I love you, but ...

Published: Wed, 03/06/24

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In the meantime: There's some cussin in the Song of the Newsletter section. You've been warned.

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Throat clearing

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Come on out

I had so much fun at my neighborhood open mic last week I'm doing it again this week.

Common Market, Durham

Thursday, March 7

Open mic 7-9 p.m.

I tried two new things last week, both on the same song, an old Smokejumpers song called Red-Letter Baby.

There are a few songs from my punk-rockabilly days that I don't have in my solo repertoire because guitar solos are so built into them that it doesn't make sense to play them without the solos. And, 30 years into playing the guitar, I'm less than half way to being able to play those solos myself.

But the host of the Common Market open mic, Cole Cook, plays the harmonica, so I asked him if he wanted to play the solos in Red-Letter Baby, a 12-bar blues in the key of A. He said he didn't have the right harmonica for that, but after a short negotiation we settled on my playing it in G, which is easy enough to do, it's just a bit of a brain teaser to do it for the first time in front of people after having played it 2,386,427 times in A. But it worked out. Cole played two great solos and honked along on the verses and choruses.

Red-Letter Baby also has backup singing on the choruses. I sing "You're my red-letter baby" and the backup singers go "Red-letter baby!" Are you following this it's complex stuff. I asked the crowd to shout out the backup parts. I didn't think they'd do it — audiences who aren't there to see you specifically can be a little subdued about things like that — but damn, they not only did it, they dug into it!

The photo in the purple banner above is me listening as the crowd shouts "Red-letter baby!" Here's the whole photo, which includes Cole:

This photo was taken by Savion Washington, a local professional photographer who was there shooting. I asked him if he could send me some, and he sent me more than 200 shots and said I could use them, which I probably will in various forms for the next, I dunno, five years.

I'm also planning to make my first visit to Fuquay-Varina this week, in anticipation of next week's songwriter's circle at The Brick, and this is your last chance to leave before the bad words start.

Common Market, Durham

Thursday, March 7

Open mic 7-9 p.m.

Fainting Goat Tap Room, Fuquay-Varina

Sunday, March 10

Open mic 3-6 p.m.

Song of the Newsletter:

I Love You (But You're a Lyin' Sack of Shit)

Live from Zog's Art Bar & Pool Hall in Chapel Hill.

While it's obviously a country number, this is another song from my punk-rockabilly life. I'm pretty sure it's a Smokejumpers song, but its roots go back to the Wankin' Teens era, 1993-96.

Last week's newsletter also featured a song from those days, but I'm not relying too much on old stuff in my current act. They just happen to be a healthy percentage of the songs I have videos for at the moment. I have 10 songs that I've played out in the Triangle that I made up since getting here, and three more that are pretty close to being ready.

I swear, boss, I've been working!

The words Wankin' Teens a few paragraphs ago are linked to a song called You Left a Burnin' Bag of Dogshit on the Doorstep of My Heart. There isn't much evidence of the Wankin' Teens on the web because we existed in its very early days, and I caution you against doing a search for us now unless you have your safe search tools cranked to 11, or you don't mind seeing what those tools are designed to filter out.

Burnin' Bag was penned by my Wankin' Teens bandmate Wayne Haught and our other bandmate in a previous band, which didn't ever play out so we never had a name. We were a busking band, playing out on the streets. Brainstorming for that name is where the Wankin' Teens came from, because the other bandmate had vetoed that idea with alacrity, which in retrospect was smart of him.

The closest we ever got to a name was The X-Dollar Rides, where X was either 20 or 40. Wayne had been hanging around somewhere and a limo driver who was waiting for his client at an event offered him and his date a sightseeing ride for $20. The driver said "That's a $40 ride, man." We argued about which name was better, the 20 Dollar Rides or the 40 Dollar Rides. I think I was team 20, but it didn't matter because we never played any gigs.

Burnin' Bag was the idea of our other bandmate, who I'm not naming because he's a public school teacher and maybe he doesn't need his name on the internet in connection with a song he wrote called You Left a Burnin' Bag of Dogshit on the Doorstep of My Heart. Wayne helped him finish writing it.

I Love You (But You're a Lyin' Sack of Shit) may have been an attempt to have a similar crowd-pleaser with the new band. I doubt I was thinking of it that way at the time but it was probably there subconsciously.

The more immediate inspiration was my friend John Schacht telling me he had an idea for a country song I should write: I Love You So Much I Could Shit. I added the heartbreak element to his idea because, you know, I wasn't yet mature enough to express sophisticated sentiments like I love you so much I could shit without being maudlin.

John's also a teacher, by the way, but he teaches at a college so who gives a fuck if he suggested a song called I Love You So Much I Could Shit 30 years ago.

I Love You (But) works without a solo, but Smokejumpers guitar player Tom "Double D" Thumb played a great one. It was a mournful, single-note version of the melody of "The First Noel." It made no sense and was therefore perfect. You can hear it here. Tom now leads a band in Sacramento called the Leaping Blennies, and he's usually in about 30 other bands at the same time.

I've gotten a lot of compliments for this song over the years, but until recently no one's ever said anything about what I consider the funniest thing in it, which is the heartbreaking opening couplet, the first thing I thought of when I was making it up.

You lied to me when you said you would be true

You lied to me when you said your name was Sue

My daughter's friend Mia heard the song for the first time a few months ago and told me she thought that opening line was very funny.

That's the shit right there.

Thanks for reading.

Your friend,

The King Teen

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Durham NC 27705
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