Kevin Hunter made a songcircle assignment that was brilliant. Find an old newspaper or magazine, open blindly to a page, point a finger blindly to an item on that page. If your finger hits an article, the article title is the song title, if an ad, the ad headline is the song title. Then write the song.

The magazine was the New Yorker, the section was Talk of the town, and the heading was “Dogs Behaving Badly” about NYC poopscooping laws. Wrote the song without an editor (that voice in your head that says: “that sucks, that’s cool”). Later I gleaned that it was about a gunslinger that surrenders his weapons.

Dogs Behaving Badly
©2006 Chuck Lee Bramlet

Don’t want to be this anymore
Like a 68 Camaro
Or serape and sombrero
Don’t know about the dogs of war
Cause a 44 magnum
At the end of day is just a gun

Cause I took this fall
And I aint getting up today
Let the dogs behaving badly
Play

Don’t want to be this anymore
Chop wood carry water
For one more abandoned daughter
Once had a key that fit this door
Once you’ve busted it down
You don’t need it no more

Cause I took this fall
And I aint getting up today
Let the dogs behaving badly
Play

Don’t want to be this anymore
When the mockingbird mocks you
And the dumbest can outfox you
I don’t know who was keeping score
Once you forfeit the game
You don’t need it no more

Cause I took this fall
And I aint getting up today
Let the dogs behaving badly
Play

Next: Recording Dogs

These guys did NOT play on the record

We did a “clean”  version in a different key, and without the riff early on, but it wasn’t sticking. Rich found me a nasty-ass guitar tone for the Les Paul Jr. and that changed everything. He again discouraged me from the overdub monster, keeping it basically power trio + backgrounds (the awesome Ms. Leslie King). After everything I orchestrated a full brass ensemble for the last verse, but Rich buried it deep in the mix. I don’t think he really believed in it, but you can hear the ghost of it if you really listen. Kudos to Rich for the great Bill Wymany swooping bass lines. This one should be fun to play live one day.

This was an anomale, I rarely write from a title, seems a little nashvillian, but I overheard someone use it in a sales pitch once. I loved the absurdity of someone taking someone else out for a “testdrive’. I first played it out at a chuck/ladytown/orphantrain gig, and Sarah and Aram spontaneously joined in on backgrounds.

I wanted the bridge to be a “sad happy ending”, a silver cloud with a dark lining, because I am just that kind of cynical bastard. let’s settle down with a white picket fence in the biggest distopia on the planet.

Put Me to the Test • 2008 Chuck Lee Bramlet

People talk shit
They don’t know where to go
Ain’t gonna quit
Just cause you tell me no

You know it just aint right
It aint right to put me down
I’m not like the rest
Baby put me to the test

Life is a bitch
If you lay down boy you’re dead
This aint a pitch
You best not let it go to your head

You know it just aint right
The way you make me beg for you
I’m not like the rest
Baby put me to the test

You’re a fine one to talk
with your bitter calloused ways
We’re gonna take that walk
Happy ever after
In the poison LA haze

Nobody knows
The way I feel for you
In or outta your clothes
It’s almost too good to be true

You know it just aint right
The way you put me on my knees
I’m not like the rest
Baby put me to the test

This River -click to play while reading

Aram Arslanian, producer

I was lucky enough to work with Aram Arslanian producing on this track. Aram and his wife Sarah had a house in Sunland at the time. Aram has an awesome solo project ongoing called Orphan Train and Sarah has a band called Ladytown, and I was playing some live gigs with both.

Aram had me lay down the guitar track, and it all went down so relaxed we used take 2 or so. Aram put a conga down as a click, which surprisingly worked.

Later we brought in Joel Martin with his Les Paul and a stereo amp setup, again, Magic Joel, one or two takes tops, and he’s done and packing up while I listen back, stunned.

When Aram sent me the original mixes I was happy with everything but the lead vocal, which I was able to redo with Rich after Aram moved north.

