Tonight I had more fun playing this gig at Okra's than I have had playing a solo gig out there before. So it was the best of three! The reason may have been my song selection. I spent two weeks compiling a list of songs to play, and I printed out the lyrics of the songs I wanted to sing.
- Blues vamping / Cissy Strut
(request for Peanuts theme)
- Linus and Lucy / Moondance
- If I Were a Carpenter
(request for the Doors)
- Light My Fire
- We Are Gonna Be Friends
(request for LL Cool J)
(request for Beastie Boys)
- Right to Party
(request for Violent Femmes)
- Blister in the Sun
- Interstate Love Song
- Ten Years Gone
- Hey There Delilah
- Improv intro / I Beat the System
- Dazed and Confused (lyrics by Jake Holmes)
- All I Want is You (U2 song)
- Tangerine
- Wonderful Tonight / Feel Like Making Love / Feelin' Alright
- I Alone / Selling the Drama
Break
(during break, somebody requested Hurt, Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song)
- Cissy Strut (this time with harmonica)
- Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Me Wrong)
- Thank You (Led Zeppelin song)
(overheard a guy singing the chorus of the next song, so I played it)
- Shine (Collective Soul song)
- Anyone Else but You (Moldy Peaches song)
- Hurt / Something I Can Never Have / Closer
Playing "Cissy Strut" by the Meters came to me while I was eating dinner. I had some great Creole cuisine, and the music playing in the place was Cajun. So I opened with a few minutes of blues licks -- not a 12-bar chord progression -- followed by that famous instrumental, which I had the good fortune of seeing performed live by the Funky Meters in 2006 in a bill shared by Chuck Brown.
A guy who was there for my first solo gig at Okra's was back tonight. I recognized him when he requested the Peanuts theme, which he did the first time too. So I played it. It happens to be called "Linus and Lucy." I had planned on playing "Moondance" next, so I invented a segue to take myself from the Peanuts instrumental into the Van Morrison song, my first vocal of the night.
Continuing my Valentine's Day theme, I played the Tim Hardin song "If I Were a Carpenter," which I learned only from Robert Plant's cover on Fate of Nations. When I started singing it, some people started laughing. I didn't know if they were laughing at me or at the lyrics or at something that had nothing to do with me, but I started laughing too. I thought I probably sounded pretty funny singing those lyrics. "... Would you marry me anyway? Would you have my baby? If a tinker were my trade ..." Good lord! And to think I played this last time too!
A woman asked me if I knew anything by the Doors. In fact, I had played "Riders on the Storm" during both of my previous solo gigs at Okra's, starting it with a pre-recorded rain and thunder sequence. But I didn't want to do that again, and I figured I would do something more along the lines of a Valentine's Day theme. Naturally, I selected "Light My Fire." And damned if I didn't know all the words! While I was in the middle of the solo, a few jazz musicians whom I had caught playing next door earlier came by to see what I was up to. They got to hear me jam for a little while and then break back into song.
After that tune, I chatted with them briefly and exchanged business cards with one, whose name is Sol. I said I just like playing and really have no business singing. What's funny is that I have never had as much singing before as I did that night, so my comment wasn't exactly true. I told them I had a goofy song to play that I liked. It was the White Stripes tune "We Are Gonna Be Friends." I had never played it before, except, would you believe, a couple times on guitar. When I got through all the lyrics I had printed out, I started soloing. It was then that I realized the song follows a 1-4-5 blues chord progression. This fact had always escaped me before!
Some dude requested I play some LL Cool J. Now, I can't even name one of his songs, much less play anything by him. You request a rap artist? You have to be putting me on! Well, he kept it up and said if not LL Cool J, how about the Beastie Boys? This was one I could fulfill. I could always play "Right to Party." To everyone's amusement, that's exactly what I played. I had no problem recalling all of the lyrics! I was rather pleased with myself.
Peanuts request guy asked if I could play anything by the Violent Femmes. The only song of theirs I can even name is "Blister in the Sun," so of course that's what I opted to play. It's a silly song, and I felt silly singing it. There aren't many lyrics in the song, and again I had no problem recalling them. A couple walked into the place during that song, and so I remarked how they were probably wondering why the hell this dude is singing some silly song. I assured them I was merely fulfilling a request.
Next, I wanted to play "Dazed and Confused," and I had the lyrics to Jake Holmes's recorded version with me. Well, I started playing it, and it sounded to me more like the acoustic version of the Stone Temple Pilots' "Interstate Love Song," which I had heard on the car radio while driving to Manassas. So I switched gears, vamped for a while, and launched into the STP tune. I wasn't sure of all the words, but I mumbled through it. It was OK.
After all that, I hadn't played any Led Zeppelin songs, so I next played "Ten Years Gone." I had the lyrics with me because I had printed them out earlier today. I had picked three of Zep's love songs to bring with me. It was by sheer coincidence that the song is about a first love, and I think it was about 10 years since my first love and I broke up. She's now in Kansas, married to an Army man serving in Iraq, and the mother of three. God bless her.
