Let's Just Play Us As We Lay

When I hear songs like this that could be so much better with a different tone on the guitar, and maybe some harmony, I wonder why I don't record them again? I have a 100-track recorder, a super acoustic guitar, more effects than I can possibly ever abuse, a good microphone and an electronic drummer that's light year's better than the one I used on most of the songs. Maybe I will.

Another song written on a highway. I guess I shouldn't complain about people texting or talking on a cell phone while driving. Apparently I used to write down lyrics while speeding down the interstate.

LET’S JUST PLAY US AS WE LAY

Written: Interstate 25 north of Las Cruces NM, 1980

It started out as a combo golf/cheating song but ended up having nothing to do with golf, except for the “play it as it lays” pun. Knees gave it the first melody that occurred to him—as he did many of his songs—but never played it with his bands. Too bad. It might have been a good bar song.

I had my plans, I had my dreams

I’d sail around the moon, I’d touch everything

I had it all worked out just what I’d do

But one thing I hadn’t planned on was you.

We played us cool, we played us smart

We played so well right from the start

An here’s my plan for today

Let’s forget about tomorrow,

Let’s just play us as we lay.

Let’s just play us as we lay us together

Let’s just play us as we lay us down, down down

Now I’m makin the last plan I’ll ever make

Let’s forget about tomorrow,

Let’s just play us as we lay.

Planter

Sanctuary

I got the idea for this song from my usual source of inspiration, my books. A tip for budding songwriters: if you need a good title for your song, just walk up and down the fiction aisles of a library. There are thousands of words and phrases that have been vetted by venal publishers and editors to be the most provocative, eye-catching titles possible, and they're all lined up on shelves facing you. Just tilt your head a bit to the right.

It might even help if you use the prose of the book, too. Perhaps this song would have been better if I had followed the plot of William Faulkner's book instead of using a situation I found myself in with a woman at the time. The version below was recorded in 2013 with my harmonizer and acoustic guitar. There's an earlier version below the doodle.

SANCTUARY

   
Written: Gallagher Street, Las Cruces NM, 1980

Knees was thinking of the William Faulkner novel when he wrote this whiny ballad. Too bad he didn’t follow the plot better. The song sounded pretty good when Knees was playing with a group called Night Flight. He was the piano player and the guitarist, Mike Gregory, was amazing. Unfortunately, Knees never was able to get a copy of the few recordings they made.

You call on me when you can use me

When you’re feelin low you choose me

You count on me, I’m a soft place you can fall

But while you’re out gettin lonely

Til it hurts so much you phone me

I’m thinkin someday, I won’t be here when you call.

Everybody needs a sanctuary

A place to hide when you’re feelin too well known

Everybody needs a sanctuary

Well I’m somebody and I need one of my own.

I love your mind I’ve been inside it

But somethin’s wrong we’re too one-sided

I’m sinkin fast,  and I can’t wait too long

So when your nights begin to bruise you

Let’s just hope I don’t refuse you

I’m tryin hard but I can only be so strong.

Everybody needs a sanctuary

A place to hide, a friend that you can call

Everybody needs a sanctuary

I’m somebody and I need you most of all.

Coral

SANCTUARY

Recorded in 1993

I Shoulda Been Born 1000 Years Ago

Something new tonight. Instead of the Calhoon Brothers live version -- there isn't one -- we have an alternate version as recorded in 1993, right before the final version was done. I had forgotten that I even had a "first take" in which I used an annoying keyboard/banjo riff all the way through, and was still experimenting with improving the words. As with many of these songs that were written in the 70s and not recorded, or played, until the 90s, I was relying on some lyrics written on loose slips of paper and memories of chord progressions.

I SHOULDA BEEN BORN A THOUSAND YEARS AGO

Written: Gallagher Street, Las Cruces NM, 1980

Inspired by nothing, this song turned out to have some of Knees’ best lines. He never played it with any of his bands and didn’t really come up with the music until he recorded it back in the early 90s.

I shoulda been born a thousand years ago

I’da been a hero of the day

You’d find me on a quest for a damsel in distress

An you peasants woulda cheered me on my way.

I shoulda been born a thousand years ago

Helpin out a lady fair in need

In my suit of armor

I sure woulda been a charmer

Chivalry comes naturally to me.

But I was born in nineteen and sixty-one

A renaissance or two too late

An when I look aroun,

There ain’t no treasures to be found

Everything I do is out of date.

So tonight I’ll blaze the same ol trail again

Lookin for that same ol grail again

I’m a knight out on the town,

A damsel-huntin clown

Joustin my way back into jail again.