Serendipitously, Sarah and Aram and son Sam moved to Portland, later settling in Vancouver WA, across the river. Aram now plays with one of my old friends James Low.  Small universe.

I wanted a really strong finger-picking song. I really like the way a lot of traditional old english folk tunes are structured lyrically, with all the verses the same, but with a changing lead line, so that “singalongs” become easy.

I wrote this song about Portland, OR, a dark rainy northwest town built on the confluence of two rivers, the Willamette (NS) and the Columbia (EW). I lived there in the 90’s, started lifelong friendships, and if I could make a decent living there, I would be there now. The city has a subterranean moodiness and a beautiful melancholy that sunny LA deprives me of. I also had some romantic experiences that have changed me forever. I seem to have written many songs about this place, and the people I knew there.

THIS RIVER         2006 Chuck Lee Bramlet

River winds all through this town
and it loves you just like me
and it loves you just like me
but never sees the day
never sees the day

Rushes out into the sea
and it loves you just like me
and it loves you just like me
but never sees the day
never sees the day

River hides it’s secrets well
and it loves you just like me
and it loves you just like me
but never sees the day
never sees the day

Nobody knows your heart like me
No One knows you in the dark like me

Oh the wind and oh the rain
and it loves you just like me
and it loves you just like me
but never sees the day
never sees the day

Next: Recording This River, working with Aram

Listen to I Lost It while reading (opens in a seperate window)

Rich suggested we just start with acoustic and vocal, but laid down a brutal tom drum ride for the verse. It really changed the way I played it, and the basic sounded meaner than catshit. Singing over the top of that required that the vocal be more raw and direct. When things were sturdy, we laid an electric tuned down the same way over parts, giving things a bit of chime. Rich played his Jazz bass Chris Hillman style, with a pick, putting in cool swoops in the right places.

I took the basic home and added a string quartet on the bridge section to the end using Miroslav Philharmonik. I track string quartet one instrument, one pass at a time, Double Bass, Cello, Viola and Violin. It sounds more real that way. I wanted the Stones “Lady Jane” effect, where the primitive vocal is juxtaposed against more refined and delicate instrumentation.

I brought the submix to Rich, and he loved it, suggesting we add bells, which added a real Psychedelic Furs quality. He also put some tympani down. This turned out to be a very unique track, one of my favorites. There are twists and turns, and one doesn’t know what’s coming next.

Next: Back to the Beatles for a moment.

I wrote this as originally as an empty backing track to collaborate with another writer. Time was dragging on, and I was thinking about my first car that I bought before I could legally drive, a purple and yellow ‘57 Caddy with no brakes. This is a long and pointless story, so I’ll skip it.

Anyway, the first line came, and the rest flowed like water.

I Lost It 2007 Chuck Lee Bramlet

Once I had a Cadillac
Gave it to a girl, so I lost it
Once I had a shirt on my back
Gave it to a girl, so I lost it

That’s why I can’t drink
No matter what you might think

Once I had a life
Gave it to a girl, so I lost it
She was my next ex wife
The perfect girl, so I lost it

That’s why it’s a shame
Please don’t tell me your name

Tell me everything, such pretty eyes
Let me hear you sing, your inner voice
Let me see your face, drop the disguise
Don’t know what’s good for me
I don’t have a choice

Once I do, then it’s on
When you do I am gone

Once I had a pair
Gave em to a girl, so I lost it
Had color in my hair
Hung out with a girl, so I lost it
Once had self esteem
Hooked up with a girl, so I lost it
Gave up on that dream
I couldn’t have it
So I lost it,
So I lost it

The tuning is CGDGCD, which is supposed to be Jimmy Page’s Rain Song tuning, but I couldn’t swear to it, because I can’t really play The Rain Song although it would be appropriate this am.

