Song Writers - strutt your stuff

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 05:12 AM

Couldn't have done it without that tune Phil.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: the fence
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:20 PM

Thanks for the mention Mike

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:09 AM

Lyrics and several mp3's can be found at Alaska Mike's Lyric Page . I hope you like 'em.

Mike

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Johnhenry'shammer
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:56 AM

That was me by the way. I forgot to log in.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:55 AM

Tell me what you all think...

Title: Mack's Blues

Well the devil gotta be a woman
Cuz a woman been temptin' me
Grab me by the hand and take me 'neath that apple tree
Said grab an apple. Why? Cuz they're mighty tasty

Ramblin' down the highway
With my old guitar and harp
Cold weather killin' my body but that woman killin' my heart
With a lovin' .44 she keeps on her side

Jumped on a freight train
The KC number 2
Ole' devil still tryin' to make me feel blue
I said, "get thee on back behind me, Satan."

Hopped aboard an airplane
Flew to Vietnam
Devil woman asked me if I'd be her man
I said, "sure," she said, "well nevermind."

Finally got the strength
And told the devil woman to go away
A few seconds later I said oh baby please stay
I was strong but that devil's always stronger

Subject: Lyr Add: TOO MUCH FOR OUR WHISTLE (Bob Clayton)
From: Songster Bob
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:37 PM

Another one of mine, this one with a tune attached:

Too Much for Our Whistle

Tune: Red River Valley

It was Ben Franklin who told it,
A tale from when he was a boy.
Bright pennies lay there in his pocket
When he spotted a wonderful toy.
A bright, shiny whistle – he bought it,
But his brothers told him with a laugh,
"You paid far too much for your whistle;
You could have had it for half!"

Chorus:

Are we paying too much for our whistle?
It's a question heard all 'round the earth.
Are we paying too much for our whistle?
Is it costing far more than it's worth?

When you see a car ad on your TV –
"No interest, and no money down!"
Do you rush right down then and buy one,
And drive it all over the town,
Where you're joined by all of those others,
In long lines just going nowhere?
Then think of the words of Ben Franklin,
As you gasp for a breath of fresh air.

Chorus

The president called him, "A monster."
The president said, "He's a threat!"
And "We've got to invade them to save us"
From the weapons we haven't found yet.
Our forces used "shock and awe" tactics –
We rolled over their army with ease,
And took quick control of the oil fields
We need to feed our SUVs.

Chorus


Copyright ©2003 Bob Clayton

Subject: Lyr Add: AIN'T IT A SHAME (Bob Clayton)
From: Songster Bob
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:34 PM

One of my lyrics (too bad you can't hear the tune -- it is in C and features an Ab->Bb->C chord pattern in the chorus):

Ain't It a Shame?

Verse
They caught a shoplifter at the Redi-Mart last night;
Twenty bucks in merchandise hidden in his socks.
Took him to County Jail, he went without a fight,
Now they've got him safe behind their locks.

Chorus

Ain't it a shame? A cryin' shame!
Whatever else you call it, it's a shame.

Verse
He was a working man before he got locked up;
The stuff they caught him stealing, he needed for his kids.
Now he's in County Jail, and drinks a bitter cup
Looking at a life gone down the skids.

Chorus

Verse
The mayor called reporters in to rail about the crime
We find all around us in these modern days for sure --
Need a new County Jail for these crooks to do their time,
Taxes going up to keep us pure.

Chorus


Bridge:
So the mayor and the council pass a big appropriation,
Issue bonds and contracts to some local corporations,
Condemn the land they need and start to tear old houses down
To build this fancy sin-bin for the town.


Verse
They're breaking ground today, in ceremony grand --
Twenty million dollar deal, but one man, all alone
(Just out of County Jail), knows that the speaker stand
Marks the spot that used to be his home.

Chorus

Copyright ©1999, Bob Clayton. All rights reserved.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: goodbar
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:25 PM

I wrote this in 5 or 10 minutes for my buddy who just dropped out to go fly helicopters. Say what you want, it's my favorite thing I've ever written!

