Nurse the Hate: Hate New Songs

I returned home yesterday after fleshing out new Daredevils songs in Leo’s new basement bunker.  It is a total construction zone with dirt and rubble everywhere.  It is a cross between playing music in a squat in London in 1977 with Joe Strummer and if you decided to get together a band in Berlin in 1945 about two months after the Russian Infantry rolled through town.  I can’t ever recall having mic cables that were dusty before.  I think the music will inevitably have a gritty quality to it as the surroundings will have to seep in.  It is not a space where Seals & Crofts would consider rehearsing.  Hell, even Crass would have second thoughts.

One of the new songs we kicked around has this Waylon Jennings stomp to it.  I abandoned my original lyrics and took some old ones I had in my book that seemed to better fit the mood.  They aren't even lyrics so much as crazed scribbles.  The song is called “Too High To Come Down” and was written quickly after “a Leo incident”.  About a year ago Leo was baked and started “the shit talk” portion of the cycle.  (The cycle:  smoke weed, talk shit, sleep, repeat)  He had somehow come up with the idea as he had been living in his old basement bedroom with his mother like he had been in the early 1990s, that perhaps he could also revisit his interests from that time period.  This being the time of Melrose Place ruling the TV ratings, he had a fascination of doing terrible things to Heather Locklear.  His “plan” was to build a time machine out of the discarded construction materials around his garage, travel back in time to 1991 and contact Heather Locklear.  He would then deliver a message to Heather Locklear that future Heather Locklear in 2016 should go to visit Leo in his basement where they could enjoy each other’s company and then engage in intercourse on his pool table. 

I will admit I was immediately concerned about the viability of “The Plan”.  It's hard to come up with a scenario in which Leo can possibly be in the same room with Heather Locklear, or at least doesn't end with him being escorted out by Security.  I won’t fault his creativity or ambition.  It is important to have goals.  I was concerned about his qualifications for building this time machine conceptually as well as the limitations he would face from the available materials.  I'm not sure you can build a time machine with a broken sink.  I also had a sneaking suspicion that his follow through on this project might not be up to the task.  Very little of what happens during "shit talk" comes to fruition, hence the "shit talk" moniker.  Yet, for weeks the discussion about this Time Machine Heather Locklear courtship continued.  So when you hear the line in the song about “Maybe you’re talking shit in your basement/About traveling back in time/Maybe you have big ambitions/And Heather Locklear on your mind” you’ll know what I was talking about now.  I have just taken you “inside the artist’s mind”.  You’re welcome.

I guess while I am at it I might as well note that the third verse is about the time when Bob and Leo were driving the Cowslinger van all the way down to Florida.  Bobby was such a sweet innocent boy.  In retrospect I, as well as Bob’s parents, should be held accountable for placing Bob in the care of a late 20s aged Leo with a pocket full of gas money and a weak set of directions south.  I can’t really defend that I placed this teenage boy in a van with a guy that was a cross of Homer Simpson and Tommy Chong for a twenty hour drive.  I remember giving them a pep talk before they left my house with the van.  “OK you guys.  Keep your shit together and I will see you tomorrow in Florida.”  I think Leo got into his stash by the time he hit the end of my driveway.  I know for a fact they weren’t even an hour outside of town when Leo, who was driving, turned to Bobby and asked in all seriousness “Bob, which one of us is driving right now?”.    That’s the third verse.  “Maybe you’re with your buddy driving to Florida/Just doing the best you can/Maybe you’re behind the wheel/asking which one of us is driving this van?”

Look, it's not Shakespeare.  It's still better than most Yes lyrics and definitely better than 88% of Black Sabbath lyrics.  Cut me some slack when you hear it.  I'm doing the best I can.  Like Leo was...