From the recording Entertainment
I’ve written a ton of songs. A ton. I write songs for the same reason as some people keep a journal. Maybe even more than that. I write songs to save my sanity or maybe even to save my life.
My lyrics don’t read like a great Country or Americana song, so most people are left mystified or think they can’t relate.
So, I’m starting to post songs, one at a time, and shed some light behind the lyric and musical thoughts that went into it. I hope you join me and maybe start a conversation or two or twenty.
Maybe you will find you can relate much more than you thought you did or maybe you will think I’ve lost my marbles or I’m from a different planet all together (which is probably true as well). Either way, I hope you enjoy me revealing my heart behind my music.
Entertainment Tonight. Love Coma Language of Fools 1995
I was at home watching that celebrity show called Entertainment Tonight, with a guitar in my hands. Their theme song playing and me trying to figure it out on the fretboard… I couldn’t. But I did come up with a dumb rock and roll riff that got stuck in my head.
Once I had the riff, I needed a chord structure and a simple arrangement. D and G for me! Two chords and I was mumbling stream of consciousness lyrics until I’m stumbled upon “I’m out, out, out chasing the wind…” Yes… I loved the way that sounded. Where have I heard this phrase before? It took me a minute but I remember reading the book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible. Now, before I go any further, let me tell you my relationship with this book. In my early teens, my father would punish me by referencing a certain scripture or passage from this book, and making me write it out, over and over again on a piece of paper so it would get into my mind. Usually, I was the sinner that the book was talking about and I should be guilty and ashamed of my sin. So the book was a punishment tool for my father.
Around that same time, I was going to a church that had a thriving youth group and I would go to their youth group meetings and get together. They would read from the same book and it was a completely different context. Jesus loves you, etc. etc. There was lots of love in the room and I could not get my head around the dichotomy of punishment and love.
I was never any kind of Bible scholar and all these years later just a few bits stay with me, but most of it has faded away.
I could, however, relate to the idea that living in this world is futile, and everything is just chasing after the wind. I feel the exhaustion of life more so than most people. And to me, that’s what Entertainment Tonight is all about.
Now don’t forget, I love rock ‘n’ roll, and most everything that comes with it… So the idea of me singing a punk rock bridge in E major “I’m everything I pretend to be” felt right to throw in there. I was an insecure kid, trying to find my footing in this world, and starting out, I pretended to be a songwriter, a front man in a rock ‘n’ roll band… All these years later I am. I am everything I pretend to be. Fake it til you make it.
I don’t have to fake it anymore.
“there is a soul, nobody can find it, no one can draw it, shape it or describe it…” I love this lyric as well. Myself at 26 years old talking about the soul.
Some of us chase after money, some of us chase after success, some of us chase after possessions or things we can have… But it’s all just chasing after the wind once we look back on our lives. “There is nothing better than a little bit of drinking, a little bit of eating for the good of a soul . When you look down at your weary little fingers, you’ll just be let down by the silver and gold.”
So a celebrity show called Entertainment Tonight mixed with the Book of Ecclesiastes (a book that reveals the depression that inevitably results from seeking happiness in worldly things).
This pretty much wraps up my life.. in just under 3 minutes.
Have a listen & enjoy.