Thoughts on music: Pointless Drinking

Showing posts with label Pointless Drinking. Show all posts

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Pointless Drinking - Amy LaVere - lyric

This is the other song about drinking to which I alluded in my post yesterday. It seems quite simple just listening to it, as do many of the songs on the album 'Anchors and Anvils', until that is you decide to try and dissect them.

Pointless Drinking
Pointless drinking. Where does it end? Where to begin?
Who are your friends? Who are your foes?
You'll never know, long as you go.

Pointless drinking: 'Til it seems they're all speaking poorly in Spanish
Who do you wish would totally vanish?
It's only you and all you can do.

I'm not an actor but I act like I am
I'm really awful but act like I'm not
Pretending my days hold the value of gold
They only hold one thing and it's all that I've got.

Pointless drinking. Keeping my healthy dose of resentment
Keeping me waking with an empty repentment
Keeping me broke, broke as a joke.

Pointless drinking took all the days that I should have felt young
Took all the joy from the songs that I have sung
Took me a while, took me a while.
Oh I'm not a hater; I love you all so
But I look at myself and I don't really know.
Can I dig myself out of the wreck of my past?
Will I ever unharden and stop showing my ass?
Will those eternal bartenders ever stop filling this half-empty glass?

Pointless drinking. Hate the effect, even more hate the cause.
Hate to admit that I'm tragically flawed
I would just keep going but that's past recall.

Pointless drinking. Why do you do it? You always go through it.
Drink to forget all the times that you blew it
Think everyone knows, think everyone cares.

Pointless drinking. Keeping you drunk on your dreams of great heights
From the bottom to the top and back down overnight
You know it's not right. You know it's not right.

Pointless drinking. It's just the one thing your overachieving
Feels like you never will stop believing
That you'll never win, you'll never win.

Maybe one day you might.

This song is credited to Paul Taylor in the album notes but the whole album is quite an underrated gem. Anchors and Anvils (2008) is one hell of an album and so is the Died Of Love EP (2009). I've struggled with the lyric to at least one other track, 'Overcome' from it already and, but for the fear of attempting it, I'd try others too - especially the incredible and bipolar 'Cupid's Arrow'.

I gather that she and her band are just about to tour again (in the US to start with) and hope that this means a new album is imminent...
Amy LaVere is another artist that I would dearly like to see live.
I feel like I deserve a drink now...

A drink to make me brave? I'm going to attempt 'Cupid's Arrow' - but not until tomorrow! I think I know the basics and also most of the tune already, both of which should make it easier than 'Pointless Drinking' and if I just have to listen to that slide guitar part a hundred times for my sins then I'm clearly not concentrating on the lyric!

Friday, March 04, 2011

Answer In One Of These Bottles - Caitlin Rose - lyric

I've been meaning to post the lyric to this for ages and Friday night seems a good time to do it.
This is one of the self-written songs from the 2009 10" EP 'Dead Flowers' by Caitlin Rose. It was also her audience sing-along song when playing live in 2010:

Answer In One Of These Bottles
One night at the bar didn't get me very far
I didn't find the answer I was looking for
Drink-a one, drink-a two, I'm-a drinking just for you
The only answer I have found is to drink more.

There's an answer in one of these bottles.
There must be something they forgot to mention.
There's an answer in one of these bottles I know
So I'm gonna drink until I forget the question.

Passed out on the floor. What do I do it for?
When I walk in they say 'Honey don't you even start.'
Drink-a one, drink-a two, I'm-a drinking just for you.
To find out what it is that happened to my heart.

There's an answer in one of these bottles.
There must be something they forgot to mention.
There's an answer in one of these bottles I know
So I'm gonna drink until I forget the question.

I'm drunk, long gone, wondering just what I done wrong
Singing along 'Baby don't you want me no more.'
Drink-a one, drink-a two, I'm-a drinking just for you
To find out what it is that I've been drinking for.

There's an answer in one of these bottles
There must be something they forgot to mention.
There's an answer in one of these bottles I know
So I'm gonna drink until I forget the question.

There is a second song about drinking, by a different artist and the lyric to which I also intended to post this evening, but it is more complicated and while I have worked most of it out the details and post will have to wait until tomorrow.

Other posts about Caitlin Rose:
Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now - lyric
Caitlin Rose - Docket - lyric
Caitlin Rose - live at EOTR 2010

Note added March 8, 2011:

Caitlin Rose is now confirmed to appear at EOTR 2011

Note added March 14, 2011:
Caitlin Rose is now confirmed to appear at Latitude Festival 2011

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

I'm On My Own Side Now

The title is taken from one of the best songs on one of my favourite albums of last year by one of the most impressive new live artists I saw. This version of the lyric is a close as I can get to that which she performed at EOTR 2010 (twice, on different days and on different stages). It is almost identical to the version on the album 'Own Side Now' though the live instrumentation was somewhat different.

Own Side
I'm goin' out on the town
Said I'm tired of chasin' you down
And it's not my right
To always push you around
I'm on my own side now

Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?

I'm gonna find me true love
Said I'm through asking you if you knew, love
How much it meant to me?
How it was meant to be?
And how it all feels empty?

Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?

Who? [repeat x4]
And who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?

Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?

I'm goin' out on the town
Said I'm tired of chasin' you down
And it's not my right
To always push you around
I'm on my own side now.

Own side now.

What I particularly like about it, and many of her other songs too, is its ambidextrous balance of emotion - it is outwardly-assertive indignation and gnawing self-doubt rolled together. It is far from the only example in her song-writing canon - Learning To Ride, the first song on this, her début album proper, is another. But then, listening back to the 10" vinyl mini album 'Dead Flowers' that is similar, for all its cover versions also themed likewise, and includes the splendid self-penned - and her live audience-sing-a-long anthem of the summer gone - Answer In One Of These Bottles. I'll add the lyric for both as soon as I can.
This latter song also has an interesting parallel in a track by another of my favourite artists out of Nashville - Amy LaVere. I believe that she has been busy writing and recording new material with her band for a forthcoming third LP... The song to which I am referring, however, is from her 2007 (2008 in the UK in effect) album 'Anchors and Anvils' and is the track Pointless Drinking, credited to Paul Taylor. That is verging in to New Music 2011 territory, but why not?

As a sting in the tail, I'm now well and truly cross with myself to have not managed to see 'She Keeps Bees' at EOTR 2009. I have read so many good things about the Brooklyn duo lately... and they are readying their new album too.