Ideas for new DBT songs

[ramonz]

Kind of a weird topic, as if these boys need any help , but sometimes I/we come across ideas that would make for a good DBT song.

And I have read in a couple of articles how PH has said he's trying to figure out how to write about what is going on now - now that the shock of the election is starting to wear off and the reality is sinking in.

And maybe artists would be offended by suggestions (I have no idea on this one), and perhaps even avoid a suggestion, but hell, why not - here goes:

I subsribe to Seth Godin's daily feed - it's VERY short, is ostensibly about business/marketing, but is REALLY about life in general and doing the right thing. He is right on target nearly every day, at least for my tastes. Most posts help set my day on the right path, not in a self-help kind of way but in a FUCK YEAH kind of way.

This morning's felt like a good core of a song:

Drawing a Line in the Sand
There are two real problems with this attitude:
First, drawing lines. Problems aren't linear, people don't fit into boxes. Lines are not nuanced, flexible or particularly well-informed. A line is a shortcut, a lazy way to deal with a problem you don't care enough about to truly understand.
Most of all, drawing a line invites the other person to cross it.
Second, the sand. Sand? Really? If you're going to draw a line, if you're truly willing to go to battle, you can do better than sand.

[phungi]

I could see this being the topic of a Patterson song, a Cooley song, a Patterson rant or a Cooley rant...

[beantownbubba]

Interesting post, Ramonz. I take it as a given that Patterson doesn't need or want our help but that doesn't make it any less interesting to think and yak about.

First, the question you didn't ask: I think that quote about the line in the sand is dead on, until the last line. What difference does it make if you draw the line in the sand, concrete or steel? IMHO, his comment misses totally as metaphor and I don't get it on a literal level either. Anyway...

I suspect that this is a really bad, difficult time to write really good songs about the current situation. I imagine it would be relatively easy (for someone who is good at these things) to write something clever, sarcastic, funny, totally partisan and which would have a half life of about 30 seconds. The trick is to find and communicate the humanity, the universality, the poignancy, the personal in large events and to cut through the anger and the knee jerk reactions to the larger truths. Inspired by last weekend, the trick is to find the woman who hates her life and what she's done to it and the kid who'll never get to go to school and never get to be cool among all the rhetoric and angst. And I suspect it's too soon for that. For example, there most likely will be an "uncle frank" in W VA very shortly who thought that electing Trump and releasing the coal companies to rape and pillage the land would result in a good paying job for him and a better situation/prospects for his family (at least until the cancer set in). It's gonna take a few months or a couple of years before that guy realized he was had, that the jobs are not coming back and that now, for example, he can't even shoot squirrels for food 'cause they're all poisoned.

In general, I suspect the better stories and bigger challenges will be found trying to get inside Trump supporters and their eventual disillusionment but even among the more obvious victims it will take at least a while for the stories to start surfacing - immigrants of course, people who lose their insurance (inevitably), etc. There's probably a good movie in the Trump/Russia connection (although The Manchurian Candidate has already been made, twice I think) but I'm not sure whether there's a song there. If there is, the author of "Goode's Field Road" and "The Great Car Dealers War" is probably the right person to figure it out.

And then there's hypocrisy, always a ripe subject amongst the political class. So many topics, so little time: Legislators who want fathers to decide whether a woman can have an abortion but who make no provisions to ensure that those men pay for those babies' care & support; politicians who howled about Obamacare for 6 yrs but who turned out not to have a single cogent thought (much less a plan) for an alternative; Mitch McConnell voting against extended benefits for miners in order to save them or whatever the fuck he said; the rush to make sure that the mentally ill can have easy access to guns while blaming mental healthcare deficiencies for much of the horrible gun violence (that one should particularly appeal to Patterson); the cost to taxpayers of accommodating the Trumps' lifetsyle; the plan to drain the swamp of Congress, Wall St and lobbyists apparently being to take a bunch of them out of circulation by making them part of the Administration; etc, etc in the unending parade of indignities large and small.

There are already barrels full of fish to shoot, but the hard part will be having the patience to hook and reel in the big juicy prizewinner.

[phungi]

Interesting discussion... without quoting Beantownbubba, I agree with the notion that "timeless" songs are often references to political moments, events, etc, whereas specific references to politically-charged "snapshots" are less archival, save for the "flashbulb memory-like events" such as Kent State in "Ohio"... in that context, while I really enjoyed Neil Young's "Living with War" even tracks like "Let's Impeach The President" have not regained any level of awareness or popularity.

[Yaz Rock]

Sounds a lot like one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs Marker in the Sand.

[phungi]

Sounds a lot like one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs Marker in the Sand.

agreed x2

[ramonz]

Bubba, agree that in these times, a song about the current political situation resonates more (and/or has a longer shelf life) when it's more nuanced. The easy, obvious target rarely hits the mark. Along the lines of your "Uncle Frank" Trump supporter who realizes he's made a mistake, there's the good man or woman (honest, empathetic, experienced, intelligent, etc.) who joins the Trump administration out of a sense of duty to country, only to realize how utterly fucked up the whole deal is. To me, this is a much more painful (and thus, more impactful) story line than the hypocritical preacher/politician getting what's coming to him.

More Seth, today (promise this is not an ad for Seth!)....

Over/With
You connect with someone.

But you exert power over someone.

You can dance and communicate and engage with a partner. It's a two way street, a partnership.

On the other hand, you either exert control over someone, or you are under their control. If you want to be an Olympic wrestler, you need to be comfortable (not necessarily in favor of, but willing to live with) the idea that you will spend time under.

For thousands of years, we've built our culture to teach people to not only tolerate a powerful overlord, but in a vacuum, to seek one out. We build schools around the idea of powerful teachers, coaches and authority figures telling us what to do. We go to the placement office to seek a job, instead of starting our own thing, because we've been taught that this is the way it works, it's reliable, it's safer.

And so we're pushed to begin with under, not with.

The connection economy begins to undermine this dynamic. But it's frightening. It's frightening to have your own media channel, your own platform, your own ability to craft a community and 1,000 true fans. So instead, we seek out someone to tell us what to do, to trade this for that.

I think it's becoming clear that power doesn't scale like it used to. Too many unders and not enough withs.

But, each of us can change our perspective, as soon as we're ready.

Find your with.

[Swamp]

I have a friend who has been wanting me to somehow pass his story on to Patterson. He thinks Patterson could make a good song about it. I wasn't going to till I saw this thread. I also know it's not what youa'e looking for
He has a cousin that lives in that parish Charlie Danials sings about in "Sweet Louisiana". He's been in love with her for ever.
About 2 years ago they crossed the line. About 2 months after they did, he found out his dad had an affair with her mother before she was born. Also his dad is a preacher. I have nick named my friend DE.
I also have a friend I have nick named B & D but we're not on speaking terms and he hadn't asked me to tell anyone about it.