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