‘Americana’

We got winners, we got losers
Chain smokers and boozers
And we got yuppies, we got bikers
We got thirsty hitchhikers
And the girls next door dress up like movie stars

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

We got cowboys, we got truckers
Broken-hearted fools and suckers
And we got hustlers, we got fighters
Early birds and all-nighters
And the veterans talk about their battle scars

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

I love this bar – It’s my kind of place
Just walkin’ through the front door
Puts a big smile on my face
It ain’t too far, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

I’ve seen short skirts, we got high-techs
Blue-collar boys and rednecks
And we got lovers, lots of lookers
And I’ve even seen dancing girls and hookers
And we like to drink our beer from a mason jar

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Yes I do

I like my truck   (I like my truck)
I like my girlfriend   (I like my girlfriend)
I like to take her out to dinner
I like a movie now and then

But I love this bar – It’s my kind of place
Just strollin’ around the dance floor
Puts a big smile on my face
No cover charge, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar …

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♦  Sara Evans  ⇓  ‘Suds In The Bucket’  [2004]

The music video,  directed by Peter Zavadil, follows the lyrics of the song. It shows a young girl running away from home with a boy to go get married. The song is intercut with scenes of Evans singing in front of laundry drying in the front yard of a home, in a beauty shop, and in a church.

♣  Big & Rich  [ft. Gretchen Wilson]  ↓ ‘Fake I.D.’

Hey, I’ve been driving all over town
On my cellphone wearin’ it out
And I’ve finally tracked you down

Hey, everybody says you’re the man
The final piece to my master plan
You got my world in the palm of your hand

Well I know that you got it – Come on and just sell it
Got the cash up in my pocket – You know I gotta get it

Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID
There’s a band in the bar that I’m dying to see
I got my money and you got what I need
Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID

Hey, don’t even think about tellin’ me no
It’s only twenty minutes till the show
Hey mister turn it over let’s go

No, I ain’t gonna need a receipt
Just make sure that it looks like me
So the bouncer don’t call the police

And don’t tell my daddy – Stole the keys to his caddy
Don’t dilly dally – I gotta get the hell out of this alley

Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID
There’s a band in the bar that I’m dying to see
I got my money and you got what I need
Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID

Here’s my money, now get out of my way
Gonna push my luck right up to the stage

Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID
There’s a band in the bar that I’m dying to see
I got my money and you got what I need
Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID
Hey mister, hey mister

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♦  ‘Wildfire’  ⇓  from John Mayer‘s latest album «Paradise Valley» [2013]

River’s strong, you can swim inside it
We could string some lights up here beside it
Tonight the moon’s so bright you could drive with your headlights out
‘Cause a little bit of summer’s what the whole year’s all about
We can watch that waterline get higher and higher
Say, say, say,  ain’t it been some kind of day
that you and me been catchin’ on like a wildfire

Don’t get up just to get another, you can drink from mine, we can’t leave each other
We can dance with the dead, you can rest your head on the shoulder if you want to get older with me
‘Cause a little bit of summer makes a lot of history

 We can watch that borderline get higher and higher
Say, say, say ain’t it been some kind of day
You and me been catchin’ on like a wildfire

I got a rock from the river in my medicine bag
Magpie feather in his medicine bag

Say, say, say,  Ain’t it been some kind of day
You and me been catchin’ on like a wildfire

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Φ   Kanye West  ⇓ ‘HEARTLESS’ ⇐[2008]

[Hook]
In the night I hear em talk
The coldest story ever told
Somewhere far along this road
He lost his soul
To a woman so heartless
How could you be so heartless?

I been up, honey, all night long,
It felt right, now it feels wrong.
I just wanna feed my misery,
The _Boston Globe_ and some black coffee.

I don’t wanna have a nice day,
And I wish that you wouldn’t say
That to me, not that-a-way,
I don’t wanna have a nice day.

