Hmmm, what is the phrase I’m looking for…”balls to the wall?” Ok, it’s a bit coarse, but who cares, right?

Sometimes, when you’re a songwriter, you just have to go for it. I don’t mean spiritually, i mean just say f*ck it to all the epic natured, transcendant songs and write a freaking rock song.

This song was written on a bass (perhaps obviously, perhaps not.) The music of the chorus, and main riff verse came out quickly; probably 5 minutes. The melody of the verse and the chorus came out literally at the same time.

The lyrics “nobody says a thing ’til you say so, oh woah woah
etc” came out immediately too! Hey, maybe there’s my title: “not until you say so.” It became my working title for a few months.

And then…

Nothing.

Sigh. Those pesky lyrics!

So, I tracked a demo of the music: drums, bass, guitars through the solo section. A few days maybe weeks later, I sang the following words into my mini-recorder (my most trusted device): “finger on the trigger makes a man feel bigger.”

Plot thickens. It felt it should be sung over the verse section, and man it had a catchy ring to it, but it wouldn’t last as a chorus (just too limiting, I felt). But maybe a chant of some type? Still, the lyrics had nothing to do with this phrase (or vice versa). So, the song sat some more.

I swear I probably went through 4 or 5 drafts of words for this song. And not just iterations of one draft: full on different vibes, different rhyme schemes, different subject matters. Ugh! It was driving me crazy. I’d put the music on repeat on the way into and from work for days; sometimes I’d have a mix of “just the chorus.” Anything to trigger it.

This kind of OCD pressure means I had to walk away from it, and I did just that (for about 2 months). This song was so much fun, I didn’t want the lyrics to weigh me down anymore. So, I came back to it fresh, and the words “little girl, hair with curls” came out. Ah. I got something.

I thought of the days as a kid when I used to catch grasshoppers in this little lantern looking thing my parents gave me (it was clear plastic, with holes on the top and bottom, and the top was this ugly neon fuscia vibe.) Anyway, this just sparked memories of “just what do you do with a grasshopper once you’ve caught him. He’d always stare at me with an impenetrable stare. What if the main character of the song was the little girl? What if I was the grasshopper?

The new path for the lyrics became:
Little girl hair with curls+ no one says a thing til you say so+ finger on the trigger=my new synopsis:

For me, the song is an rather light-hearted, tongue in check analogy for why women have (or should have) complete control over us men; and the only thing we got going for us is we have the all the money and all the guns.

Now, go back and read the lyrics again. 🙂

Sincerely,
The Green-legged Man