Okay. Today’s new song I wrote last week on Thursday. I’ve been thinking that I haven’t written a talkin’ blues song in a long time (maybe since “Songs about America week” back in July, and maybe not a good one since the “Talkin’ CTA Blues,” which is on my album It’s Chicago!), mainly because if you write a talkin blues about a particular topic, say, something in the news, a current event, the song is gonna be out-of-date in a day or two and you’ll never be able to sing it again.

So I haven’t really been sure about writing one. Cause what’s the point if I’m gonna wok hard to write a song and then it’s never given a chance at anything. All the news moving so quick. Gotta get the latest goings-on out to the public before they can even process what just went on.

So, I was reading a couple newspapers and I had this idea to do a song, not about a particular topic, but about every topic. About how it’s nearly impossible to write a topical song these days and have it be something lasting. How no one really has the desire or the time to actually read about something that happens and think about it in any type of way. How it’s all just reading the quickest thing possible. A headline.

I figured I’d do a talkin’ blues using all the headlines from one day’s news. Then, if any of that news was made obsolete because people moved on to something else quick, I could just take the next day’s headlines for an updated version (thus the “#1” in the song title).

So I went on to cnn.com (because cnn.com has about a thousand headlines each day, always different) and grabbed a bunch of different headlines all about different things. Grouped them together just as haphazardly as CNN had done. Tied them all together with a somewhat reoccurring last line and then wrote a couple verses that summed up the song in general (these probably won’t change in future versions).

And there ya go. The Talkin’ Headline Blues.

Gives me the blues that’s for sure.

I’m planning on doing a new version each day this week. So, I’ll take today’s headlines and write up a song and record it and post it tomorrow. It’ll be just like reading a newspaper. Yesterday’s news, today.

Hope ya like it.

Also, don’t forget to vote for the Barehand Jugband in the Chicago Blues and Bluegrass Festival “Last Banjo Standing” contest.

Just click here to vote. We need some help…we’re currently in 11th place.