"I Miss Greg"

Dm C G C

C F
I made a couple of beer runs by myself
C G
It worked one time but I didn't have much fun
C F
I couldn't carry much
Am G C
And I was by myself

F C
I don't miss the long walk I miss the walk with you
F G C
I don't miss a heavy backpack I miss having two

It was two underage kids on an epic adventure
With two empty backpacks destined for the unknown
I don't know why I still call it that
'Cause it worked every time

I don't miss the alcohol I miss getting it with you
I don't miss being drunk I miss getting drunk with you

And though it makes me sad I guess it's for the best
'Cause you've got a dream and that's so much more than I have
Just promise to remember me
And those Friday night - double-18 - beer runs at the Shell

'Cause I don't miss the alcohol I miss getting it with you
I don't miss being drunk I miss getting drunk with you

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 08:51 AM

Here are a couple of links to some personal stuff I put on a historical society web site (I run it and technically own it, so I get to do what I want with a lot of things):

Liberty White -- This is about a short-lived railroad back in the early 20th century.

The Day the Wind Came -- This is about a tornado in 1935 that almost wiped out a local town. My mother witnessed this from a safe distance.

These pages have lyrics but also have links to rough MP3s of the songs.

SC

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Soldier boy
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 08:36 AM

Thank you very much catspaw49 and Marion.
That's amazing. I honestly did not know that such collections of songs had previously been gathered on Mudcat.
That's precisely the kind of creative input I was looking for when I started this thread in all innocence.
So it looks like all the hard work has already been done.....






Or has it?

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Marion
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 02:40 AM

I put lyrics, chords, and back stories for most of my songs here:

Marion's stuff

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 02:36 AM

There are an awful lot of songs on threads related to that particular thread topic which are original by 'Catters. Also we used to regular song challenge threads on all manner of topics. Some of the end results were put together in Aine's Mudcat Songbook
which can be accessed anytime thru the Quick Links at the top of the page.

Also there is a good bit of original Mudcatter material on the Mudcat Cafe CD set. That's also up at the top of the page where it says, "Order Mudcat CD's."

Spaw

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Amergin
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:40 AM

Oh, great, Jim....next you two will be playing doctor....

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Jim Lad
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 10:56 AM

Soldier boy: I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Cheers
Jim

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 09:11 AM

Give Tim a chance- he's a good man!

The thing I like about him, he'd not farting around with all these Olde Tea Shoppe topics for folk songs. theres a real feel of human life going on in the next room - rather any time pror to 1960 - and then nothing that would upset your parents! That's what I get from so may writers.

I do think he needs to be bolder in instrumentation. But that aside, he's a good man.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: mrmoe
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 08:57 AM

I'll post a recent work.....music is written, but not yet recorded......

Bourbon Tabernacle Choir          © 2007 Michael orlen

While sitting in a local bar
For comfort and relief
That's me with the bud
Between the rabbi and the priest
Just working on our attitudes
For just a while at least
And the bar man's had his fill of sorry tales
He says they're about as useful
As a slow leak in a tire
I tell you you're just preaching to the
Bourbon tabernacle choir

A young man tells a story
Clearly meant to shock and awe
How a woman drove him to his stool
There ought to be a law
He tells her how he really feels
Points out her tragic flaw
And then he turns to us for reassurance
We'll give you an 'atta boy
If that's what you require
But I tell you you're just preaching to the
Bourbon tabernacle choir

(bridge)

It smells like beer and cigarettes
And it's kind of dark in here
And I haven't seen a smiling face all evening
Some memories more distant than they might at first appear
And no one gives a single thought to leaving

I decide to add my couple cents
At the first sign of a pause
Before you start a war at home
Be certain of the cause
There's more to keeping peace at home
Than meets the untrained eye
Then I get a funny look from either side
Before you go and don
ecclesiastical attire
I tell you you're just preaching to the
Bourbon tabernacle choir

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: MMario
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 08:43 AM

jeanie (and anyone else interested):

if you have the music written - a scan can be sent to me (PM for email address) and I can convert to ABC and post in the thread. Midi's can be sent to Joe Offer (or via me) for posting on the midi page; Amos has a mudcat mp3 page...

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 08:13 AM

Hey thats ok!
LOL
I also enjoy old materiel like those second hand sketches when no original stuff around.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: closet-folkie
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 07:41 AM

We used to dream of having a rusty old flue pipe.

A couple of songs...

