Answer #21 - Because you can shine turds

Sorry, that's a musical production term.  The meaning is obvious: turning something not so great into something better.  I realized, after posting the essay yesterday, that the song that came from it (below), which never made an album, gave me lines for four other songs that DID make the album.

So Why Bother Finishing a Song that's Not Coming Together and that you Actually Maybe Can't Stand because it might as well have been written by monkeys. With their own poo. Possibly on the trunk of a banana tree somewhere?

A friend, Peter, said, 'sometimes you've gotta get whatever it is out of the way, so the larger idea can make the light of day.'  I could go on and on with the Poo euphamisms, but I'll tire you.  And me.  Suffice it to say that this is why I write down whatever happens to be kicking in my brain pan.  The song might not gel, but right place, right time, one or two lines might find their way into more realized ideas.


In My Last Life

Verse 1
In my last life I was quiet
when the birds spoke - didn't understand it
Didn't care to, watched the sidewalk crack beneath me*      __________________________________________________________

*[I took this idea for an entirely different song that made the album: Recklessness & Rust' - "Across the bridges, through the moors, Across a million marble floors, the surface cracking at your feet so you tread lightly on the street.."]

__________________________________________________________
Verse 2
In my last life they were laughing

saw me waiting for the next bus

Didn't notice, watched the light show - it was pretty*
__________________________________________________________
*[And this for 'Delivery Me' - a song that did make the album: 

"Deliver me from fools and wickedness and shiny things.."]

__________________________________________________________
Chorus
Take my last dollar bill and my last sleeping pill
and the last thing that you heard me say
take the incessant chatter of things that don't matter
Go on, take my last life away

Verse 3
In my last life, sugar lemons
stung my fingers where the cuts were

no one's looking, get the sharp knife - sweet and sour*

__________________________________________________________
*[Took this for 'Lorca in Barcelona' (yes, on the new album):

"He's calling out to the people, 'Come and try my oranges, try the sweet, sweet orange, pulling out his knife..'"]

__________________________________________________________
Verse 4
In my last life someone showed me
things I wish I didn't know now
Hadn't seen it, Didn't feel it every hour upon hour upon hour upon hour

Chorus
Take my last dollar bill and my last sleeping pill
and the last thing that you heard me say
take the incessant chatter of things that don't matter
Go on, take my last life away

Verse 5
Monsters make them, leave the footprints
in the bathtub, rubber daisies
Look, my shadow, sewn to my toe, follows me

Verse 6
In my last life, monsters left them
left the footprints, didn't understand it
what the birds said in the backyard apple tree*
__________________________________________________________
*[And for 'Teeter-Totter on a Star' from the new album:

"Little sparrow says, "that's the way it is - nothing much is ever for free"]

__________________________________________________________
Chorus
Take my last dollar bill and my last sleeping pill
and the last thing that you heard me say*
__________________________________________________________
*[And this idea of speaking out of turn  for 'Deliver Me' - 

"Deliver me from fools and holiness and  Hollywood.  A mouth full of soap might do a world of good - all the things I've said that no one ever should."]

__________________________________________________________
take the incessant chatter of things that don't matter
Go on, take my last life away