Songs About America Week

Since it was the Fourth of July on Sunday, this week is going to be songs all about the country the United States of America. The U.S.A. was established on July 4, I think. They don’t really teach those kind of things in school anymore, so I’m not sure.

Anyway. This week’s new song is called Only in America. I just wrote it tonight, about 30 minutes ago. I had no ideas this whole week. No songs written. I’ve been ferociously working on getting my 2 albums recorded and mixed. That’s my excuse. What’s yours.

Okay, so the song popped out in about 5 minutes or so because I was on deadline, I looked at the clock and it was about 10:15pm and I hadn’t picked up a guitar all weekend other than to play through a mistake-filled and drunken version of God Bless the USA and to install an under-saddle pickup in a guitar I’ll start using in Barehand Jugband shows. (On a side note, did you know that Woody Guthrie wrote This Land is Your Land in answer to God Bless the USA and that the original title and chrous was God Bless the USA for Me. I guess Woody didn’t like songs like God Bless the USA.)

So, I hadn’t played all weekend. Not since performing at the Gallery Cabaret open mike on Thursday. I played these songs: Brown-skinned Woman, I can’t help it, and I have no idea. I needed to try out some of my new songs (and still need to) because I’ve got some solo shows coming up in August. And I haven’t played a solo show in a real long time.

Okay. I wrote this song quick and got it done. I didn’t really know what I was going for. It kinda came out like a talkin’ blues song, which I used to write a lot of but don’t so much anymore. I was even just telling a close friend that I kinda worked my way through em and can’t write em anymore. Oh well. This song, though, is more of a talkin’ blues in the vein of Hank Williams, rather than Woody or, say, Bob Dylan. I’ll have to be honest that when a Hank Williams talkin’ blues song comes up on my radio I usually skip it. They’re really long and they’re usually about sitting by his dying mother’s bedside or about holdin his best gal close. But when I do listen to them I always really like them. He had a funny way of phrasing the lines and, regardless if he wrote them or not, a dry delivery that really emphasized the twist at the end of each verse.

That’s enough talkin’ though. Here’s the song. Hope ya like it. There’ll be more American songs, honoring America throughout the week. Here’s what America looks like on a map.