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