 

I think that somebody unscrewed my head,
I know I look just like an unmade bed.
But y’know when I feel this way,
What it is is a-what I say.  And…

I don’t wanna have a nice day …

 

I can remember a little restaurant, you know,
Somewhere down around Chicago.
She threw that Whopper right in my face,
And then she said, «Have a nice day.» I said,

I don’t wanna have a nice day …

 

What d’ya wanna do then? 

Umh!  I wanna weep; I wanna sleep,
I wanna get by cheap.
I wanna creep into the deep,
I wanna fall down in a heap.

I’m gonna do it right on your floor,
If you say that to me just once more.
You’ll have to roll me right out the door,
Yeah, and give me the ol’ what for.

I can remember what the people did,
Way back when I was a little kid.
They didn’t ask you to be always high,
They just said, «thank you» and «goodbye.» And…

I don’t wanna have a nice day …

 

No no no no no nonononono…
Why don’t you have one? Take two, they’re small.
Da da da da da dadadadadada…
Why don’t you have a day like a painting of a kid with big eyes?
Why don’t you have a day like a painting of a puppy with a ribbon ‘round its neck,
Sun goin’ down over the sea?
Why don’t you have a day like a painting of a kid with big eyes
Holdin’ a puppy with a ribbon ‘round it’s neck’
Standin’ down by the ocean with the sun…
Nonononono, I don’t wanna…..nonononono, I don’t wanna…..nononnonono,
I don’t wanna,
Nononononononono!

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♦  ‘Lodi’   (1969)  ⇓  [John Fogerty]

Just about a year ago, I set out on the road,
Seekin’ my fame and fortune, lookin’ for a pot of gold.
Things got bad, and things got worse, I guess you will know the tune.
Oh ! Lord, Stuck in Lodi again.

Rode in on the Greyhound, I’ll be walkin’ out if I go.
I was just passin’ through, must be seven months or more.
Ran out of time and money, looks like they took my friends.
Oh ! Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again.

The man from the magazine said I was on my way.
Somewhere I lost connections, ran out of songs to play.
I came into town, a one night stand, looks like my plans fell through
Oh ! Lord, Stuck in Lodi again.

Mmmm…
If I only had a dollar, for every song I’ve sung.
And every time I’ve had to play while people sat there drunk.
You know, I’d catch the next train back to where I live.
Oh ! Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again . . .

•→ Emmylou Harris´1992 cover⇐

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¤  ‘Girls With Guitars’  ⇓ [«Tell Me Why»_1994]

A single by American country music artist Wynonna Judd, with background vocals by Judd’s mother, Naomi Judd, and Lyle Lovett.

She turned fifteen with great expectations
Her older brother knew somethin’ was up
He caught her goin’ through his record collection
Lookin’ at Hendricks like a lovesick pup
She begged and she pleaded till dad finally listened
He drove her in the car down to Sears-Roebuck
He bought her that guitar and that was the beginning
Now she’s down in the cellar with the amp turned up

Girls with guitars daddy’s little angel
Girls with guitars what’s the world comin’ to
Girls with guitars mothers tend to worry ‘bout
Girls with guitars

Well,Saturday night she followed her brother
It was socks and stockin’s on the old gym floor
While everybody danced to garage band covers
She was checking out riffs and memorizing’ cords
She didn’t care at all for the football heroes
She didn’t even notice the basketball stars
Boys as a species were all a bunch of zeros
Except for the ones who played that guitar

Ah,girls with guitars she wasn’t any debutante
Girls with guitars she didn’t go out for cheerleading
Girls with guitars boys are kinda nervous ‘round
Girls with guitars

She went off to college she got her degree
Her parents breathed a sigh of great relief
Daddy’s thinkin’ law school mothers thinkin’ medicine
Daughter’s thinkin’ how she’s gonna break the news to them

Now there’s an old Chevy van sittin’ in the driveway
Filled to the gills with all her stuff
She cut a deal with her brother to drive it up the highway
Figures New York City is close enough
She gets the audition through a friend of a friend
Who’s checkin’ out her legs sayin’ «This will never work»
She flips on her boogie and turns to the band
Gives a little grin and blows away the jerk

Girls with guitars now everybody’s rockin’
Girls with guitars there ought to be a song about
Girls with guitars
There’s just no stoppin’ those
Girls with guitars

Get your money for nothin’ and your guys for free  [*]

= = =

[*] … a reference to Mark Knopfler & Sting’s controversial song «Money for Nothing«,  from the 1985 Dire Straits‘  album Brothers in Arms.

