This Stuff Is Just Too Weird

As soon as I think I feel better, I immediately feel wiped out again. Just tired, though. The weight is definitely out of my lungs now, so I’m not going to complain. I’m just trying to roll with it.

Peitor and I have decided to do Abstract Absurdity Productions work tomorrow instead.

Meanwhile…

Even though 90% of the songs I wrote in the 80s & 90s have not been digitalized, I actually do have an mpg file of one of the earliest songs I wrote after I moved to NYC. I was 21.

This song was actually really popular in the folk clubs and other folk artists covered it, which, of course, was a thrill for me.

It has a very Caribbean feel to it.

Here’s me back then. And this is Stephen, the guy who is playing all the instruments on this particular recording from back then. We made this recording in his bedroom. We recorded a ton of music together in his bedroom, although he was a drummer/singer in a New Wave band. Almost everyone I knew back then was a musician, and almost all of us played a different style of music, in different clubs, different parts of the city. But we all got along really well. (Let’s just say we partied intensely. I seem to recall never sleeping for about a decade…)

Anyway. Stephen was one of the nicest & most talented guys I ever knew. He was from the South, and has long since returned there to get married and settle down.

We are pictured under a statue of Bo Jangles in Richmond, Virginia. 1982. Enjoy, gang! I love you guys.

“SAME OLD STORY”

Well, I’ve got a story that you gotta hear
Oh, come on, sinners, gather near
Well, I promise it’s a story you’ll like real well
About liars
lovers, cheaters

And I’ve a got a secret, do you wanna know?
I’ll tell you all about it, then I gotta go
I’m going down to the water when the tide comes up
And jump over
Up and over

‘Cause I took a journey into paradise
Giving up my freedom was the sacrifice
Oh, but I had a man who said the price
Was worth it
For love
And I believed him

CHORUS
It’s the same old story ‘bout a woman who’s found
That she’s tired of his drinkin’ and his runnin’ around
So she tries to get him into settling down
And he leaves her.

(Not in body, but soul)

I’m not a dummy, Lord, I went to school
Oh, but I took a gamble on a stubborn mule
If I thought I could change him,
I was more a fool
But I tried to
Every chance I got

Soon, he was comin’ in at quarter to three
I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me
Until the night when I saw him
Kiss that dark-haired girl
And he held her
In the back seat of his car

CHORUS
It’s the same old story ‘bout a woman who’s found
That she’s tired of his drinkin’ and his runnin’ around
So she tries to get him into settling down
And he leaves her.

(REPEAT VERSES 1 &2)

(REPEAT CHORUS)