I feel like it's a bit of a waste just using my blog to bitch about things, so I thought I'd give that shit up and write about more interesting and productive things. So, first off, this is the story behind my song, "Petty Theft" that's been up here for ages... the names have benn abbreviated to protect the guilty...
A few years ago, my friends and I all got together in Belfast when we weren't at college and went to see Chuck Berry, figuring we'd probably not get the chance again before he dies. The man was 80. Anyway, the next night, which was my buddy, D's last night before he returned to San Francisco and I went back down to Dublin, we were at a loss as to how we could top Chuck Berry. But we managed, and it was all thanks to me.
I had an ill deserved reputation for being bad with women. It's not true. I'm just horrendously unfortunate thataways. But the four of us went out to this bar, and J and D wanted to meet girls. I wasn't enthusiastic about the prospects. D was going to chat up some girl and wanted me to entertain her friend, whom I initially had mistaken for being two people. I had a better idea. I saw a group of four girls, all reasonably pretty, except one who I just thought was stunning, and I suggested seeing as there was four of us and four of them... well you don't need a PhD in applied mathematics to work this one out.
I started a conversation with P, the real knock-out. D got to dancing with her tall, Swiss friend. P turned out to be, not only pretty, but funny, interesting and we had a lot of stuff in common, she really seemed to like me, she laughed at all my jokes she used words like, "attractive" to describe me. I thought this was going ridiculously well. We introduced D to her cousin, B, who tried to tell me something, but I couldn't hear her. At this point P turned to me and said, "I'm sorry. You seem really cool and I really like you, but I have a girlfriend."
All I could do was laugh and think, "This could only happen to me."
Anyway, we talked on and she ended up asking for my phone number anyway. A little later J came up to me and said into my ear, "Go on, get in there y'boy ye," or something to that effect and I had to tell him, "No, dude. She has a girlfriend."
J laughed and said, "This could only happen to you."
He and B are still dating. Thus is the product of my hard work.
Anyway, travelling back down to Dublin on the bus I kept humming this melody in my head, over one of the lines (I forget which one) that made it into the song. By the time I got back to my upstairs room in the house of Cronin (that's a long story) I had a first verse and a chorus, and then I had to sit down and work out the chords. That's unusual for me. Usually I get a guitar bit I like and then work in the vocals on top. I think this may have been the only time I worked out the instruments around a pre-written vocal melody.
After a couple of years of gradually whittling down three verses to two (I cringe at some of the original lyrics I wrote) I recorded it for your listening pleasure. It's a flawed recording, but I still love the song.
| My Profile
Petty Theft: Cannibalising my Life Experiences blog
