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April 20, 2005

Just Like Willie

This morning on my drive to work, I wrote the first verse of the dumbest, yet most awesome song you have never heard. Here is as much a taste as I can give you with no sound:

If I pick up the phone, and I don' hear nothiiiiiiiiiiin'/
I'll know/
You're not thinkin'/
of me.

And if I go to my door, and if I go to my wiiiinnnndooooooooow/
I'll know/
That there's nothin'/
to see.

Chorus (after long, dramatic pause):

Might as well be BLLLLLIIIIIIND/
Might as well stop hearin'/
I cain't smell the roses/
I cain't feel no feelin'/
Cause you've left me senseless/
Wonderin' where I belong/
And now I'm thinkin'/
There ain't no sense/
In goin' on.

End. (FOR NOW.)

Y'all. Now, come on. You tell me. Greatest song ever, right? I know. All I can hear is wailing pedal steel and building drums, and, as Vince Chao would say, "man-harmonies."

And now, because I have been in the World's Worst Mood for several days, and I am suddenly laughing my ass off at MYSELF, I have to tell you how this brilliance came upon me.

I've been thinking, a lot, about the various current upheavals in the lives of your Damn Millionaires, and all kinds of pain and anguish associated therewith (is that right?) -- I mean, everybody's OK, but we're all separately having issues we have to deal with that are interfering with the rocking -- and it has been affecting me, strongly.

I realized this week that I have not bought a new CD in months, and have no desire to do anything musical or even listen to music. That is a sign that something is very much not right, at all. So, last night, I made Chris take me to Borders where I forced myself to buy something: that new Kaiser Chief's album. It's good, but it was all wrong for my mood. Luckily, Chris had just purchased the album of a now-defunct Athens band called The Star Room Boys -- a member of which happens to be in his TA class -- and it's pretty much the sound I was looking for.

What I'm saying is, I was already in a twangy mood when I passed two women standing by their broken-down car as I crept down I-85 on my way to work. And as if from nowhere, the thought occurred to me that the heartbreak song I've been wanting to write forever, but couldn't, because I am not brokenhearted, might very well rest in a funny story about my father and his alcoholic softball team from like, 1982.

They were all driving home from a game one night, when they saw these two women stranded on the side of the road where their car had broken down. Besides my father, this team was full of greasemonkeys, so they boozily pulled over and all piled out to help these ladies in distress.

This is an awful story, but I have to keep going. Anyway, since my dad could do nothing of a mechanical nature, he walked over to talk to the ladies while the rest of his buddies got under the hood. He quickly realized that the two women were both deaf and unable to talk. I'm sure he had probably pitched a perfect game in 100-degree weather, drunk on screwtop wine before this happened, so you cannot hold it against him for what happened next. He really was an exceedingly nice man.

Thinking it would just be HI-LARIOUS to pull a fast one on his friends, he walked back over to them where they were working on the car (after an appropriate time during which he had some fumbled communication with the women). "Did you see that one woman's FEET?" he practically yelled to his friend Doyle. "GOOD LORD! And I think one of them may have just passed GAS!" The whole team looked at him like he was CRAZY. Not like Bill Lowe to be rude to women or anybody else, even at his own expense. They tried to shush him -- what on earth had gotten into The Bomber? -- but he loudly went on and on, before staggering back to the women to continue their previous "conversation" about the car.

The vehicle's small problem, whatever it was, was repaired post-haste, as now all the rest of the guys wanted to get out of there to escape their shame and embarrassment over my dad's strange behavior, and they all piled back into the car to make their getaway. Here's where the worst part happens. Leaning out the window, just before they squealed away, he produced a slip of paper with his name and phone number and handed it to the thankful women, saying "Ladies, if you ever need anything else, just give me a call. If I pick up the phone and don't hear anything, I'll know it's you."

I know. And I know, besides being awful, it doesn't even seem possible -- but that story was told by his friend Doyle at my dad's MEMORIAL SERVICE much to the HORROR of at least half the room who regarded Bill Lowe as a saint among men. It was the first time I'd laughed all that week, and every time I THINK about it, it still kills me.

I know it ain't right, and I know the song's dumb, but whether it gets written or whether it just stays with me in my car, where I come up with a lot of good stuff -- just like Willie did when he drove around North Texas selling encyclopedias -- it sure did knock some sense into me.

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Posted by The DMs at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)