Despite despising country music as a concept – and being appalled by most of its leading practitioners – it sometimes comes out as a sonic aesthetic when I’m writing. Years of listening to the Stones will do that to a man. So much so, in fact, that I’ve amassed enough songs at this end of the pitch to contemplate it as the tonal pallet for my third album. Christ alone knows I’m sad enough at the moment to pump out a dozen such maudlin songs without breaking a sweat. Anyway, here are the fruits of this mood.
Lyrics:
I’ve got nothing to venture
I’ve got nothing to gain
From looking for pleasure
While I’m drowning in pain
They say I’m not sorry
And I won’t shoulder the blame
But my burden’s a bucket
Brimful of shame
I can’t even say how much it weighs
And if I told you my secret
Would you stay? Would you just walk away?
And then I look in your eyes
And I tell you a lie
‘Cos if I told you the truth
I’m scared that you’d just say goodbye
I hide behind smiles
That I don’t really feel
Half of my feelings
Aren’t even real
I can’t even tell which ones are me
So if I told you my secret
Would you stay? Would you just walk away?
So then I look in your eyes
And I tell you a lie
‘Cos if I told you the truth
I’m scared that you’d just say goodbye
Goodbye….
Thoughts
Perhaps, subconsciously I feel more at home in the genre than I do in the blues because I am a lardy white Yorkshireman, it seems less… fraudulent to play with the genre a bit. It’s hard to sing the Chicago blues while looking out of your conservatory window at a trampoline, for example.
Like all singers, I hate my voice, and this early version exposes it quite a lot – it’s very ‘naked’ but on the other hand, the feelings of the lyric are very naked too. It’s just an honest recording.
Now, there are still gaps to be filled – particularly the instrumental passage (for which I have no answers, despite hours fruitlessly noodling on guitar and piano) but there’s enough about this unadorned, roughish take that I thought I’d preserve it before it ends up having more polish. A little glimpse into the process, if you like.
And that concludes this week’s episode of What The Fuck Am I Doing?