Thursday, October 23, 2008
New Song - just like country radio
Hey, bartender, should I drink out loud?
There’s absolutely nothing auto-biographical in this new song; I really don’t hang out in bars, at least not for about 30 years, and I never did it to drink away heartache like so many country songs.
But I have been through one of those occasional swings where I’ve been listening to more country music on the radio, and also enjoyed the Southern Breeze Band at the annual CRBA Street Dance last weekend. They play a few more recent songs, but also a lot of old-time drinkin’/cheatin’/heartbreak country songs, as in Conway Twitty and that era. That’s the only explanation I have for waking up this morning with the phrase “Hey, bartender, should I drink out loud?” in my head. Then getting ready for work it developed as if posed to a female ex-girlfriend bartender, so with that idea the verses came together pretty easily on the drive to work.
The tune I was putting it to in the truck is a pretty standard variation of probably a hundred country songs. Who knows, though? - a comfortable country tune, a catchy title phrase like country radio seems to thrive on lately, and a time-honored barroom-heartache formula probably give it a potential for commercial success, if I (you?) want to push it that far.