The Prairie Scholars

Bad Man

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I've now recorded this song three different times and each time I feel like I'm getting closer to the heart of it. First written in 2006, Bad Man has appeared on two previous albums. It is probably best known from my There is No Underground (2007) release. I can distinctly remember playing this one with Phil Coggins (Lubbock, TX songwriter and sometime hippie). We’d be standing in some noisy bar where patrons had chiefly come for beer and wings not beer, wings and west Texas bohemian soul music. I’ll admit we were, perhaps, niche. This song however always won the crowd over for us. Looking back on the last ten years of recording this music Bad Man is one of the songs I always wanted to try again. I feel satisfied with this version I’ve just made. I wonder if I’ll ever find another excuse to work on it?

 

This version features more movement from the band and a little more lively tempo. 

BAD MAN:

The sinewy grasp of the long arm of the law

is quicker than your conscience  or a pistol on the draw

so hold your hands to heaven reach up for the lord

just don’t touch that alarm and you won’t hear this smoke wagon roar

Now I don’t want to hurt you

I don’t mean no harm

But let me make it simple,

I ain’t going back to the farm

Now, fill the bags with money

I ain’t kiddin’ around

Hand them over quickly and lay face down on the ground

 

Cause I’m a bad man

Empty out the drawers  

 

Don’t make me have to tell you

I don’t know what to do

Just open up the safe and no harm will come to you

I know my life is over

I’m just getting by, just break me off a little

so I can to the other side

My eyes have never seen my one wife’s only son

It should have been ten to twenty but now I’m on the run

Just get through to Nashville, Get me to Tennessee

Just to see my wife and son before uncle Sam catches up with me

 

I don’t wanna shoot nobody, no, I don’t mean no harm

I’ve got to get on down to Nashville and meet my only son

Because I’m out on the lamb, runnin’ for my life

I got get on through to Nashville  and say good by to my wife  

Notion of a Mad Man

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This is a song I've always played live. I usually performed alone with a guitar and harmonica and so songs like this are easier to get into. The rhythm guitar part is what I'm playing at shows, obviously, but I really liked playing a picked bass on this. That's a sound I'm experimenting with. These things are tools, these skills. I'm trying to find the sounds in my head with these tools.

 

I wrote this one back in my college days as an exorcise, mostly. I was learning how to work with imagery and complexity. There were songs like "Dirty Work" from Steely Dan that had such great lines in it, it made me want to think more deeply about my word choice. If you pick the right words you literally don't have to say as many. It's a matter of taste, I now see, but in my opinion a well defined vocabulary is essential for expressing one's self in this medium. So, while I think this is an example of my early experiments, I pick it to be part of this collection because it's one that I've played countless times at gigs since it's original recording. It was time for a fresh take. 

Notion of a Mad Man:

I am the fringes of winter, trapped in your jubilee of spring

I am the bleeding heart of poetry, the final tier on a temple made of string

 

Love is the notion of a mad man

And I was just fool enough to fall

You are the changing winds of springtime and I am the hopelessness of fall

 

I am the cauldron of sorrow, I am an acquiescent dream

You are shining light simplicity but this life is harder than it seems

 

Now I’m holding on to nothing, I’m hanging out to dry

And every time you smile at me I ask myself why?

Why did you choose me from those other boys who could have walked you home from school

Just to leave me here all by myself like some kind of tool? 

 

 

The First One is Always Free

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This is the now infamous "Kidney Song". I've never been good enough to record a respectable version before but after this last "year of thinking" I can finally actualize this song. I remember Doug (Dr. Skoob) Haines always shouting from the back of often empty gigs "Kidney Song!! ... Kidneys! ... Give us Kidneys!".  

My intro at live performances was always the same:

"This is a song about a man who meets a woman at a bar, takes her home and wakes up later in a bathtub of ice realizing that she has drugged him and stolen his kidneys. It's entitled 'the first one is always free.'"

So, I suppose this one goes out to Dr. Skoob.

THE FIRST ONE IS ALWAYS FREE:

Wrapped up in cellophane, in a bathtub of melting ice

All to escape the pain of a trespassing lover’s vice

She gave me love

She wasn’t interested in my heart

One night stand and in the end I was sold for parts

 

Now I see why the first one is always free

 

She said treat every night like it’s the last one of your life

She said neglect your sight and sharpen your soulish knife

Lay off that narrow way

Settle in to the natural flow

I swear I’ll lead you astray, until we find you’ve got nothing more 

Horizon Road

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This one first appeared on "Disease in the Heartland"(2009) as the opening track. I feel like it's representative of that year for me. This version, I feel, is a little more fully actualized. I like this one because it a little more swingy with the full band treatment. I got Jess to play piano on this and I feel like it sounds more like the song people responded to at live shows.

Don't Break My Heart

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This song was originally titled "6/8 Groove". It was a working title that never got changed but I have now retitled it "Don't Break My Heart" which I think captures the concept nicely without being too hooky. 

I wrote this song after learning some "Jazz Chords" from Scott Faris during my time at South Plains College. Back then I was writing songs by the dozen but this one always felt better than most of the others and usually got me some positive feedback at gigs. The song is reworked here and I think it has more energy than the original recording. 

 

I'm so glad that I can finally redo this song and make it sound like it's sounded in my mind all these years. 

  DON’T BREAK MY HEART:

If you be true I can promise you

My love will tie itself to you

Don’t laugh, please don’t make a sound

And wake the demons sleeping all around

 

Don’t break my heart this time around

Because second chances are rarely ever found

You say the most beautiful falsehoods

but the truth dear needs no silken vale

 

If I hold tight you might pull away

our love has always required chase

You laugh, Please don’t run away

Our love should not come with lock and key

 

If you be true I can swear to you

My body my heart and my soul are yours

You cry, you’ve outdone yourself

You’ve been stepping out but this is your last time

The One That Got Away

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There is an old story that Buddy Holly was going to leave his wife for "Peggy Sue" (of his famous song) and whether or not it's true I was inspired to write this song about missed opportunity.

The One That Got Away:

 

When you’re young you feel that you are able

To let go of your love, the first time around

But when you’re older you remember her golden sunshine hair

The way it rolled like satin flowing down

But the mess you made has driven her far away from you

The memories that you cling to fade like mist

And all you know is that she’s gone and wont come back

And that you’ll never  touch the one you miss

 

She was My Peggy Sue

My Peggy Sue

She was the one that got away

Now there’s nothing I can do

 

when you’re older you question all your choices

and suffer them like bruises on your soul

and if I sit still I can hear how sweet her voice is

and the way it melts the storm clouds in my mind

but I let her go and I lost my own direction  

stumbling in the dark and in the haze

the rest are dirt compared to her perfection

and how I wish I never let her go

 

 

Her eyes stare back across the endless years gone by

The gemstones they are filled with shine with a light

That illuminates my soul, why did I ever let her go?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lubbock, Texas

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This song features a couple of special guests, which is rare for me. Don Caldwell was kind enough to record a sax solo, which turned out brilliantly, and Kenny Maines lent his great voice to the song as well! I am so glad they both wanted to be involved because I feel that their additions have full actualized the song.

Enjoy.