It's later.
So here I go again, on my own. Like the original version of the Whitesnake song before David Coverversion got his Chiclet teeth etc. Like a hobo I was born to walk erratically when I've had a bit of wine. And c.
Here's what I wrote last weekend, as a quasi-explanation of a song that got stuck in my head and wouldn't cut loose, and ultimately resulted in my thinking about -- and attempting -- setting up a relatively anonymous personal web journal:
Last Week's Well-oiled Bloviation
I know, I know -- I'm guessing there's a remote possibility I'll get nicked for posting the full lyrics to this song here, in which case I'll happily link to someone else who has them and include an excerpt. Frankly, if I were Kim Mitchell, I'd be happy for the promotion.
I heard this song come up in my ITunes rotation (I pwn the CD, bought it a million years or so ago, so I have the rights to burn it), and it got stuck in my head and eventually, that doppelganger of Kim in his OPD hat told me "you really ought to be puking the contents of your brain anonymously on the web once in a while, before you go off on some idiot in a convenience store or something." And who can argue with logic like that?
So since I'm moderately literate, and moderately computer-literate, and old as dirt and fairly articulate and well-educated, I decided I'd go ahead and pitch it out here, and maybe I'd just blather later on other things.
"Expedition Sailor"
Kim Mitchell(music)/Pye Dubois(lyrics)
i woke up in the middle of the atlantic
and i had a view of the whole wide world
and i was on expedition
expedition sailor
i was out to find a much better world
i'm gone away
odds are not really in
their favour
of seeing me home
i'm gone away
guess i'll lay it down on this cruise
to take me off to somewhere...
i crossed the dateline
i crossed the equator
there is no shore i can't call home
horizons in heavens
just for the sailor
i'm out to find a much better world
i was out to find a much better world
i'm gone away
guess i'll lay it down on this cruise
to take me off to somewhere
i'm gone away
odds are not really in our favour
of seeing me home
The song was recorded in 1989. Rumour has it (if you're a Kim fan, you'll get that -- if not, e-mail me and I'll explain it), Pye and Kim had some disagreement somewhere along the line and seldom if ever write together now, after decades of working together in Max Webster and on Kim's solo work. Not to cast even one aspersion on Andy Curran -- saw him open for Kim when Kim was touring on Rockland (the album on which "Expedition Sailor" was included) back around 1990, and Soho 69 was great. I just miss the compulsive introspection and sorta freakish non sequitur combination of Dubois's lyrics and Kim's melodic sense. Ah, me -- you know how old I am, if any of this makes any goddamn sense to you, but that's life, I guess. We all get old eventually. As my late father used to say, it beats the hell out of the alternative. He'd know, but he ain't around to tell me about that -- I'm happy enough to assume he was right.
Rik Emmett (from Triumph) recorded the acoustic guitar on the song; Kim did any of the other guitar, which is to say the electric solo work on it. At this long remove my memory could be faulty, but if I am not mistaken, the song was recorded by remote, with Mitchell and Emmett trading tapes back and forth to complete the work. I thought at the time -- and still think -- wow, it must really have wanted to get written, if they did it that way.
I borrowed that modus operandi over a decade ago for some musician characters I've been writing about for about twenty years (I call it cheap psychotherapy). I read recently Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and his Postal Service partner in crime Jimmy Tamborello recorded the Postal Service stuff that way. I guess if you want to get something done badly enough, you'll figure out a way to get it done. Kim and Rik did that before it was easy -- kudos to them. And huzzahs, too, if Jon Stewart has any spare ones rolling around the lint in his jacket pocket. I imagine there might be a few.
I'll probably just ramble here. I have no desire to be identified, and no desire to be harassed, so if you don't like what I say, just move along, mmkay? Because really, it ain't about you.
ITunes has moved on to Eels' "Novocaine For The Soul," so I'm just gonna ... sputter out.
L8R
ES
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