I shoulda been born a thousand years ago

I’m just a man out of time

When I look around today,

Ain’t no dragons left to slay

An even if there was it’d be a crime.

Spotoid

I SHOULDA BEEN BORN A THOUSAND YEARS AGO

First take as recorded in 1993 in Shreveport LA 

My Lady Cries When the Train Whistle Blows

Knees always thought that Willie Nelson would have done a good job on this song. The lady who inspired it was a friend of Willie's back in the 70s, and Knees was thinking of how Willie might write a song about found love. The line "made me a father" was poetic license.

I moved to Louisiana in 1987 where I married and settled down to a life of computers and books. She married, had a son, and is now a very successful world traveling businesswoman. I guess we both turned out okay.

MY LADY CRIES WHEN THE TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

Written: Gallagher Street, Las Cruces NM, 1980

Knees wrote this for his favorite lady of Las Cruces. They spent much of their time in a dreamlike state, letting emotions run wild, and Knees wanted to preserve in song some of her more endearing histrionics.

My lady cries when the train whistle blows

Dreamin bout her past that only she knows

In the night I hold her tighter

To keep her here with me

But as long as that whistle blows she goes

To her railroad days and the girl she used to be.

She rode the rails with her ramblin gamblin man

She kept a cigar in his smile

An a drink in his hand

He kept her for his pleasure

Now the pleasure’s all mine

But as long as that whistle blows she goes

To her railroad days and the girl she left behind

She’s the finest woman that I’ve ever known

She’s made me a father an given me a home

An I know it all all happened

Such a long long time ago

But my lady still cries

When the train whistle blows.

Retina

If the Music Weren't There

Las Cruces NM, and particularly the Las Cruces Inn on West Picacho Street was a great place to witness the head-on collision between Rock & Roll and Country & Western music in the last half of the 70s. The cowboys had been growing their hair long for years but it wasn't until the Eagles and Burrito Brothers and other country-rock groups that it became okay for a bar to have both kinds of music -- and they were beginning to sound a bit alike.

We even had a strobe light for a couple of months and had it wired up so all of the other lights around the dance floor went out when we flipped the strobe on. It wasn't the Fillmore, but it was the next best thing in 1978 in Las Cruces. Cowboys and their ladies would dance by the bandstand and say, "Hey, turn on the goddam blinkin' light."

IF THE MUSIC WEREN’T THERE

Written: Gallagher Street, Las Cruces NM, 1978

Knees played this a couple of times with the Calhoon Brothers at the Las Cruces Inn but it wasn’t particularly danceable, hummable, or memorable. The words refer to the dance floor at the LCI with its strobe light, a first for cowboy bars in New Mexico. Too bad it was never recorded.

We are gathered here outside the sight of God

To see who we’ll join together

Two-by-two twirling in the flashing light

Dancin on the edge of a feather.

Dancin on the edge of a feather.

We play along but you are the players

Spinning with stars in your eyes

Each woman Carmen, each man Cougie

Each with his own disguise,

Each with his own disguise.

So keep on keepin the thrill in sight

As you’re waltzing along through the air

I wonder whether she would spend the night

If the music weren’t there

If the music weren’t there.

When the moves have been made

In this romantic game

We’ll pick up the pieces and go

We’ll read all about it in the Sunday news

And we’ll wait for the next picture show,

And we’ll wait for the next picture show.

The Organ

A Long Way Back to Georgia

Tommy Beuten was Knees' model for guitar hero when Knees was growing up. Despite the theme of the song, Tommy seemed quite content to play music at the bars of southern Colorado for the rest of his life, and Knees adopted the same attitude. The important thing wasn't making it big in the music bidness; the important thing was to not have to wake up in the morning and trudge off to a day job.

And Tommy and Knees succeeded. Tommy lived on his ranch in southern Colorado and made music on computer as Knees does. He died earlier this year.

A LONG WAY BACK TO GEORGIA

Written by Tommy Beuten in the 60s. Recorded by Fender Tucker in 1993.

Knees first heard this song on a 45 back in the 60s, but can't remember if the record was by the writer, Tommy Beuten, or by his group, the Exotics. They were his favorite band and Knees used to see them play in Durango CO as often as he could in those days when he was under 18 and had an easier time getting into the bars in Colorado where the minimum age was 18. In New Mexico it was 21.

Here I am sittin in this lonely room
Haven't got a penny to my name
I'm all alone I guess I must be doomed
Looks like I had my last crack at fame
I guess I'll never see my home again.

And it's a long way back to Georgia
And it's a long time to get back home
And it's a long way back to Georgia
And I'm sick and tired of being all alone
I guess I'll pack my things and head back home.

