Am F
If you feel you wanna fight me,
C G
There’s a chain around your mind.
When something is holding you tightly,
What is real is so hard to find.
Losing babies to genocide,
Oh, where’s the meaning in that plight.
Can’t you see that we’ve really bought into
Every word they proclaimed and every lie, oh…
CHORUS 1:
Am C C F F C
If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads,
G
And into our hearts…
If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads,
And into our hearts…
Someone’s feeding on your anger.
Someone’s been whispering in your ear.
You’ve seen his face before;
You’ve been played before.
These aren’t the words you need to hear.
Through the dawn of darkness blindly,
You have blood upon your hands.
All the world will treat you kindly,
But only the heart will understand, oh understand…
CHORUS 2:
If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads,
And into our hearts….
Children of Abraham, lay down your fears, swallow your
tears, and look to your heart.
(repeat CHORUS 2)
Every man is his own prophet,
Oh, every prophet just a man.
I say, all the women stand up, say yes to themselves;
Teach your children best you can.
Let every man bow to the best in himself;
We’re not killing any more.
We’re the wisest ones, everybody listen,
‘Cause you can’t fight this feeling any more, oh, any more…
CHORUS 2 (repeat)
End on:
Am
Ohhhh….
** These chords and lyrics are interpretations and transcriptions, respectively, and are the sole property of the copyright holder(s). They are posted on this website free of charge for no profit for the purpose of study and commentary, as allowed for under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law, and should only be used for such personal and/or academic work. **
It was definitely one of those “clouds parting” kind of Chris Moore Mondays for me.
First of all, I should clarify that “Chris Moore Mondays” is the title we use around here to remind you all that it’s my job to post a great cover song music video for you each and every Monday evening. Next, I should explain the “clouds parting” aspect. Well, I woke up around 5:30 this morning and was having serious difficulty getting myself out of bed. Then, I noticed I had an email from bobdylan.com.
Long story short, I had woken up to find the link to a free download of the new, unreleased Bob Dylan track “Beyond Here Lies Nothin.'” It will be track one on his upcoming album, Together Through Life, to be released on Tuesday, April 28th. Sorry, Jim — this means that your birthday the following day is going to be something of an anti-climax. 😉
In all seriousness, this is an exciting bit of New Music Tuesday news. After all, there were five years of separation between 2001’s Love and Theft and 2006’s Modern Times. Now, it’s been less than three years and there’s a new release. Based on the first track alone, I couldn’t be more excited. It’s a pretty simple song — only three chords and a basic verse, chorus, repeat structure with a few instrumental breaks thrown in and a classic Dylan chorus style in which the lines in each chorus are slightly different. I wasn’t sure what to think of the lyrics at first, but they’ve really grown on me today as I’ve listened to the song repeatedly and learned to play it. I’m still not sure what to think of lines like “The whole world is my throne” or “And every window’s made of glass.”
The conclusion I’ve come to is that this is a deceptively simple song. In the beginning of the song, Dylan sings of a lover in terms that express fairly standard love-song mentalities. Still, by the end of the track, he compares himself to a ship in harbor with the sails up. This implies that the ship is about to leave harbor, or perhaps that he is ready to move on to something — or someone — new. And yet he goes on to tell his lover that she should lay her hand upon his head. In typical Dylan fashion, even a love song has darker overtones, as played out in the chorus lines. The choral sections really are my favorite lines. “Beyond here lies nothin,'” he sings, “But the mountains of the past” or “Nothin’ done and nothin’ said.” There is simply nowhere else he would rather be than where he is, as he acknowledges that there is nothing “beyond here.” The questions, of course, are 1) where is “here”? and 2) does he really want to be “here” or are there simply no better options?
As I mentioned, it’s a fairly simple song. Even I was able to figure it out in short order. It’s three chords — Am, Dm, and E — easily within my register with an uptempo beat. It’s actually caused a bit of a debate among Dylan fans who have disagreed over the use of accordion in the song and the state of Dylan’s vocal abilities. As far as I’m concerned, the instrumentation is excellent, raw and loose but very intentional and fitting, accordion or no accordion. As for Dylan’s voice, I read one user’s take on the fansite expectingrain.com. He essentially said that Dylan’s vocals have deteriorated even more than they had on Modern Times. My reaction is simple:
Really?
I mean, if you’ve followed Dylan over the past decade and enjoyed Time Out of Mind or the aforementioned two albums, then you know that his gritty vocals are fitting. He may not stand a chance on American Idol, but I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing! Another post that I read made a great deal of sense. This user basically argued that Dylan’s vocals on studio recordings and during live performances should be weighed separately. I agree with this — while his vocals may be a bit difficult to understand and follow in concerts at times, his studio recordings haven’t failed to impress me — including vocals, instruments, etc.
Needless to say, I hope you enjoy my take on this brand new Dylan song. If you’re a guitarist, you should check out my chords and lyrics (see the link above) and have fun playing it yourself. And, without further ado, I wish you a good night and a great week…
So, in the middle of the second biggest, busiest weekend of my semester, I decided to record a Laptop Session. A couple years ago, this would have been no surprise, but it’s been a long time since the “session-a-day” workaholic’s regime ruled this blog.
July 26th.
That’s the date I posted my last acoustic cover song music video. I’ve recorded performances of original songs since then, but it’s been since before the premiere of Steven Page’s “Indecision” that I posted a true Laptop Session.
Back in July, I had based my cover on an acoustic performance by Page that a fan had posted on YouTube. That pretty much sums up my working philosophy concerning covers: I’m not on a schedule so much as I’m waiting for the interest to strike. Of course, I keep plenty busy in between writing music reviews and publishing playlists, as well as facilitating the Guest Sessions division of the blog, and I’m happier about my work here than I’ve been in a long time.