Next: Recording I Lost It (I’ll finish the Beatle thing later)

Listen to Love Me while reading (opens in a seperate window)

This one went down pretty easily. I wrote in alternate tuning (Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” tuning: CGCFCE), and I believe I used the Guild D4. Single guitar pass and vocal, one take for each, with a fix or two. Rich is such a great engineer that these tasks are never a problem. Having engineered myself many times, it can become a mighty struggle. Rich put down a hypnotic little percussion loop, then bass. Although it’s fun to play bass on my own tracks, I love giving it over to Rich, he really is a tasteful and technically perfect player himself.

Joel Martin laid down his pedal steel pass on the same day as his work on Time to Wake Up and Eyes of a Killer. He had never heard this song, but sussed it out quickly and brought it to whole new level. I was worried about the ratio of “down” to “up” songs on the album and this was the first down in the sequence. I think we struck a pretty good balance.

Rich’s studio “White Room” is on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Cahuenga, a few stories up. When you are in the vocal room, you are overlooking Hotel Cafe, Popeye’s Fried Chicken and a Pizza Joint. Some interesting transactions and interactions are going on out there, but I don’t find it distracting. I love that Rich and Richard Furch leave the windows open. It feels like a really safe and protected environment to do vocals in.

Next post: I Lost It.

This song had it’s start under bogus circumstances. Learned through the Grapevine that LeeAnn Rimes was looking for material. At that time I was still toying with the idea of expanding my craft to write for other artists. I thought a mainstream Nashville player like LeAnn could use some street cred, a closer-to-the-bone personal thing, like George Jones tried to do with “Choices”. Never underestimate the power of my delusional mind to get it wrong. Here’s the 3 ways I blew it.

1. “Grapevine source” evaporates.
2. I am not a crafty tunesmith.
3. My friend Alissa sets me straight.

1. “Grapevine source” evaporates: Just like that. Turns out LeAnn was not at all looking for outside writers. C’est la Vie.

2. I am not a crafty tunesmith: After attending a couple of Durango Songwriters workshops and seeing and meeting a bunch of writery writers, I found I did not relate so much. The concrete they have to shift around and the connections they nurture and enjoy nurturing seemed outside of my grasp of understanding. The best knowledge I gleaned from Durango was that I am a performer who writes for himself.

3. My friend Alissa sets me straight: I ran the song by the circle, (see blogpost Dec 23 2009 • Burn Down Start Over, paragraph 2) I said I had written the song for a woman to sing. Amazing performer/songwriter/force of nature Alissa Moreno said it was too straightforward, lyrically. Although she loved the song (especially the way Leslie King sang it on the demo), she didn’t see it as a woman’s song. Rich later concurred, saying it so goes against my type as a performer that I should “cover” it myself. I think it works.

©06 Chuck Lee Bramlet

Why don’t you let me sleep
I want to dive into your deep
But I’m high and dry
like a fish out of the sea
Answer my prayer
Love me

You were walking in my dream
I was frozen in a moonbeam
I was high and dry
and you couldn’t hear my plea
‘Cause I couldn’t say it
Love me

Love me like the nightingale
That sings out in the heather
Love me like the last day’s here
and there’s no more tomorrow
left for us to be together

This chance will go away
And silence rules the day
So won’t you take me now
Like it was always meant to be
Now and forever
Love me
Now and forever
Love me

Listen to Time to Wake Up while reading (opens in a seperate window)

Rich wanted to use Rob Giles from The Rescues on drums. We knew this track was going to be different. Besides Rob’s great one-take basic, the only notes I have on this are Joel Martin’s lead guitar and Leslie King’s incendiary vocals.

Joel took his lead guitar pass to scorch earth with a cool Frippiness I rarely get to hear. Leslie nailed her vocal, reminding me of Merry Clayton on Gimme Shelter. After more listens than I can imagine, it is still a pleasure to hear her.

Hate to put things off, but I need more distance from this track to do much more than list the players and rave about their contributions. Also invaluable: Brian Yazulka’s great mix.

Next Post: Love Me

PS:  I was sad to hear about Vic Chestnutt. If any readers have favorites they would like to direct me to as a listener, please leave a comment.