«…money for nothin’,  get your chicks for free.» 

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∇  ‘Spanish Jack’  ⇓  by  Willie DeVille & Mark Knopfler  [from «Miracle«_1987]

Spanish Jack had a Cadillac
That he always parked around the corner
He wore his hat tipped to the side
Like a pimp on Easter morning.
I was on the street that Saturday night
When they all claim they saw him
In his cowboy shoes and shantung suit
And the night was young in August.

His lady’s name was Sunny Day
She had Jack tattoed on her shoulder
Jack played cards with Gentleman Jim
And Sunny did everything Jack told her.
Gentleman Jim won Jack’s watch and chain
In a badly dealt game of poker
Then Sunny Day kind of moved away
As the last hand hit the table.

Jack he had a pair of nines
And the Gentleman showed three aces
You took my watch and chain and now my gold tipped cane
Put both your hands up on the table.
We can settle this thing in a gentleman’s way
Let’s just step outside the doorway
The night was warm and they looked at the stars
But only one would see the morning.

There’s nothing lower than a cheat at cards
Especially at poker
Before the Gentleman he could cheat again
The Spaniard pulled out his revolver.
Spanish Jack shot Gentleman dead
And the shots sounded loud as thunder
And when the smoke it cleared Gentleman Jim lay dead
This was his last game of poker.

Jack filled Jim with so much lead it took six men to move him over
So full of lead and oozing red, they stole the boots right off his body.
If you’re gonna play a game of cards, be sure with who you’re gambling
This game of chance you can never win if Spanish Jack is at the table.

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¤  «Time after Time» was the second commercially released solo single by singer Cyndi Lauper. It is to date her second highest charting and most commercially successful single worldwide after «Girls Just Want to Have Fun».

The song has been covered, either in live performance or on a recording, by at least 97 different artists including Miles Davis (click pic→), and Everything But the Girl ⇐

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♦  George Thorogood  & The Destroyers  ↓  [1978]

Early one mornin’ while makin’ the rounds – I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my baby down
I shot her down then I went to bed – I stuck that lovin’ forty-four beneath my head

Woke up next mornin’ and I grabbed that gun – Well, I took a shot of cocaine and away I run
Made a good run but I run too slow – They overtook me down in Juarez, Mexico

In the hot joint takin’ the pill – There walked the sheriff from Jericho Hill
Willy Lee your name is not Jack Brown – You’re the dirty hack that shot your woman down

Yes, oh yes my name is Billy Lee – If you’ve got a warrant you better read it to me
I shot her down ‘cause she made me sore – I thought I was her daddy but she had five more

When I was arrested, I was dressed in black – They threw me on a freight train and hauled me back
Had no friend who’d go my bail – They stuck my dried-up carcass in that Missouri jail

Early next mornin’, ‘round half past nine – I saw the sheriff comin’ down the line
That sheriff yelled as he cleared his throat – Said, «Come on you dirty hackin’ to the district court»

Into the courtroom my trial began where I was judged by twelve honest men
Yes, as the jury started walkin’ out – I saw that little judge commence to look about

In about five minutes then walked in a man – Holding the verdict in his right hand
The verdict read in the first degree – Well, I shouted, «Lordy, Lordy, please have mercy on me»

The judge he smiled, when he picked up his pen – Ninety-nine years in the San Quentin Penn
Ninety-nine years underneath that ground – But I can’t forget that day, I shot that bad bitch down

Come on, you hot heads you listen unto me – Stay off that whiskey, and let that cocaine be

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¤  Rickie Lee Jones  ↓ ‘Woody & Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking’ [«PIRATES»_1981]

Dutch took ‘em on the slow train to Peking on La Brea Avenue
To find the Stax and Sun
They were reaching to get to
They was a rapping the flat scat
Diamond dialectos of points and taps
Between the chicken and the back
They drew themselves a be-bop midnight map
They said «do you got a map the next joint?»
«Do you got a map the next joint?»

