I'm calling this installment "Deep Cuts" because I freakin' LOVE double entendres. Just ask any of the guys in my band, my book club, or my fantasy baseball league (he said ball). In fact I would rather speak in double meanings (he said wood) than breathe. OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but give me a couple drinks and I'll gladly enter any double meaning contest even if I'm just competing against myself (he said ... uh, nevermind). Thank you, Beavis. Thank you, Butt-head.
What does this have to do with songwriting? Well, the song I'm featuring this week is a "deep cut" in at least two senses of the phrase. First, it's one of my oldest tunes and I have to go way back in my personal songwriting history to dredge it up. Second, the lyrics are quite literally ripped out of some seriously internal places in my psyche. If my spiritual and emotional core was the continental U.S., this song came from somewhere between Casper, Wyoming and Rapid City, South Dakota: just left of center, very old and very rustic.
Deep as all that sounds, it started innocently (and not very deeply) enough. A friend of mine's wife walked by me in a public park and as we exchanged hello's while passing each other I could have sworn that she leered at me! This was out of character for her, totally inconsistent with the relationship we had or have since had, and basically just didn't make any sense. I actually fretted about whether or not to ask her about it for about 15 seconds, but luckily I came to my senses. Instead, and some time later, I jotted this down:
Caught your eye, at least I think I did
Coulda been my imagination
Girls like you don't usually care for guys like me
And man oh man did I have an instant love-hate relationship with that phrase! All the angst and frustration of being a high school boy who never really had a serious girlfriend, who enviously watched his dumb-ass friends date all the girls he wanted to date, just came roaring back. And I hated revisiting that feeling, but the phrase summed it up so nicely that I got painfully enamored of it.
Fast forward to another time and place, and I'm sitting at one of my favorite watering holes and me and a buddy are doing what guys do when they drink ... make fun of each other. Then when that gets boring you start telling stories, usually blatant lies about meaningless crap just to get a rise (he said rise) out of somebody. This particular lie involved some bragging by my friend about sexual exploits. Now I knew he was lying, and he knew that I knew he was lying, and there was no specific sexual partner implicated, but somehow I also knew that the lie was covering up a painful truth:
That reminds me of a talk I had
With this fella 'tween shots of tequila
One night as we were telling lies and comparing scars
And with that I laid the groundwork, the structure, for the rest of a song about what most men want, but few of us will admit: a closet full of killer shoes. Wait ... wrong blog. What I meant to say is that what we want at our core is to love and be loved, but most of us don't have the language skills or courage to admit that. So what do us guys do? We go to a bar hoping to meet that dream girl, but we settle for beer. And that predisposition to settle, that willingness to compromise from the start, makes us miss a lot of important things in life. And why? Because we're afraid to get burned again, or ever, or have to admit we need or think we need somebody else to feel whole. So we settle for beer. I've been going to that same bar for 10 years now and I can promise you it's chock full of people who are settling for their favorite brand of, or substitute for, the sweet beer.
As for me? I like to believe that I didn't settle, but in order to have the courage NOT to settle, I had some serious soul searching to do first. Which raised the question, how the hell do you search your soul--it's not like we have a built in switch to flick, especially us guys? As I asked myself that question, I thought of my high school sophomore English teacher who taught us how to write "stream of consciousness" and this happened:
Treat this guitar just like a key to a door
Kinda scared of what's behind it
Takes all my nerve just to crack 'er open and step inside
But I'm more afraid of being alone
Never been content with coasting
Wanna step through that backlit door and see what's there
It all makes perfect sense to me. All the things I wanted to do or change in my life but was afraid of, and the reasons I was afraid, are all there. Just six little lines of phrase was all it took. How pathetic and ethereal at the same time.
You probably won't be surprised to hear that until now I really didn't circulate this one outside of my inner sanctum of friends and family. But I'm OK with wider distribution now. I think I've learned a lot of the lessons that I was challenging myself to tackle at the time. How that all subsequently transpired will show up in future posts on this blog.
Until then, thanks for reading, and thank YOU boys.
To listen to the song Settle For Beer, please click on the link below, navigate to "Audio" on Steve's Sonic Bids page and select "Settle for Beer" from the music player list:
http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=48837
SETTLE FOR BEER
Caught your eye, at least I think I did
Coulda been my imagination
Girls like you don't usually care for guys like
That reminds me of a talk I had
With this fella 'tween shots of tequila
One night as were telling lies and comparing scars
He's a regular at my favorite tavern
Always something wise to say
Considers himself to be the public house Voltaire
Told me that night as he was fading fast
The reason that he hangs in bars
He said, "I'm hoping for some love, but I'll settle for beer."
