Okay, here's the first Wyman Park Glee Club collaboration. I started writing a song, and I've posted what I've got so far. It's just a couple lines and chord changes, about 30 seconds worth. Below is the backstory, along with the lyrics and chords so far. Do what you will with it--rerecord it with new lyrics and chords, post ideas or new chords and lyrics to the comments section, whatever. I have no idea how this will work.
Here's what's going on with the song...
On the EP I put out last year (lyrics, mp3s), there were a couple similar characters--proud, cynical, and desperate to bust out of their small towns. They romanticized the big city and talked a big game about their ambitions, but were obviously not doing anything about it, being more content to sit at home feeling sorry for themselves. I was playing off of a few archetypes:
- Bruce Springsteen's spit into the wind, hop into a hot rod, squeal the wheels, and leave this town behind guys
- The bored provincial with delusions of reckless, passionate experiences in town, who really just wants to escape reality (and, like Emma Bovary, will designate an actual place--Rouen--where she can go to escape reality)
- The small town kid who splits the farm for the big city to reinvent himself and climb into high society (usually after falling for a noblewoman, like Eugene de Rastignac did in Balzac's Pere Goriot...je m'excuse for all the Frenchy references)
- Unavoidably, Holden Caulfield ("I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.")
Except these guys didn't leave. The songs were of the "obvious lie" genre (i.e., tons of country/bluegrass songs like "I'll Just Pretend"...or "Missing You" by John Waite).
This new song will follow one of these guys after he splits the small town and moves to the big city, where he quickly becomes disillusioned with the decadence, shallowness, gossip, self-centeredness, and vicious competition (see Dorothy Parker's Bohemia).
Write whatever you want. It could go anywhere. He might become vicious, stepping on people to succeed in something, but losing his soul in the process. He might fail miserably. He might find a way to transcend the bullshit, doing what he ultimately wants to do without having to deal with the "crumby phoneys." He might leave it all behind and go home. Or it could be she, not he.
It's a little Broadway (or "8th grade musical," as a friend once described Ben Folds) right now, but that can change, too.
Here are the lyrics and chords:
____
A#maj7 Gm Cm9 C9
There's a reason why hero rhymes with zero,
Dm7 C9
Mostly having to do
C7#9
With this town.
Fmaj7
This town.
A#maj7 D#maj9
This town, this town.
A#maj9
This town.
F F#dim
Ahhh-ah-ah-ahhhhhh....
Dm
Ah-ahhhhhhh
G
Ahhhhhhh
___
I look forward to hearing from you! |