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Ross
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 07:05 AM

When I say chimney, I really mean a rusty old flue pipe, 12 inches long, made from fossilised larks vomit

But we were happy, and it was home

And it cleaned up really well when you licked it clean with tongue

Apologies Mr Twangler - couldn't resist

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: kendall
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 06:41 AM

You had a chimmney?

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Ross
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 06:27 AM

You were lucky

There was eight of us living in a chimney with Da beaten us with a rabbit

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 06:15 AM

http://www.myspace.com/thetwanglers
Will give any thing a try once.

©Tim Leaning 2007.
Belt Buckle and Steel .
Capo 2nd

Three weeks of heaven
Three days of hell
When me father came home
From that cold northern swell
With his shiny belt buckle
Hands hard like steel
We had three day of hell
And three weeks to heal

Like his father before him
His heart was turned cold
By the freezing north wind
Like the ice in the hold
Three days in the pub
With his mates and his whores
When the moneys all gone
Comes a knock at our door

Three weeks of heaven
Three days of hell
When me father came home
From that cold northern swell
With his shiny belt buckle
Hands hard like steel
We had three day of hell
And three weeks to heal

Us kids would all tremble
Me mother would cry
When me father turned up
With that look in his eye
His rage new no mercy
To protect us she tried
But each time he came home
A small part of her died

Three weeks of heaven
Three days of hell
When me father came home
From that cold northern swell
With his shiny belt buckle
Hands hard like steel
We had three day of hell
And three weeks to heal






Instrument Chorus

Those hard days are over
But I cry when I tell
Of those three days of heaven
And three days of hell
Us kids are all grown up
All of us done well
But me mothers in heaven now
I hope that bastards in hell

Three weeks of heaven
Three days of hell
When me father came home
From that cold northern swell
With his shiny belt buckle
Hands hard like steel
We had three day of hell
And three weeks to heal

We had three days of hell
And a lifetime to heal.
Rough recording on the MY SPace link.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Jeanie
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 06:00 AM

Good subject matter for songs, Mike and Huw ! And I like that advice, George: a dozen memories wrapped in a song
"Just keep it plain and from the heart
And then it can't go wrong."

I've been making a bit of a study of Harvey Andrews songs lately, to get some hints as to how he does it - I would just love to be able to write like that. I heard him a month or so ago and between songs he was talking about songwriting, and how sometimes just the sound of a word or a place (especially, as he said, if it is full of long vowel sounds) can spark off a song - and he gave the example of the song he wrote, sparked off by a road sign to "Boothferry Bridge". Another one was from a snatch of a conversation he heard: "She got the house, I got the mortgage."

Have any of you been to any songwriting workshops/courses that you would especially recommend ? I know there are a few held at some of the UK festivals, for instance. I'm much more of a "free agent" than I used to be now family commitments are less, and will be able to get to festivals and events, so would be grateful for any information.

Anyway, here's my contribution to this thread:

SOLSTICE

As the sun stands frozen for one moment
And the dawn starts to make its steep climb
The seconds and minutes and hours try to melt
But are trapped here with me, marking time

On the shortest day of the year
But the longest, longest day of my life.

It could have all been so different
Oh, how I'd hoped you would see
All of the dancing and laughing in store
If only you'd stayed here with me

But it's the shortest day of the year
And the longest, longest day of my life.

Through the frost fern curls on the window
The trees paint a grey silhouette
Cradling their buds hiding Russian doll leaves,
Are they trying like me to forget

It's the shortest day of the year
But the longest, longest day of my life.

They say everything has its season
And nothing's new under the sun,
The universe wheel starts to turn once again
And my winding trail has begun

From the shortest day of the year
And the longest, longest day of my life.

[Tune (which I don't know how to post here) & Lyrics: J.A.S., first version written 2004 and still being worked on !]

Looking forward to seeing more songs on here.

Cheers,
- jeanie

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: GUEST,Huw Pudner
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 03:53 AM

The Ballad of Harry Farr

At five in the morning
As daylight was dawning
Harry Farr he was taken out
From his cold cell
He'd been filled up with morphine
Oh the sights that he'd seen
Bur Harry was sick
Of the sounds of the shells

At first light we are told
He refused a blindfold
He stared at his comrades
And he stood brave and tall
The order was given
His life cruelly taken
And Harry was shot
An example to all.

chorus
Damn all the generals
In their headquarters
It would have been better
If they'd never been born
A sick man they accused
A brave man they abused
He was tied to a post
And shot dead at dawn

The fat swarms of flies
The curses the cries
The dead and the dying
Out in No Mans Land
The artillery fire
The rolls of barbed wire
The bearers with stretchers
Barely able to stand.