Pick it up on the night train
Down on the corner of rhythm and blues
Where I have met all of my boys since

Back in ’52
Bringing ‘em Stax and Sun
Cuz I think that Cleveland forgot
And Memphis forgot
Where they were coming from
Do ya like it?  Do ya like it like that?
Do you like rapping the fat scat?

Woody and Dutch dance in the cell of fourteen
Like a pill they do it all night
Spectators,
White-walls, find and greased back
Every Saturday night
Leaning in the scenery
Picking up the kids
At the next door neighbors’
«Yeah I know what you did
Yeah I got a room you can stay in
If you promise you won’t make so much noise»
«No I won’t»
«No I don’t!»

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∇   Al Green  ↓  ‘Let’s Stay Together’  [2003]

I’m… I’m so in love with you
Whatever you want to do
Is all right with me…
‘Cause you… make me feel so brand new…
And I… want to spend my life with you…

Let me say that since, baby
Since we’ve been together
Loving you forever
Is what I… need…
Let me… be the one you come running to…
I’ll… never be untrue…

Ooo baby…
Let’s, let’s stay together…
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Ooooo… Oooo… Yeah…
Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

Why, somebody, why people break-up
Ohhh, turn around and make-up
I just can’t deceive
You’d… never do that to me… (would you, baby?)
Stayin’ around you is all I see

(Here’s what I want us to do)

Let’s, we oughta stay together
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad… Come on

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¤  Everybody’s Talkin’  ⇓

A folk rock song originally written and released by →Fred Neil in 1966. A version of the song performed by Harry Nilsson became a global success in 1969, and won a Grammy after it was featured on the soundtrack of the film Midnight Cowboy←

Everybody’s talkin’ at me
I don’t hear a word they’re sayin’
Only the echoes of my mind

People stop and stare
I can’t see the faces
Only the shadows of their eyes

I’m goin’ where the sun keep shinin’
Through the pouring rain
Goin’ where the weather suits my clothes
Bankin’ off on the northest wind
Sailing on a summer breeze
Skippin’ over the ocean like a storm

Everybody’s talkin’ at me
Can’t hear a word they’re saying
Only the echoes of my mind

I won’t let you leave my love behind

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—

⇐»Ode to Billie Joe» is a 1967 ode song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry (born July 27, 1944), a singer-songwriter from Chickasaw County, Mississippi, notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material. The single, released in late July, was a number-one hit in the United States, and became a big international seller.

The song is a first-person narrative that reveals a Southern Gothic tale in its verses by including the dialog of the narrator’s family at dinnertime on the day that «Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.» Throughout the song, the suicide and other tragedies are contrasted against the banality of everyday routine and polite conversation.

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out at the back door «y’all remember to wipe your feet»
And then she said «I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge»
«Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge»

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
«Well, Billie Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please»
«There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow»
And Mama said it was a shame about Billie Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
«I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don’t seem right»
«I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge»
«And now you tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge»

And Mama said to me «Child, what’s happened to your appetite?»
«I’ve been cookin’ all morning and you haven’t touched a single bite»
«That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today»
«Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way»
«He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge»
«And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge»

A year has come ‘n’ gone since we heard the news ‘bout Billie Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going ‘round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

≡  covers … •→Nancy Wilson / •→Diana Ross / •→Sinead O’ Connor

↓  Ella Fitzgerald‘s clip

It was the third of June, another sleepy dusty hot day
I was out on Choctaw Ridge, my brother Bill was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out at the back door «y’all remember to wipe your feet»
Then she said «I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge»
«Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge» . . .