Still, there was an appeal to those days when cover songs were the sole focus of our efforts, and we were excited about expanding our repertoires at a breakneck pace.
That being said, I’ve learned fairly recently that the past is a nice place to think about and even visit, but I wouldn’t want to stay.
Today’s session is born out of how pleasantly surprised I was to find how much I like the Goo Goo Dolls’ early nineties work. I’ve been a fan of the band since I first heard “Iris” on the KISS 95.7 morning radio show in early 1998. I remember saving up my allowance so I could pick up the song the next time my parents took us out to the mall. This being before I understood and appreciated albums, I picked up the first CD I could find with “Iris”: the City of Angels soundtrack. (If I remember correctly, Dizzy Up the Girl hadn’t been released yet.) This wasn’t a complete loss, as this is the disc that introduced me to other great songs like Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House,” Eric Clapton’s “Further On Up the Road,” and one of the few U2 songs I truly love, “If God Will Send His Angels.”
Needless to say, I fell even more in love with “Slide” when that was released as the follow-up single. Looking back, I took this time period entirely for granted: excellent rock bands like the Goo Goo Dolls were on the radio all the time and their music videos were being played — sometimes at full length (gasp!) — on MTV. To this day, I can’t listen to “Iris” without imagining clips from the video, like in the tower or under the over pass.
At the end of the day, though, I’ve always felt Dizzy Up the Girl to be an okay album and not much more. There are some outstanding songs — “Broadway” became and remains my favorite song from the album and “Acoustic #3” is utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful — but there are also a handful of “okay’s” and throwaways. Compared to other albums I was listening to at the time — BnL’s Stunt and Matchbox20’s Yourself or Someone Like You — Dizzy Up the Girl took a back burner, and I never bought a follow-up album. By the time I was old enough to know about and be interested in back catalogs, I had left the Goo Goo Dolls behind.
Fast forward to 2010. Something For the Rest of Us is released, and interestingly, my review of Dizzy Up the Girl could be duplicated here, with only the specific song titles needing to be changed. (For the record, “Still Your Song” is in the running for my favorite GGD song and there are others, like “Sweetest Lie,” that I love.) My friend Mike kept singing the praises of this new album, so I gave it another chance (thus falling in love with the aforementioned songs that I hadn’t paid more than one listen), but the result still falls flat in comparison with his enthusiasm.
Then, Mike, my girlfriend Nicole, and I saw the Goo Goo Dolls in concert.
Several songs into the setlist, something clicked. I finally “get” the Goo Goo Dolls. Unlike Third Eye Blind (another late nineties favorite of mine that promptly faded from my radar when I “got” them and consequently got bored), the Goo Goo Dolls have such depth and energy that I had partially forgotten and partially missed. So, I set out to find albums from their back catalog. The first two I’ve been able to find are 1995’s A Boy Named Goo (discussion of which I will reserve for a future post) and 1990’s Hold Me Up. The latter is such a boneheaded album filled with boneheaded little rock songs like “Laughing,” but I loved it instantly. Almost immediately, I began singing a quieter version of “Laughing” to myself, eventually figured out the chords, and have played it now and then over the past week. Finally, I got the urge to record it today and voila!
It should be noted that I’m rusty and the consequences are as follows: I didn’t comb my hair, I didn’t think to hook up my new USB microphone that I’ve been using to mic sessions for my new album, and I absentmindedly dragged over the nearest item that would hold my cheat sheet at the proper level. The results? I look disheveled, it’s harder to hear me than it should be, and I smelled the vague whiff of cat poop throughout my two takes (turns out the aforementioned item is the cat’s poop bin, moved into the spare room while the bathroom is being worked on).
So, without further ado — and there’s been much ado, many parentheticals, and a slew of sidebars — I bring you my first authentic Laptop Session in over four months. My acoustic arrangement is certain to drum up a compliment or two and a much greater number of grammatically nonsensical rants about my talent (or lack thereof) and sexual orientation, but that’s the only way to know I’m back on the blog!
Hello and welcome to my first true Laptop Session in quite a while — since December, to be specific, when I covered the Goo Goo Dolls song “Laughing.” Well, I’m back today with an original song from my new album, The 2010 Project, which was released just a couple weeks ago. In fact, the day after my album hit the web for download, Mike Fusco (who mixed and produced it) and I went to see the Goo Goo Dolls. This was our second time seeing them — and I won’t repeat what I wrote about them back in December — but suffice it to say that it was exciting going to see a band with so many anthemic songs, a group that can create such energy and drive the audience so masterfully. And look like they’re having the time of their lives on stage.
We left the concert revved up: proud of the project we had just completed the day before and excited for new music to come.
So, now that a couple weeks have passed and I’ve had the opportunity to play The 2010 Project songs live again, thinking of them as whole songs to perform rather than in pieces (as I did during the recording sessions), I had the itch to return to the Laptop Sessions and debut those songs that haven’t been seen and heard here yet.
This is the second track on the album, “Threshold,” and one which stands out from the rest for the fast delivery during the verses and the statement of purpose in the chorus that could very well be the thesis statement for the entire album. For this video, I (for obvious reasons) couldn’t include the guitar solo performed on the studio version, so I broke out my “E” harmonica and worked out a simple solo and added some flares to the beginning and end of the performance. It clocks in at under three minutes, and is a good example of the type of music I’m making these days.
And, for those who have heard the demo version, this is a significantly improved arrangement!
I also recorded “You Will Thank Me” as well as the single from the album “It All Comes Around,” so check back for those videos in the coming weeks.
