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During an e-mail exchange with my friend Stu, the phrase “the oddest words” was used. I suggested that this was the name of a mid-‘60’s psychedelic band, and that their hit song had been “Get Me the Hell Outta Here.”
Over the next few weeks, I wrote a parody of psychedelia, based on that title, and over the next several years, recorded it here and there, finally having a finished product nearly a decade after I’d started. It’s among the most complex arrangements I’ve ever put together. My friend Paul helped out with some of the vocals in the later choruses.
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2. |
South Side Sam
04:26
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Again, this began with my friend Stu. One day in 2000, he wrote to tell me that he’d dreamed a chorus for a song about South Side Sam, and encouraged me to use those words, and the general idea, as I saw fit. As is often the case when someone put an idea in my head, the lyrics came flowing. I had the resulting song in a couple of days, and, by early 2001, I had the finished track.
This is just a good old-fashioned novelty song, with lyrics that would not have been accepted in the old-fashioned days. I was particularly happy with the Midi trad jazz arrangement I was able to build for this song. Stu’s original lyrics are in the final song: they are in the chorus which has the lines that involve local sports teams and, um, plastic tubs.
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3. |
A Few More Plans
03:11
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At age 21, in the waning days of a band that I was in, I wrote a song called “Plans,” featuring what may be the stupidest set of lyrics in history, along with a rollicking, careening melody and set of chords. Exactly 20 years later, in 2001, I decided to dispense with the lyrical garbage and make a revved up, cartoon-esque version of the melody, using as many different aspects of my then-new Midi keyboard as I could squeeze in. The track is wholly mechanical, and meant to be, but a hell of a lot of fun.
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4. |
Heavenly Deviled Clam
01:03
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On “The Many Moods of Bob”, I included a cover version of a commercial for “Puritan Deviled Ham” which came from a collection of obscure east coast ads from a company called Star Ads, a collection I’ve owned and treasured since I was 16. In 2000, while visiting my brother in advance of his wedding, I endeavored to make a note-for-note cover version of another great Star Ad, utilizing his home studio.
This one was for National Bohemian Beer, and the performance included my daughters, then eight and six, performing a spoken word part in the middle of the ad. For the chorus at the end, nearly all the relatives who were in his home that day sang along. For those who are interested, you can find the original ad (complete with a recipe error that I corrected), and five other classics from the Star Ads collection, at http://wfmu.org/365/2003/121.shtml
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5. |
Bag Of Raisins
02:52
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This was written in spring 2001 and recorded that summer. It’s one of my “Kitchen Sink” songs, where I take many of the random ideas that I’ve scribbled down over the previous few months or years, and try to tie them together into lyrics for a song. Some of these were from conversations, others were odd phrases I heard on radio or TV, and others were concepts that came to me out of nowhere. I tied them all together with an exciting, Caribbean-style track and ended with a musical quote from one of my favorite songs of all time.
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6. |
The Swift
02:30
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When I was 20 or so, certain friends and I would all sit around throwing out fake song titles and fake artists/bands to make each other laugh. The better ones got written down on lists which have, sadly, long since disappeared. At that time, one of the song titles I suggested was "Praise to the Swift," and that one always stuck with me. In 2008, I finally wrote the song, and recorded it the following year.
The sudden stardom (shortly before I wrote the song) of a certain female teen country singer has nothing to do with it; that’s a coincidence, for as I said, the title dates to about 1980. In fact, like so many of my songs (including at least five on this collection) where I portray, in the first person, someone who’s a bit of a crank or a crackpot, I have no idea what the narrator of this song is going on about. Speedy people? Very bright people? The bird known as a “swift”? I really don’t know.
