DOUBLE CALIFORNIA
I was sitting inside the new IKEA on the far north side of Columbus. We had just walked through the bedroom displays, and we were eating late lunch/early dinner. I was drinking coffee. Here's a photograph of the moment the idea came to me:

I had a dream last night
(What did you dream about?)
California broke away
From the United States

That part wasn't so original. I've been hearing that California was due to fall into the Pacific Ocean any day now since I was a little kid.

While it floated in the sky
Like a cell it divided
Redwoods in the corners
Like a bunkbed, it reunited...




Yes, that part was inspired by educational films on cell reproduction coupled with the IKEA bedroom displays.

I had travelled to California for work a few times early in the year, and it was fresh on my mind. The first time was during the prolonged drought. The second time was after a lot of rain had fallen. Before, the landscape was semi-arid, but still beautiful; after, you could see why California has captured our collective imagination for so long.

People always talk about traffic in Los Angeles. In my limited experience going from LAX to Burbank and back, I can say that it really is not much fun.

Double the California girls,
Double the L.A. traffic,
Double the length of the Golden Gate
The sushi is terrific...



Now there's enough for everyone
Double California
Sun and surf and fun
Double California
Twice the G.D.P.
Double California
Enough for you and me
Double the California...

I have heard that California, if it were its own nation, would be the world's 6th largest economy on earth. So there's a sense that the entire United States is dependent on California, agriculturally and otherwise.

Double the fruits and vegetables
Double the wine and mountains
Double the number of celebrities
Begging for attention...

I've been thinking lately that the relationship between celebrity and fan isn't so much the fan worshiping the the celebrity, but the celebrity seeking out those to validate his/her sense of significance.

Now there's enough for everyone
Double California
Sun and surf and fun
Double California
Twice the G.D.P.
Double California
Enough for you and me

Double the California...

If You Spoke Only Russian

Bragging can be lots of things: Brash, arrogant, annoying, self-centered, rude and more.

Can bragging be funny? When we know the brag isn't intentionally vain or even true, like when a little boy wearing new sneakers tells a runner who's on a five mile run that he can beat him in a race.

Can bragging be endearing? A lot of singers have tried this tactic, like Lou Rawls, claiming that he wasn't bragging on himself, but said, "You're Gonna Miss My Love." And Prince famously said, "I would die for you."

So what if my song's hero started his brag at that level, but added some graphic details?

If you and I
Were being chased by wolves
Or a grizzly bear
That had tasted human blood

I would lay down my life
So you could escape
I would lay down my life
So you could carry on...

OK, so this person isn't really bragging. He's claiming that he would be heroic if one of these unlikely circumstances occurred, claiming virtuous qualities that it seems likely he'll never need to prove.

If you and I were captured
By and alien race
Of murderous lizard men
Out to rule the earth

I would lay down my life
So you could escape
I would lay down my life
So you could carry on...

This one seems even less likely. And yet this guy is trying to take credit for being selfless and sacrificial toward the woman he's trying to impress.

Would you think of me fondly
Remember my face
Tell the children about me?

And would you laugh out loud
Watching the Titanic
It would seem so mild
Compared to what I'd done?

This refers to, of course, Jack giving up his piece of floating debris in the movie Titanic so that Rose can go on living. I wanted my protagonist to brag very blatantly that he wasn't impressed.

Kind of like Charlie Sexton's song "I Am Not Impressed," where he names historical and literary couples, then claims, "I am not impressed/I love you the best." Pretty confident. Maybe not realistic at the age that he wrote the song, but cool anyway.

If I had just left it there, my hero wouldn't have the tenderness needed to complete the effective love boast. So...

If you and I
Were the last man and woman
Left here on earth
And you spoke only Russian

And I spoke only English
Would you try to understand me?

The first part comes from watching the old Twilight Zone series episode called "Two." I really like Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) and Charles Bronson (The Magnificent Seven) in the roles of the last man and woman left on the planet after an all out war.

Then comes the fun. Our family loves the cartoon series, Kim Possible. We've watched every episode at least ten times. "A Possible Family Christmas," is a real gem, for lots of reasons, but if you listen hard you will find that I borrowed part of Snowman Hank's big song to finish off my own.

Put aside our petty problems
And embrace your fellow man?

Would you think of me fondly
Remember my face
Tell the children about me?

And would you laugh out loud
Watching the Titanic
It would seem so mild
Compared to what I'd done?

For the record, my wife thought the song was funny, which was my goal. Humor is more effective than bragging.

Desperate Grasp


I remember hearing The Smiths for the first time. It was in a record store when vinyl was on the wane, cassettes were on top and CDs were gaining popularity.

It was "This Charming Man." I wasn't sure what it was about exactly, but it sounded so different than what I was used to hearing on the radio that I immediately wanted to hear more.

Many years later, I started playing guitar and writing songs of my own. The Smiths always had sort of a handmade feeling. Not raw like punk, but not slick like the normal radio pop songs the DJs constantly played that said "nothing to me about my life."

I wanted very much to make a song that sounded raw and intelligent and funny and swinging, like The Smiths at their best.

I liked all of their albums, but for me "Louder than Bombs" was their best because it felt B-side-ish, which I think it was to some extent. I listened to it probably too loud on whatever passed for headphones back when I was in high school, and "Rubber Ring" still speaks to me just as clearly and passionately as it did back then. (Click the link to read Jake Brown's post from 2003. Can that year be right? Wow.)

I had been traveling for work more than usual, and I noticed sometimes you would sit next to someone fairly chatty who confided in you maybe as a stranger more than they would someone they actually knew. Or maybe I was that person.

In the final days of a failing company
A business man sat on the plane next to me
He said there'd been questions, irregularities,
Still he'd never done anything knowingly illegal

He met a girl when he was twenty one
He never quite got her face out of his mind
He looked her up lately and her life had come undone
And maybe she'd be happy now to see him

I remember those two verses coming easily. Then the chorus, which sounds overly dramatic but also true.

It's a desperate grasp to find anything that lasts
It's a desperate grasp to find anything that lasts

It's a desperate grasp to find anything that lasts

Longer than a young girl's smile...

I thought it would be funny for someone to tell secrets in his sleep, but instead of a lover's name, etc., it would be formulas for making a proprietary plastic.

He nodded off and he spoke in his sleep

Reciting formulas from memory

Exotic plastics and dense French poetry

In an accent that was hauntingly familiar...

When it came to the bridge, I used a snapped off piece of progression that I had made a year or more before trying to imitate part of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World." Actually, it was Nirvana's cover version. I used a noise/synth app on my phone to do the little solo.

We landed and we walked up the gate

He was heading for the city and running late

He turned to me with pain in his eyes

He said "I hope you lead a life without compromise."

Sort of like a charming man who has made his share of mistakes trying to help a stranger not make the same questionable decisions.