Song A Week 2016 - Look In Yer Heart

I didn't do a song last week and man, the outcry!  Wow.  The reason was that last week's song was destined to be a remix of a Grampa Big Balls recording titled Tip Of A Red Hot Penis that I made some years ago   Remixing?  A breeze. All fine and dandy.  Then I started making the video for the sound piece, comprised of thousands of stills, each displayed anywhere from .11 of a second to .22 of a second.   The collection of images alone has been a time consuming process and when I finally got to making the video, it took me 8 hours to make one minute and forty seconds of video....for a six minute noise piece.

So it has become apparent that that particular piece will be an ongoing work and I figured I'd better get back on the horse.  Before the horse keeled over and drowned in a ditch.  I've been singing this number from the past and decided to give it a whirl......a reboot of an old Dogbreath Brothers song, Look In Yer Heart.

Funny how a song changes through the lens of twenty years.  Here it is.  

And yah, that's Jerome presiding over the recording.

  

Look In Yer Heart

words and music by David P. Smith

Don't go lookin for yourself in a bottle

you'll just crash and burn

you won't find yourself in a reefer

when will you ever learn

You ain't funny when you're wasted

you don't talk too smart

Next time you go lookin for yourself

try lookin in yer heart

I'll throw you down

to the ground

kick you in the back

kick you 'til you hork and hack

and cough up your soul so black

You see yourself in the TV

but it ain't really you

Don't go lookin in some magazine

to tell you what to do

You don't need no gurus

them fellas don't talk so smart

Next time you go lookin for yourself

try lookin in your heart

I'll pick you up by the collar

and give your head a slap

don't give me no backtalk

I'm tired of your crap

You can check out the Dogbreath Brothers version here:     Look In Yer Heart  

Song A week 2016 - New Blues #2 - Funeral Blues - Live with The Ape Shit Army - February 26, 2016

The last two weekends have been spent doing gigs with my current band, The Ape Shit Army.   It's been nourishing and stimulating to practice and play regularly with this group of musicians:  Dan Weisenberger on guitar, Jody Johnson on upright bass, and Rad Juli on drums.  Sometimes entertainment juggernaut Hank Pine joins us for some apocalyptic cello licks, as he does on this recording. We are supplemented vocally at times by Jeanne Tolmie, Ana Bon Bon, and Betty-Ann Lampman.  This shit is fun.

The skeleton of this song was born and documented on Song A Week 2012. I wrote it as an "introductory song" for a songwriting workshop I was attending as a lead up to Arts Wells.  At that time it was New Blues #3....somewhere along the road of rehearsing and recording it became #2 and #3 became #2.  Likely, you don't care about these trivial details.  But dammit that's the meaningless crap I obsess about.  

Since it debuted here as a little baby song in a shitty disposable diaper, it's grown some balls.
This version was recorded live at Solstice Cafe in Victoria, BC,  Friday night on my zoom mic. Tonight I messed around with random video clips I've accumulated on my phone and Frankensteined together a "video" to provide visual stimulus.

 

Funeral Blues

Words and music by David P. Smith

I emote with icons

stumbling down the passage of time

with two thin dimes on my feet

silver dollars in my sockets

draped in a cool white sheet

I could see the storm a-rising

as I rolled on round the bend

I was thinking about the funerals

I've been planning to attend

in my cum-stained pants

my curly hair shirt

in my wagon of woe

dragging a world of hurt

with a sack of blood

a bottle of dirt

Lightning struck the cruise ship

it shattered like a pomegranate

and I clung to two hearts that keep me anchored on this planet

Chorus

Sightless and speechless

a maggot wriggles in the muck

contemplates the vagaries of old Lady Luck

Is a bum hand better

than no hand at all?

It it best to grovel in shit

or to climb up and risk the fall

Sun pierced through the clouds

a heavenly sword of wrath

and I said to the maggot

Yo maggot do the math

Chorus

I could see the storm a-rising

as I rolled on round the bend

I was thinking about my funeral

and who might attend

the haters

the lovers

my sisters

and brothers

Stars rained from the sky

tiny daggers in the night

and I said to myself hey Davey boy

it's fight or flight

it's fight or flight

it's fight or flight

Chorus