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7. |
Things I Need to Know
02:55
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Around 2000, I randomly got an idea in my head to create a Gospel-styled song, but in which the singer, rather than singing about meaningful, deep religious beliefs, issues or feelings, was simply inquiring as to the answer to a series of mundane questions. I further pictured a gospel chorus who either weren’t paying attention to the lead singer, or had an old version of the lyrics, or both. I very quickly wrote the song, but knew I didn’t have the equipment, at the time, to create the Gospel choir sound I was hearing in my head. It wasn’t until 2015 that I had the sound software I needed to complete the project, which I then worked on, periodically, over the next two years until it sounded like it had sounded in my head. What you’ll hear is about eight tracks of my voice making up the choir plus my lead vocal.
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8. |
Bugada
02:36
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When I was first working with my own Midi set-up, around 2000, I taught myself how to use it by making a few “theme and variations” arrangements, using tunes I play on piano now and then. Three of those arrangements appear here. I think they’re fun and catchy, and I wanted to have these songs exist out in the world, when I’m no longer here to play them. The other two are my own compositions, but this one is by my brother Bill.
I put it together in the late spring of 2002 to send it to him as a birthday gift. He made the song up when we were little; we were about eleven (him) and five (me) at the time. There are (simple) words to this tune, but I didn’t include them. Everyone in my immediate family knows this song. I know that, in this swinging arrangement, the melody sounds suspiciously like a certain old American folk song, but in its original format, which was to a 6/8 march, there was no similarity at all. The last 30 seconds of this track are among my favorite moments of anything I’ve ever recorded: pure joy expressed through music.
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9. |
Around the House
03:56
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I first started falling in love with original 1930’s Calypso music in the mid-1980’s, when I found some 78’s and a very full reel of tape containing hours of that era’s version of the genre. It has subsequently become perhaps my very favorite genre of music. And around 2000, I got it in my head to write my own song in that 1930’s style. For whatever reason – probably the realization of just how much time it would take to do it right – I didn’t actually pursue putting together a track and recording it until 2013. The time it took was well worth it, I think; I consider this a lovely tribute and a funny song.
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10. |
Eat At Joe's
02:59
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When I was finishing up “Bag of Raisins” I found that I still had a lot of random ideas that I’d been unable to work into that song, and I quickly put together yet another “Kitchen Sink” set of lyrics, this time with a more cohesive topic, that of the family visit to a friend’s home.
I’m not sure if it’s the narrator who is hallucinating or if the family is as insane as they are being described. The momentary melodic lift from a classic 1950’s hit was deliberate, so much so that I inserted a line of lyric from the same song, at one point. This one was also recorded in 2001.
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11. |
Barker Bill
02:10
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This is a song that everyone in my family knew. We had owned it, on a Little Golden Records 45, since the early 1950’s, years before I was born. While at my brother’s home for his wedding in 2000, I put together a revved-up arrangement of it, complete with a Caribbean-styled solo break featuring my favorite instrument, the marimba.
I then asked all of my family members to help out, and they sing on the bridge sections, prior to my basso line. In the first bridge, you’ll hear my daughters Molly and Wendy (then 6 and 8), followed by my mother. In the second bridge, you’ll hear my sister Marcia, my brother Bill, and my niece Jessica. And everyone is in on the final five words. This is my favorite track on this collection.
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12. |
It's Monday
00:53
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When I was very little, my brother Bill told me of a nightmare he’d had, in which monsters flew up out of a crevice that was in a cabinet in our dining room, sang a one line song to him, then attacked him. The song remained with us as the years went on, and when I recorded my version of “Bugada” (track eight, above) for him in 2002, I also put together this little arrangement of his nightmare. I stretched out the one line song into a full 40 seconds or so of orchestral arrangement, leading into the brief song. I then asked my daughters and my friend Paul to sing the song along with me. Bill was quite pleased. Perhaps someone can make a 52-second horror movie out of this.
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13. |
I Was Fine!
02:24
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Late in 2002, I woke up having just dreamt a tremendously weird little song chorus: “I was fine until your mom got here / you deserve a personal shove from Julie Andrews.” In the dream, it was sung in unison by a chorus of men. I knew that needed to be developed into something, and the thing it turned into is deeply weird indeed.
