Scrambled eggs,Like many dabblers with musical instruments, I too occasionally wake up with a tune in my head. Sometimes they might even be original. And sometimes there are words. Out of the fertile depths of my own imagination have emerged such timeless classics as: Sitting In Bed With A Cold, I Can’t Sing Very Well and She Was Only A Chartered Accountant’s Daughter. I contend they are every bit as good as Scrambled Eggs. If only Paul McCartney had left things as they were I might have been up there with the greatest songwriters in the world. Unfortunately he had to spoil it by waking up another morning with a completely new title and set of lyrics for his tune: Yesterday.
Oh my baby how I love your legs,
Not as much as I like scrambled eggs,
We should eat some scrambled eggs.
I am probably going to get into trouble for this, but I woke up one morning with a fully formed set of twelve-bar blues lyrics in my head. The idea seems so obvious it cannot be original, yet there appears to be nothing like it on the internet. Gender stereotyping it certainly is, possibly sexist as well, but if it is offensive then please re-educate me. Otherwise, could someone tell me where it came from? It is not autobiographical.
[hackneyed riff to begin:]
I’m in a house full of women, a house full of women and me
I’m in a house full of women, a house full of women and me
There’s her mother, my woman, three daughters, the maid and me
[hackneyed riff]
I’m in a house full of women, where do you think that puts me?
I’m in a house full of women, a house with a hierarchy
There’s her mother, my woman, three daughters, the maid, the dog and me
[spoken: “don’t even beat the dog”]
Went down to the pub
Came home to my bed
The lights were out
The door was locked
Now I’m sleepin’ in the shed
I’m in a house full of women, a house where I always lose
I’m in a house full of women, a house where I don’t get to chose
Can’t leave the seat up, drink whisky, smoke, fart, swear or play the blues.
[hackneyed end riff]
Tasker, if only I could sing, play an instrument or even read music. Sorry friend, I'm not the one to ask.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't know how to use a loom.
DeleteI have never heard those lyrics. I am curious about what you had been dreaming although if you are like me you may not remember your dreams very well.
ReplyDeleteGoodness knows what I dream about, but when it's words, it's just words, sentences and paragraphs.
DeleteI can't remember which famous composer said this: Composing is remembering a melody which nobody else has thought of. I like that.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the same goes for coining a memorable phrase or saying.
DeleteTom, I think it was Schumann.
DeleteSemi-autobiographical surely? It sounds Ian Dury-ish to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't wake up with words but I sometimes write down words/prose that can go on for verses and verses sparked by one small incident that would go unnoticed by many and I can fill several pages with the words. One such was example was at a temp job I had a few years ago where I was taking dictation (very unusual these days) and I went away and wrote a long piece that grew daily that started from the vision of the stapler on the desk in front of me and ended up in a room above a pizza place in Stoke Newington.
I've never lived in such a house, except shared houses.
DeleteI find that blog posts sometimes write huge sections of themselves in the night.
Someone I used to know well was also a friend of Ian Dury when they both taught at Canterbury college of art, and told me some of the more contentious things Ian used to say in private, and yes it is like what he might come up with.
I thought you are in an all female household during lockdown?
DeleteNo, we've got one of each.
DeleteThis is about a man falling to his doom in slow motion.
ReplyDeleteOr a man with no place to rest his head as the shroud of night falls.
The women are his sybils, like Pythia priestess of Delphi, or lady luck turned bad: Fortuna reversed.
I will hear your 12 bars blues on SoundCloud. In my dreams.
At the risk of being pilloried (in which case I'll remove it):
DeleteI’m in a house full of women, with cushions and curtains all through,
With everything matching and scented and frilly and new,
They bought me dresses, fed me hormones, saw a surgeon, and now I’m one too.
For a man to end his days in a house of women is a blessing. He can see his mates down the pub, in the bowling club, or on the fitba' terraces. My Uncle Robert was the toughest guy I knew and he had six daughters, no son. He was a skilled middleweight fighter and sergeant-major in the Territorials. In France his jeep hit a road bomb and his English captain was killed outright. Robert suffered a serious head injury. He told my his sister, my mother, it took him a long time to get over his captain's death. He died with his daughters around him. At peace with the Lord.
DeleteI will be happy to re-educate you laddie! Wait outside my study! After the inevitable thrashing you will write out one hundred lines in your best handwriting - "I must not be a male chauvinist pig."
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, would you kindly post one of your songs with sound and maybe video? I would love to hear one.
You didn't take note of the second title mentioned near the beginning for which the lyrics are: "I can't sing very well, I can see you can tell, I can't play my guitar very well, but you don't have to listen to me, please feel free to leave."
DeleteI don't recognize it, but find it rather funny.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bea. I'm beginning to think it did come out of my subconscious.
Delete