything I heard about you could be true but I’ve made quite the mess
I’ve just found out I’d got the wrong address
Thoughts
My newish collaborator (and actually my oldest friend) remarked recently that I was in danger of “turning into Leonard Cohen” on the back of a run of slow/mid tempo, vaguely serious songs. I suspect this effort – penned in extremely short order (under 24 hours from inspiration to completion) is a bit of a reaction to that.
Awake at 5am again, I picked up my guitar and thrashed out the opening chords with nothing much in mind. They were C, C/D#, E and G, and the melody just kind of happened – as is sometimes the case. Literally brainless.
But it was irritatingly catchy, and so onwards I ploughed. As it happened, I already had a partial lyric – basically the opening couplet – from an aborted song I was working on a couple of months ago, and it just fit the metre of the melody so seamlessly that it was truly fated to be.
Without amplification to hand, but with inspiration flowing hot through my veins, I worked out three guitar tracks by holding my unplugged electric guitar really close to my iPad: nothing too flashy, but enough to thicken the sound and add some overtones. While working on the melody, I decided that it was a little bit high and dropped it down to C for starters.
Thus the verse came with barely a thought. The chorus…. well. I’m not sure there is actually a chorus? The verse is so irksomely ear wormy that I struggle to call the contrasting part a ‘chorus’ at all. It’s a kind of hybrid middle 8-cum-bridge really. This is where there is a little bit of harmonic interest. There’s a run of three descending chromatic chords (A, G#, G, F) and then.. something else? I know there’s an Emin, an Amin, an F, a A# and then… something else. A D over an F#? Or an F# with a D in it? I dunno. I like the effect though.
Final twist: a key change into A major, and then another into D for the final verse, rounded out with a punchline delivered at slower speed.
In a way, I really enjoyed writing this. The style of music, and the way it was written reminded me very much of being back in the 90s – when I used to pump out poppy guitar songs like this for fun. Artists often age out of their original roots: it does seem daft being almost 50 and singing a song that sounds like it was written by a 19 year old, but…. why? Who gives a fuck? Not me.
With all the music assembled, the lyric was going nowhere much until I hit the punchline. Another thing that’s disappeared from the charts are songs with a story: you don’t hear opening lines like “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar” or “I love you from the bottom of my pencil case” these days – not in the charts anyway. And you don’t get a complete story with an end, which is a great sadness to me. Lyrics can be about anything – even a joke. And so I’ve run with it.
Listening back to it in the car, I’ve hit on some more harmonies to add – and I’ll probably get my tame bassist to do some proper bass on it, but basically: good brainless fun.
And, seeing as you’re not paying for it, I don’t much care what you think anyway. I bid you good day.