I had it written and recorded by early 2003. The whole thing bounces along unsteadily, enhanced, if that’s the right word, by an equally off-kilter solo. Its woozy feeling befits the lyrics, which sound like they portray a seriously deranged person. By the way, all of the fine people mentioned in this song were alive at the time I recorded this. Finally, it’s worth noting that my regular recording software was out of operation at the time of this recording, and that this track was pieced together, believe it or not, on Windows Sound Recorder.
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14. |
Cloth
03:11
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ere is another of the three piano pieces mentioned above that I wanted to put out there for posterity. This is an arrangement of an extremely simple melody that I’ve been playing since I put it together in 1979, when I was 19. The source of the title is long since forgotten; it was an originally accompaniment over which my friend Paul and I would improvise songs over. Around 2006, I decided to expand it into a big beat production number, and succeeded beyond my imagination. I don’t tend to visually interpret music, but many others do, and I’ve been amazed at the variety of images that this track has inspired, over the years, among those who have heard it.
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15. |
My Hamburger Baby
02:33
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When I was first discovering song-poems, I quickly developed an online friendship with song-poem maven Phil Milstein, and, after I had found a stack of song-poems in a few local stores, he and I began tape-trading. In early 1997, the first song on the very first tape he sent me was the ridiculous Halmark label classic “My Hamburger Baby” (which was released to the rest of the world on an online compilation many years later). I found it jaw-droppingly weird, and it quickly became one of my favorites. Once I was up and running, using Midi to make backing tracks, I decided to try to make a note-for-note remake of the song. This is the result.
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The title line of this song was inspired by something I read online, and yet again, when presented with a nugget of an idea, I was able to build a song around it. Again the question is asked: is the singer more than a bit off, and imagining things, or is he involved with someone who is seriously deranged? I recorded at least three versions of this, and performed it live in an acoustic rendition once, before finding just the right arrangement for it.
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17. |
Look Who's Here
03:05
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I wrote this around 2009, and made a quick demo, but didn’t return to it until I began seriously pursuing recording again in 2015. It’s yet another “kitchen sink” song, containing a lot of the funny or unexpected word combinations that had occurred to me around that time – in this case, featuring some particularly ridiculous images.
The song is meant to be a sort of a comic riff on Dylan’s "Positively 4th Street" or Lennon's "Steel and Glass.” And again, the listener is hard pressed to determine if the singer is legitimately calling out a very weird person or if the singer himself is deluded about the object of his scorn.
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18. |
The Book
02:23
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Here’s a song that came pouring out of me in about a half hour one day in 2002. It’s a series of mysterious verses which build on each other. I then quickly recorded it, in the very atmospheric setting heard here. The song doesn't honestly quite fit with this project, as it's not a comic song. But it is SO unlike my serious material (which I also plan to compile soon), that I didn't know where to put it. In the end, I thought it worked a little better with my comic stuff. A real left-field composition for me, quite unlike anything else I've ever written or recorded.
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19. |
Slumber Boat
06:29
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The final of the three piano pieces here (along with “Bugada” and “Cloth”). The title has little to do with the music, and does not at all reflect the raucous, rollicking sound of the thing. It dates all the way back to the mid 1970’s. The story of the title is convoluted, but basically, this was the backing/melody for a set of lyrics around which my friend Andy and I would improvise lyrics.
But it works, for me, as an instrumental just as well. This is basically a broken-chord exercise, written when I was 16, and a piece which have been playing ever since. In 2001, I constructed this version using my first Midi keyboard, and that’s what’s heard here in theme and variations. Again, this is not twisted in any way, but I'd hate to be gone before a version of it is out in the world, because it is undoubtedly the piano piece I've played the most often in my life.
Enjoy the fish!
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Bob Purse Illinois
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