I came to Nashville, gonna be a star
I left home with everything I made
Now all I have are my clothes and my guitar
They never even listened when I played
They never even listened when I played.

And it's a long way back to Georgia

And it's a long time to get back home
And it's a long way back to Georgia
And I'm sick and tired of being all alone
I guess I'll pack my things and head back home.

For years I thought this next tune was something that Tommy wrote about his beloved Colorado. But after he died I found out from his son Darrell that Tommy didn't write it; he just recorded it. In the meantime I had decided it was a perfect traveling song, meaning a song you can suit for whatever town or state you might be. Here are three versions, showing you what I mean. If your area has the right number of syllables, this can be your song by just changing a few words in the verses.

 

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DOWN TO COLORADO?

Tommy Beuten's version

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DOWN TO LAS CRUCES?

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DOWN TO MISSISSIPPI?

Pearls

BONUS COVER!

How about another tune by Canada's Bruce Cockburn? He plays great guitar and his songs grow on you. I was thinking this was too simple when I first heard it but its nuances are many. Too bad Knees is pretty much limited to his own nuances. And there's a video!

MIGHTY TRUCKS OF MIDNIGHT

It's a Sin to Say No

One of my favorite songs even if its message is a tad simplistic. But maybe only half as simplistic as the message it's trying to subvert.

The doodle is one that Knees did during his Army stint in Alabama at Redstone Arsenal in 1968. He had just discovered Rapid-o-graph pens.

IT’S A SIN TO SAY NO

Written: Melendres Street, Las Cruces NM, 1977

According to Knees’ memory, he was inspired to write this as a rebuttal of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” garbage, but was that phrase used in 1977? Nancy didn’t get elected until 1980. Yet Knees distinctly remembers hating the idea of saying no, and wanting to contradict it in a song. Maybe he didn’t write this until the early 80s? In any case the plot and the guitar work are some of Knees’ best.

When I was seventeen

The world was at war

I delivered groceries

To women and old men

And though it happened long ago,

It’s never left my mind

What an old grey-haired mailman

Had to say to me then.

One day I rang the bell

At a house way downtown

The old mailman was resting

On the steps down below

The woman at the door

Had heartbreak in her eyes

When she asked me,

“Please stay a while.”

I said I had to go.

She smiled and said, “Some other time,”

As I backed down the stairs

She closed the door and time stood still

For the mailman and me

We stood there without speaking

Till he looked me in the eyes

He said “You’re young

And now you own the world

But someday you will see,

That it’s a sin to say no

To a woman who’s so lonely

She sees the man she loves so much

In a boy of seventeen

It’s a sin to say no

When a man like me’s so lonely

One day you’re gonna wake up

And you’ll be old as me."

Army Doodle

Midnight Sun

As I look back upon these old songs written back in the 60s and 70s I realize how reactive they were. The only time I would get inspired to write a song was when some song I heard on the radio offended me. Too bad I rarely listened to the radio. I used to have a reel-to-reel tape deck and would set it on slow speed and tape a whole afternoon's worth of a local C&W station. Then I'd fast-forward through it stopping at each song to hear a measure or two -- long enough to hear if it was something we would want to learn for the bar. That was the extent of my radio listening.

MIDNIGHT SUN

Written: Melendres Street, Las Cruces NM 1977

Knees Calhoon was an agreeable contrarian and when the country world was “…getting back to the country…” with “…Willie and Waylon and the boys…” he felt he had to stand up for the inner city. So he dusted off his James Brown chords and wrote what he thought was a sophisticated defense of city living. City living in Dallas yet!

This dusty life I’m livin

S’got its own special rhythm

But the city keeps callin my name out loud

Sayin leave it all behind

I got the land I thought I wanted

But I still feel like I’m haunted

By the uptown women in the downtown bars

Dancin cross my mind, cross my mind.

I’m gonna count my blessings, pack my bags

Stash some grass and haul my ass to Dallas

I’ll be a city-slicker, sailor

And a salesman all in one

Well I wanna be where

There’s always music playin

Where the neon lights me up

Like a midnight sun

Midnight sun.

So let the suburbs keep on growin,

Let the farmers keep on crowin

Let everybody in their own way

Ride the devil down

I got my mind all made up;

I’m tired of feelin laid up

After I hit every bar in Dallas

Look out Cowtown.

Pittsburgh

MIDNIGHT SUN

The CALHOON BROTHERS LIVE VERSION

(Sometime in the late 70s at the Las Cruces Inn, Las Cruces NM)

I'm Too Smart to Be This Kind of Fool

I like playing honky-tonk songs like this and when people were dancing fast and drinking slow it made up for the times we played only for the bartender and waitresses.

I’M TOO SMART TO BE THIS KIND OF FOOL

 

Written: Melendres Street, Las Cruces NM, 1977

Knees stole—yes, stole—this title from a woman he met at the Las Cruces Inn. On what was the most traditional, normal date of his life she told him that if she were ever to write a country & western tune, the title would be, “I’m Too Smart to Be This Kind of Fool”. He liked it too, and although he never saw her again, he fleshed out the song soon after and it became a standard at the Las Cruces Inn.

Why do I worry just like a good ol boy?

Why do I treat her like she’s my favorite toy?

Jealousy is new to me,

I’ve always been so fancy free,

But she introduced me to misery

Now I’m learnin that pain’s

On the other side of joy.

I’m too smart to be this kind of fool

I know a lot about art

But I don’t know what to do.

She tells me things that I never heard in school,

Hell I’m too smart to be this kind of fool.

Why do I need her,

I never needed anyone before

Why do I believe her an keep on askin for more?

As we roll along to the evenin song,

Makin love til the feelin’s gone,

An everything I ever knew is wrong

She says “See ya later,”

An leaves me lyin on the floor.

Amoeba Nest

I’M TOO SMART TO BE THIS KIND OF FOOL

The CALHOON BROTHERS LIVE VERSION

(Sometime in the late 70s at the Las Cruces Inn, Las Cruces NM)

I'm Just a Man

As I look at the lyrics of the songs Knees wrote back in the 60s and 70s it occurs to me that he didn't have a particularly wide range of rhymes. Most of his lines ended with with words rhyming with "hand" or "dead". Also, he was fond of long lyrical lines instead of short, catchy ones that successful songwriters like Tom Petty use. 1977 was probably his most prolific songwriting year because the Las Cruces Inn was really jumping and he had a ready-made soundboard for his tunes. He'd write a song in the daytime and the Calhoons would try it out that night.

I’M JUST A MAN

Written: Melendres Street, Las Cruces NM, 1977

Knees was flying high at the Las Cruces Inn in 1977. The bar was packed every night and he and Mark Coker, the other guitarist/singer, were coming up with new songs regularly. In this song Knees put just about every one of the modern C&W clichés he knew. The people at the bar called it that “boy’s first kiss” song.

I was a kid for a long time

Livin on the farm there was no need to grow

An sure I love my folks but that ain’t enough

When I needed to leave

More than they could know.

Then you came into my life like a whirlwind

An you blew this tumbleweed right offa the farm

Now no matter where we go

I just want you to know

That I love you an lovin you keeps me warm.

Oh I’m just a man, I’ll do all I can

But I’ve never been in love like this before

So try an understand

You’re a boy’s first kiss

Oh and this boy just can’t miss

With a woman like you to take me by the hand

It took a woman like you to show me I’m a man.

Partridge

I'M JUST A MAN

The CALHOON BROTHERS LIVE VERSION

(Sometime in the late 70s at the Las Cruces Inn, Las Cruces NM)

The Ghost in the Mirror

Everybody liked this song at the bar because it was so typical of what we were playing for the cowboys and cowgirls to dance to. The Calhoon Brothers version must have been recorded in 1977 soon after it was written because of the scarcity of harmony on the choruses. Once we knew a song pretty well we filled all its cracks with harmonies and Calhoon cliches. 

THE GHOST IN THE MIRROR

 

Written: Jayne Lane, Las Cruces NM, 1977

Knees was getting a little sick of the rehashed ideas and melodies that the C&W world was cranking out and decided he could do just as badly. So he wrote this song, using an exact ripoff of the melody for Heartaches by the Number. Oddly, the song became a favorite in the Las Cruces area. In the 90s when he recorded it, he decided to use a harmony to the original melody as the main melody so it wouldn’t be as recognizable as a ripoff.

By midnight you can find me sittin on this stool

Talkin to my scotch an soda babblin like a fool

Don’t think about disturbin me

By askin me to dance

Cuz I’m one shot past bein friendly

An that’s two shots past romance.

So I just stare at that ghost in the mirror

A sadder face you’d never want to see

An I wonder why that ghost in the mirror

Seems to be starin at me.

There’s a woman sittin down the bar

I’ve seen her here before

She takes a drink and sheds a tear

An says she’ll have one more

Well I’ve never been a talker

Or a player of fancy games

An something makes me wonder

If she feels the same.

An now there’s two lonely ghosts in the mirror

A sadder pair you’d never want to see

An I wonder why those ghosts in the mirror

Seem to be starin at me.

Hydra

THE GHOST IN THE MIRROR

The CALHOON BROTHERS LIVE VERSION

(Sometime in the late 70s at the Las Cruces Inn, Las Cruces NM)