New Country Song
If I could write a country song –
say all red, white and blue –
you know the stuff – ‘bout love and loss
and I been done wrong too,
I’d bring my darling up on stage
and light her bright gold hair
that she had doctored up for me
in case I’d call her there,
where I’d be singing some old song
and save a verse for her
where she sings I may cook your beans –
that’s all you get, good sir.
Let’s slip on off to home instead,
she whispers o’er the noise.
And so we do, as the sun comes up
to life and to wild applause.
– Charles Brady
Confession right off the bat – I am not a songwriter. You can Google all day and you won’t find my name on any songwriter list, and there’s a good reason for that. I’m pretty sure that I‘m not very good at it.
Oh, I have tried, but just when I think I’m onto something, I hit a snag as they say. Sometimes I hit more than one mountain-sized snag; I’ll try to give you some examples.
My Band (all good musicians except you know who), proudly call itself, “The Seldom Heard.” Before that, when it was just me and Charles Rooney pickin’ and grinnin’ in the hallways and classrooms where we both taught, we had decided to be called, ““We’re Not Chuck.”
When we got a bit more organized and gathered a few other musicians and got together more formally, we found that the twenty or so songs we had settled on required additional verses (We had decided that we would have as many of us as possible up there singing each song.) I found I could write additional verses because I was comfortable with rhyme and meter and had the ability to fit the new ones into existing tunes.
I wrote a couple of long verses for “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down,” a tune I like a lot more than some of the others I won’t name, and I have written quite a few extra verses for other tunes featuring our two fine lady singers, because I love to hear them singly or in harmony.
Maybe a little more background is required about here. Back when I was walking the woods of South and Coastal Georgia in the 1940s, I would sometimes try to yodel or sing out a few words from those long forgotten songs I heard on my Aunt Ella’s ancient wind-up Victrola.
Bet you’ve never heard “Hallelujah, I’m A Bum” or “”Tell Me Sweetheart, Would you Care?”
And back when I walked an old trail from our house outside of town to my high school in Nahunta, I’d sometimes find arrowheads and other treasures. But, when alone out there in the woods, I’d practice changing the tunes to the few songs I had heard. I still remember the way I sang, “Home On The range”…. speeding it up in places and slowing it down as it suited me….making it MY song.
Somewhere along the line as I was trying to write just ONE song, I realized that there were established patterns in the songs I knew – sometimes there were different words and different titles to the same TUNE. (Have you seen any of the programs showing how Broadway Musical tunes are often based upon classical compositions?
And speaking of that, let me put something in your head (actually your ears) that you will not be able to get rid of for some time. This shows a relationship of structure and meter between a famous poem and a famous song. Warning! It may stick in your head!
STILL WARNING! Here is the beginning of a poem by Emily Dickinson. Read it aloud then….
# 712
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
NOW, sing aloud Miss Dickinson’s words to the Tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
See? I’ll bet you know other songs and poems (I have written a bunch of poems copying Emily D. because I like the “Introduction-Summation” quality) with this eight-beat, six- beat meter.
Are the songwriters (The original “Yellow Rose of Texas” was written in Black dialect in the 1800s and sung by troops on both sides in the Civil War – with different Minstrel lyrics) stealing from Miss Emily? The last – and hugely popular – version had new lyrics by several different individuals. Gene Autry’s name is on one version.
Nope! I’m pretty sure the original writers were not familiar with the works of the reclusive Ms Dickinson.
Now, I’ll reference something a little more modern. Last week Lee and I attended a discussion by and performance of five new compositions by five composers. In the beautiful downtown performance hall, several excellent musicians performed the works. This was after each composer had carefully explained to us exactly what he (all men) was striving for. And 99 percent of that went over my head at great altitude!
My reaction to the music?
First, I enjoyed most of the PLAYING by master musicians! They created beautiful SOUNDS.
Second: Accept that I am quite a bit older than most in that audience, and consider that the majority of the audience appeared to UNDERSTAND the music and to appreciate it better than I. Nevertheless, my impressions:
To none of these compositions could I tap my foot, nor could I have danced (if I COULD dance); and nothing of the works remained in my ear for a good follow-up whistling exercise!
I do have to relate a description of one of the works for violin and clarinet.
The violinist NEVER actually played music; he caused the strings to sort-of scrape along. And the clarinetist (Is that a word?) never produced a clarinet sound; he just sort of “whooshed” by blowing his breath as through a pipe. Again, most in the crowd seemed to understand what was happening and to appreciate it.
Now, I will get to my realization about myself as a songwriter.
My band works on a group of tunes we call “The Mason/Dixon Waltz,” Combining three of the traditional Bluegrass and Country waltzes. One day I started thinking – always dangerous – I decided, without attempting to verify, that since there was no OKLAHOMA Waltz, ( Actually, although I was ignorant of the fact at the time, there are a couple but they’re seldom if ever played) I would write one! After all, a waltz is a waltz, and Tulsa is my adopted home.
Here is my masterwork – included in the event somebody wants to take it to Nashville:
OKLAHOMA WALTZ
I rode into Tulsa, a cowboy alone
And I knew I’d be lonesome that day,
But a raven haired beauty
With a Cherokee name
Said, I’ll dance all your sorrows away.
(CHORUS) (The last lines change slightly from verse to verse)
And we danced and we danced
To the Oklahoma Waltz
And in my arms she was nestled so tight
As we danced and we danced
To the Oklahoma Waltz
We were dancing ‘til we whispered Goodnight.
At dawn, in the saddle,
As I rode away
To the West and the cold winter wind,
I remembered her smile
As I whispered to her,
Don’t worry, I’ll come back again.
Now the years are all gone
And I never returned
To that girl with the Cherokee name
But each day and each night
I am dreaming of her
and I wonder if her dream’s the same.
Well, I have a buddy, a great musician with one of those giant Apple machines that writes music. He listened to me croak through the Oklahoma Waltz and gave me the music for it. But, as is true in lots of Country, the music and the singing part don’t always match up!
Members of my band, out of kindness and a deference to age, DID look at it a couple of times, and gallantly played along, and maybe one day, one of them will sing it better than I can and who knows. One day it could be up there on some minor label alongside, “I Won’t go Huntin’ With You, Jake, But I’ll Go Chasin’ Women.”