The next song I played is absolutely one of the prettiest songs ever written. It's "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White T's. The first time I heard the song, I was riding with my friend Sheri and somebody else from my friends Todd and Whitney's wedding ceremony to the reception. I said it was a great song. Both girls said they were sick of it because it was so overplayed. Mind you, this was the first time I was ever hearing it. I went another few months without hearing it again. Then I heard it a few times on the radio more recently. I've actually been listening to the radio; that's why. But this song is a complete treasure. What a delight! The Plain White T's attended the Grammys this past weekend, accompanied by the real-life Delilah, a sweet little thing. Now knowing more of the story makes the song that much more touching. It's really quite emotional. Either that, or I'm a freaking wuss.
I don't know what made me start playing a random chord progression, but that's what I did. It was in E minor, and that's all I remember. I did it four times, then eight times, then 16 times, and I still can't remember what it was. What I did next was segue right into my own 1994 original, "I Beat the System." I remembered all the lyrics; thank goodness, because I wrote them. That's a total anti-Valentine's Day song if I ever heard one.
And so was the next song I played, "Dazed and Confused" -- the version by Jake Holmes, complete with his lyrics printed out. My instrumental solo between verses two and three drew more from Jake's take than from the more familiar song of the same title, by Led Zeppelin. I ended it the way Jake does. I pretty much refrained from doing it the way Jimmy Page would have.
While I was playing the U2 song "All I Want is You," Sol came back and started watching me and singing along with me. We agreed this is a great song. I was really feeling it. The tune was full of dynamics, including a decrescendo at each mention of "the grave." This was an impromptu decision of mine the first time around. It was planned out thereafter. That was a great rendition of the tune. I hope to do that one again!
Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine" was next. After that, I played a medley of "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton (decidedly based on the distinct live version found on his album 24 Nights) and "Feel Like Making Love" by Bad Company, with a few measures of the Traffic Song "Feelin' Alright" (based on Joe Cocker's cover version) tossed into the latter. I took a break after one more medley of Live's "I Alone" and "Selling the Drama." I had the lyrics to all of those songs with me, except for "Feelin' Alright" and the two Live songs. I have memorized "I Alone" because I'm singing parts of it with the Usual Suspects these days. As for "Selling the Drama," I faked it and repeated a few lines the whole way through the song. "And to Christ? A cross. And to me? A chair! I will sit and earn the ransom from up here." That happens once in the song. I made it happen once per verse!
During the break, Live's "Lightning Crashes" played on the radio in the restaurant, and everyone at the bar started talking about placentas. It was wonderful. Momentary, but wonderful.
After the lengthy break, I played "Cissy Strut" a second time, this time busting out an F harmonica to show off a little one-handed crossharp on top of my own funky left-handed bassline. Next was my first-ever run-through of "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Me Wrong)," an Everly Brothers tune covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I didn't sing it because I didn't think I would be able to think of all the lyrics. Well, I could have sung it because I remembered all the words and was singing them in my head the whole time. It was pretty boring without the lyrics, to be honest.
After I played Zep's "Thank You" (with a "Your Time is Gonna Come" intro), I heard a guy at the bar ask his friends, "Who sings that song that goes, 'Let your light shine on me'?" I thought about it while I was shuffling some papers around to find the lyrics to the Moldy Peaches song I'd planned on playing next. But when it came to me that he was talking about "Shine" by Collective Soul, I started playing it. And played it the whole way through. As best as I can tell, it was my third time ever playing "Shine." My buddy Jan says it was what I was playing the first time he ever heard me play piano, back in our freshman year of high school, which was about 13.5 damn years ago! The second time I ever played it was at a solo gig in D.C., with Jan telling some friends the story of the only other time I had played that song to date.
The Moldy Peaches tune was next, with an additional couplet thrown in from Adam Sandler's "Thanksgiving Song." See if you can spot the foreign lyric: "Turkey and sweet potato pie/ Sammy Davis Jr. only had [sic] one eye./ I don't know what anyone can see in anyone else/ But you." Someone recognized the song as being from the Juno soundtrack and told me it was a good song choice. You're damn right it's a good song choice, or else I wouldn't have played it! (Oh wait, I did do "Blister in the Sun" earlier. Forget it.)
Finally, by earlier request, I played the Nine Inch Nails tune and sang it with Johnny Cash's voice while playing an arrangement closer to the NIN original. Lyrics from the top of my head. Struggled a little. Repeated some lines. Nobody complained. From this, I went right into "Something I Can Never Have," which just about rivals my "I Beat the System" as the most anti-Valentine's Day song I played all night. Again, from memory. I couldn't think of the first verse ("I still recall the taste of your tears ..."), so I skipped right to the second, an instrumental solo and then the final verse. The Nine Inch Nails filth continued with a complete reading of "Closer," ending both my Nails medley and my gig for the evening.
Great gig! Not in the sky.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld
