Last night I played a gig in Rochester, New Hampshire. It was a Wednesday night show at Mitchell Hill BBQ. On the way over from Biddeford, about 35 miles with a border crossing in Somersworth, I got turned around. I should have just shot down Route 111, but instead, took Route 9 instead. My mistake.
Showed up a bit harried. Had to drag my gear down the sidewalk nearly a ¼ mile because there was no parking due to outdoor dining barriers set-up along North Main Street.
I played the gig. Nothing from the audience. That’s fine. I gave them what I had for two hours including my epic mash-up of “Icarus” and “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” and the first live performance of “Finding a New Path.” Made $17 in tips. It was a Wednesday night. Someone had to take this filler slot and I gave it the old college try. I’m appreciative for the booking, so “thanks Bob.”
The best part of my day (and nearly every day that I have a gig) is that I pick-up my guitar and bang through some of my songs I’ll play that night. Usually I’m working on five or six songs that are “not quite there” yet. Or, I’m working on a riff or solo to embellish a song I’m already playing.
And then, sometimes, I start playing around with some chords and a song comes to me. That’s what happened yesterday right after lunch. I started jotting down some of my stream of consciousness lyrics. I liked the chorus and my “baseball analogy.” Of course, it was written in D.
I wrote it and played it on the beat-to-shit Yamaha that I’ve owned for 30 years. Yammie was the guitar who saved me nearly three years ago. I’d just slapped on some new strings the day before. That guitar cost $150 back in 1995. I think I got my money’s worth, don’t you?
I’ve actually been using the Yamaha for one song in my set: Neil Young’s “Pocahontas” is tuned down a whole step, so I tune down Yammie and do my best Neil Young imitation. For a guy who worshipped Neil in high school and afterwards, it feels pretty good playing covers by my idol, along with T Rex and my fave obscure artists I name in the song.
The song demo (played at my kitchen table) was recorded on my Pixel phone and then, downloaded to Audacity and mixed. I posted it to my Soundcloud page.
This 10+ minute song captures so much about my musical journey, but also my life, too. How ‘bout some of you “rock stars” getting all the beach gigs in OOB write your own talking blues version of your life like this one? Maybe write yours about The Brunswick, or Myst, or Surf 6 since they’ve booked you multiple times. This is the 30th song I’ve written in the last 20 months. Does that qualify as being prolific? I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask Bob Pollard when I see him. He’s someone I look to in terms of measuring my progress as a guy who writes his own songs.
Here it is (w/ lyrics below for those of you who like me to post them):
Finding a New Path
Life was getting harder every day
I was wondering if I could stay
Looked up to the sky, I’m not really someone who prays
And I knew I had to change something b/c if I didn’t I wouldn’t be here very long
[chorus]
But life can be cruel, It can take the starch out of you
And then you gotta’ figure out what the next step is on your path
Like a curveball thrown, you’ve got to try to keep your weight back and dump it into the outfield
And maybe a baseball analogy doesn’t really work here
But I was thinking about it when I was playing my guitar
Once you right the ship, it’s time to figure out what’s next on your journey
No one can tell you what that is, you’ve gotta’ come to that place on your own
It can be lonely, and hard, but no one ever said that life would a picnic (and it’s not been one for me)
But I’m still here, and I’m singing my songs and playing my guitar and I’m thinking, Today’s been a really good day, Today has been a really good day. Today’s been a really, really…really good day
[chorus]
[venue you’re playing at]
So thanks to Bob and his good folks at Mitchell Hill, for having me come here to sing my songs, that come from the core of who I am, at this time, I’ve been through hell and back after losing my son, I’m trying my best to keep going on, but sometimes it seems that life can be tough, I’m not sure I can keep on, but I keep trying and trying.
[chorus]
Sometimes, it seems, like every single song I write, is in D; I like the chords, especially the Em, and the D and the A, and the G. It’s a key that’s easy for me to write in and making my living from the I, IV, V, with a ii chord thrown in (usually a minor), for good measure.
[chorus]
Cause I’m finding a new path, and it’s better than the old path, because the old path was a sad path, and it was path that was leading me down into the darkness and I found a way out, banging my way with this old beat-up guitar in the case over there that I’ll play another song and drop it down and play a song, like “Pocahontas” by Neil Young along with all my obscure covers by bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Swearing at Motorists and T Rex a’int that obscure [but some people think they are] that’s the music I’ve been listening to since I was 8-years-old, on my AM radio, my transistor hiding out in bed and listen to the AM radio when they used to play “Summertime Blues” by Blue Cheer and they’d follow it up with Arlo Guthrie singing “Alice’s Restaurant” and 18 minutes and I mean who plays that fucking shit on the radio anymore?
[chorus]
Cause I’m finding a new path and it’s better than the old path. And I’m happy I’m here at Mitchell Hill BBQ (thank you Bob for having me out tonight—I’m JimBaumerMe); I made a border crossing—came over from Maine—across the New Hampshire border over at Somersworth (one of my favorite towns); I really like Rochester—cause it’s a good working class place, like the town I grew up in, called Lisbon Falls, and it’s trying to figure out what it wants to be in the 21st century—just like me.