Me and my boys started playing one day
Cause we had us an awakening
Figure to get a little more out of living if we live a little more
Treat this guitar just like a key to a door
Kinda scared of what's behind it
Takes all my nerve just to crack 'er open and step inside
But I'm more afraid of being alone
Never been content with coasting
Wanna step through that backlit door and see what's there
So I thank you folks for listening tonight
Don't expect you to respond
Because I'm hoping for some love, but I'll settle for beer
Yeah I'm hoping for your love, but I'll settle for beer
(c) Steve Celestini
What does this have to do with songwriting? Well, the song I'm featuring this week is a "deep cut" in at least two senses of the phrase. First, it's one of my oldest tunes and I have to go way back in my personal songwriting history to dredge it up. Second, the lyrics are quite literally ripped out of some seriously internal places in my psyche. If my spiritual and emotional core was the continental U.S., this song came from somewhere between Casper, Wyoming and Rapid City, South Dakota: just left of center, very old and very rustic.
Deep as all that sounds, it started innocently (and not very deeply) enough. A friend of mine's wife walked by me in a public park and as we exchanged hello's while passing each other I could have sworn that she leered at me! This was out of character for her, totally inconsistent with the relationship we had or have since had, and basically just didn't make any sense. I actually fretted about whether or not to ask her about it for about 15 seconds, but luckily I came to my senses. Instead, and some time later, I jotted this down:
Caught your eye, at least I think I did
Coulda been my imagination
Girls like you don't usually care for guys like me
And man oh man did I have an instant love-hate relationship with that phrase! All the angst and frustration of being a high school boy who never really had a serious girlfriend, who enviously watched his dumb-ass friends date all the girls he wanted to date, just came roaring back. And I hated revisiting that feeling, but the phrase summed it up so nicely that I got painfully enamored of it.
Fast forward to another time and place, and I'm sitting at one of my favorite watering holes and me and a buddy are doing what guys do when they drink ... make fun of each other. Then when that gets boring you start telling stories, usually blatant lies about meaningless crap just to get a rise (he said rise) out of somebody. This particular lie involved some bragging by my friend about sexual exploits. Now I knew he was lying, and he knew that I knew he was lying, and there was no specific sexual partner implicated, but somehow I also knew that the lie was covering up a painful truth:
That reminds me of a talk I had
With this fella 'tween shots of tequila
One night as we were telling lies and comparing scars
And with that I laid the groundwork, the structure, for the rest of a song about what most men want, but few of us will admit: a closet full of killer shoes. Wait ... wrong blog. What I meant to say is that what we want at our core is to love and be loved, but most of us don't have the language skills or courage to admit that. So what do us guys do? We go to a bar hoping to meet that dream girl, but we settle for beer. And that predisposition to settle, that willingness to compromise from the start, makes us miss a lot of important things in life. And why? Because we're afraid to get burned again, or ever, or have to admit we need or think we need somebody else to feel whole. So we settle for beer. I've been going to that same bar for 10 years now and I can promise you it's chock full of people who are settling for their favorite brand of, or substitute for, the sweet beer.
As for me? I like to believe that I didn't settle, but in order to have the courage NOT to settle, I had some serious soul searching to do first. Which raised the question, how the hell do you search your soul--it's not like we have a built in switch to flick, especially us guys? As I asked myself that question, I thought of my high school sophomore English teacher who taught us how to write "stream of consciousness" and this happened:
Treat this guitar just like a key to a door
Kinda scared of what's behind it
Takes all my nerve just to crack 'er open and step inside
But I'm more afraid of being alone
Never been content with coasting
Wanna step through that backlit door and see what's there
It all makes perfect sense to me. All the things I wanted to do or change in my life but was afraid of, and the reasons I was afraid, are all there. Just six little lines of phrase was all it took. How pathetic and ethereal at the same time.
You probably won't be surprised to hear that until now I really didn't circulate this one outside of my inner sanctum of friends and family. But I'm OK with wider distribution now. I think I've learned a lot of the lessons that I was challenging myself to tackle at the time. How that all subsequently transpired will show up in future posts on this blog.
Until then, thanks for reading, and thank YOU boys.
To listen to the song Settle For Beer, please click on the link below, navigate to "Audio" on Steve's Sonic Bids page and select "Settle for Beer" from the music player list:
http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=48837
SETTLE FOR BEER
Caught your eye, at least I think I did
Coulda been my imagination
Girls like you don't usually care for guys like
That reminds me of a talk I had
With this fella 'tween shots of tequila
One night as were telling lies and comparing scars
He's a regular at my favorite tavern
Always something wise to say
Considers himself to be the public house Voltaire
Told me that night as he was fading fast
The reason that he hangs in bars
He said, "I'm hoping for some love, but I'll settle for beer."
Me and my boys started playing one day
Cause we had us an awakening
Figure to get a little more out of living if we live a little more
Treat this guitar just like a key to a door
Kinda scared of what's behind it
Takes all my nerve just to crack 'er open and step inside
But I'm more afraid of being alone
Never been content with coasting
Wanna step through that backlit door and see what's there
So I thank you folks for listening tonight
Don't expect you to respond
Because I'm hoping for some love, but I'll settle for beer
Yeah I'm hoping for your love, but I'll settle for beer
(c) Steve Celestini
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