Out there in the trenches
In the mud and the madness
The shock of the shelling
Made him sick of the fight
Last night he was sentenced
By a drumhead courtmartial
To be tied to a post
And shot at first light.

repeat chorus

Oh his wife sits at home
She sits all alone
They took her war pension
To rub salt in her grief
On Remembrance day morn
Harry's still shot at dawn
And the veterans march past
Their commander in chief

So many years on
All those soldiers have gone
Young Harry's been pardoned
With a stroke of a pen
But what of the leaders
Who send men to the slaughter?
They are still free
To start wars once again.

repeat chorus twice

[e-mail]
written sept 2006

Harry Farr was executed on the Somme in 1916 and was pardoned in 2006

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 03:31 AM

Title:- Life Is Amazing.

                     G                                        Em                         C                        
Each day burns through, leaving only, the ashen embers,
            D7
Of the night.
             G                            Em                               C            
The darkness, broken only by the moon and stars, till the new
          G
days light.
                G                            Em                                 C
Every day makes, vivid memories, stored in thoughts   of our past days,
            G                                    Em                                    C      
Thoughts arise of, places been to, thoughts of people, and
                            G
their strange ways.
   

Chorus:-
G                C
Life is so pre-cious,
G                D
Life is so ama--zing,
G                         C ----- D
Don't waste a mo-ment,
C ----   D         G
Live it to the full
D ----- C         G
Live it to the full.

Sometimes we may, move on aimless, through lifes snakes and ladders game,
Each one seeming so much different, in reality, much the same.
Some seem lacking, in thought or reason, and yet some so, very wise,
Some are open, some easy going, some in elusive, or evasive guise.

Chorus

Live each moment, like it could be, the very last day that you live,
Don't be selfish with possessions, there is joy in all you give.
Treat all others with respect and, always try to be a friend,
Give your love with-out conditions, until your life come to its end.

Chorus X2

Tune Phil Brougham
Lyrics Mike Hill
(Written Nov 2004)

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Jim Lad
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 02:16 AM

Think I'll write something traditional.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 02:15 AM

Go on, Soldier Boy,
Show me a dozen memories
And wrap them in a song.
I'd like it with a chorus,
But it needn't be too long.
Just keep it plain and from the heart
And then it can't go wrong.
Please show me a dozen memories
and wrap them in them in a song

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Amergin
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 11:26 PM

I do apologise, Soldier boy, I did not mean it the way it sounded...as Peace said it is a good idea....

You may want to do a forum search for the song challenges as well.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 11:15 PM

While I have no hard data on the subject, I get the impression that, among UK Mudcatters, trad singers outnumber songwriters by a wide margin while most of us Yanks and Canadians have written at least some of what we do.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Peace
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:54 PM

Hey, I think it's a good idea. There are many songs in the DT that were written by 'catters, and if Amos sees this thread he can direct you to some songs that are on mp3, AND done by people on this forum. Pleased to meet you, btw. Also, Amergin is a really good guy. Not to worry.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Soldier boy
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:51 PM

Thanks Peace. I did'nt realise I was tramping on old ground and that is where I am being naive. But even if it is not a novel idea I still think it is worth re-vamping such a thread to encourage new talent that I just know is out there. Thanks for your support.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Peace
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:38 PM

Many people have posted their material here. Some won't anymore and others will. Soldier boy, the idea is not novel, but it is good.

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Soldier boy
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:31 PM

Very tongue-in-cheek that Amergin!. Does that mean that it's not novel and that I am wasting my breath? Please explain.
Or am I just being too naive?

Subject: RE: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Amergin
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:19 PM

Hmmm....what a novel idea...odd that in the many years this forum has been in existence no one ever thought of it.

Subject: Song Writers - strutt your stuff
From: Soldier boy
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:12 PM

Sometimes I think we are too hung-up on singing songs from our rich vein of history.
But what about the creativity blooming in the hearts of modern day songsters?
Should'nt Mudcat be a forum for ecouraging and broadcasting new and struggling talent?
Let it be so, and I invite you to strutt your stuff here: