I think it's time for a new genre, something like "Literary Mining" where a songwriter will find the lyrics of a song in a novel and put some music to it. The author of the novel probably had a specific melody and arrangement in mind when he wrote it, but the charm of the genre is that the listener gets a vicarious version of the song. Ideally, the novel would come with a link to a recording BY the author so you could hear both versions, but of course it would be wrong for the songwriter (me) to listen to the author's version before doing his own.
The genre, while not named, has been around for a while. The first one was "Tommy's Trains" which was taken from Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Next was "Maybe It's the Wind" from Jim Thompson's South of Heaven, followed by "The Doper's Dream", also from Rainbow. Now the genre is embiggened by the latest: "If It Ain't Fried" from Donald E. Westlake's Branson Missouri murder mystery, Baby Would I Lie?
As far as I know, neither Pynchon, Thompson nor Westlake has made their versions of the songs, if there is one, available.
As for the lyrics to "If It Ain't Fried" they sounded perfect for Elvis to sing, so I used the most obvious rockabilly melody I could think of. I even let the Snidenaires (my Jordanaires-like backup group) echo every line in case you missed it. Then Gavin O'Keefe added some viola chops. All that was left to do was to fry up some delicious bacon and start singing.
(c) by Donald Westlake
A lot of stuff I tried that people said was good
But dang you know they lied, or I misunderstood
I been countrified but here's my attitude
If it ain't fried, then it ain't food.
I been stupified by stuff that's steeped and stewed
And I've been mystified by things that I have chewed
You won't be satisfied, just watch as I conclude
If it ain't fried, then it ain't food.
They got snails and frog legs and lobsters on a leash
With chocolate ants they get pushy
They got squid and its ink they got tofu and quiche
When the oven breaks down they got sushi.
Y'know I got my pride, it idn't that I'm rude
But I won't be denied even if it starts a feud
One thing is qualified when I am in the mood
If it ain't fried, if it ain't fried, if it ain't fried,
Then it ain't food.
BONUS COVER!
Here we've been presenting cover songs by Knees Calhoon for five days and we haven't done anything by the Beatles. This is one of my favorites.
