Move On (What you got?)

This is a balls out little rush of a song that I came up with on my iPhone of all places. After I got the first line I realized it was going to have to continue in the same vein so I went over to AskMe for help. I just meant this to be a rough sketch but I ended up liking the feel of it even though it's ridiculously ragged. The song's a sort of statement of intent, I guess. Equal parts Elvis Costello, Cheap Trick and the Stones, more or less.

Here's the lyric, including another bit for the outro to fade which I didn't manage to get into this version.

Well, Jimmy Mack rolled up in a jet black brand new cadillac.
Now he's out' at the chicken shack, talkin' smack
Baby, he ain't coming back.

Maggie May
She went away
And Absolutely Sweet Marie, well
She got somewhere she needs to be
And you remember Baby Blue?
Well, she ain’t into you.

CHORUS
Everybody moves on, it's time to get your groove on, what you got?
Everybody moves on, it's time to write a new song, what you got?

Jumpin' Jack's in the sack, outta whack, amnesiac, he's flashing back
Talking bout a comeback, tryin' to get the band back, but he lost the knack

Sweet Adeline
She's doing fine
Shacked up with Ruby Tuesday
They don't care what people say
And you remember Suzie Q?
Well, she said say hi to you

CHORUS

Well, I got...
Cheap tricks and teenage kicks, I got
Skin flicks, the Dixie Chicks, I got
Punk rock on Top of the Pops, I got
Thin Lizzy and ZZ Top, I got
Al Green and the Sex Machine
Baby, I got things you ain’t never seen

CHORUS

I got Big Star, electric guitars, I got
Iggy Pop and the Spiders from Mars, I got
Mop tops and platform heels, I got
Grandmaster Flash and the Wheels of Steel, I got
Gang of Four and the Jackson Five
I got more than any man alive

CHORUS

[OUTRO]
I got Tom Verlaine and Purple Rain
Soul Train and Jefferson Airplane
Aimee Mann and Steely Dan
I got Can, and the Beefheart man
Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel
Hell, I got Sympathy for the Devil

• play
• pause
• stop
• min volume
• max volume

posted by unSane (14 comments total)

that organ is killer. The whole thing was recorded on the iPhone?

I missed out on the AskMe, just had a readthrough... it's a great idea. I love lyrics that reference other songs... built to spill's "you were right" is my absolute fave in that vein.
posted by dubold at 10:06 AM on April 27, 2012

No, I just came up with the main D-F#m-C-G sequence (G-Bm-F-C in the chorus) using the little Simple Songwriter app and stabbing chords randomly. I thought it was cool and a little odd so then I started playing around with it on other instruments... I'd never have come up with it on my own.
posted by unSane at 10:11 AM on April 27, 2012

Very cool! My stock just went down a little.
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:23 AM on April 27, 2012

So let me get this straight, you recorded (or sequenced) all this on your iphone?

can we get a breakdown off the apps you used?
posted by djdrue at 11:40 AM on April 27, 2012

No no no!!

I just came up with the chord sequence on my iPhone using Simple Songwriter (which is a lot of fun).

Sorry for the ambiguity!

Everything was recorded in Presonus Studio One with a few plugins.
posted by unSane at 11:45 AM on April 27, 2012

ah yes, the SSW. Thanks for recommending that btw, a really fun little app.
posted by dubold at 3:02 PM on April 27, 2012

Marvellous! Cool hook and I like the lyric too. I'm hearing a female vocalist on this - ever thought of that? The general feel kind of reminds me, for some reason, of Billy Joel's "It's All Rock and Roll To Me" - I'm not certain that song was called that come to think of it but you know the one I mean...

Anyway - apropos of your recent thread about amps. I came across this, and immediately began to think about what I'm going to sell to buy the amp and the cab (1 x 12 Celestion). In English Pounds this would cost about 400 smackers, not sure how much on your side of the pond.
posted by MajorDundee at 1:07 PM on April 29, 2012

So... you recorded this on a pocket calculator? WOW!

Funny toon, unSane!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:42 AM on April 30, 2012

You funnee man meester Flapjax. Funnee funnee man. Careful not split sides!

Major, I definitly got a whiff of Billy J (Still Rock and Roll to me) when in the descending bit of the chorus as it has almost the same phrasing and melody. There's a slighly different melody which I've been thinking about using but I'm not sure about it...

I had a long back and forth with some friends recently about Billy Joel. I was trying to prove that despite the mammoth amount of dreck he has produced over the years, there was actually some good stuff in there. I did come up with something but I can't even remember what it was now...

That Super Champ would be about $300 over here (actually a bit cheaper in Canada because of the xchange rate). I got the Egnater Tweaker 15 eventually which I really like - it's impossible to get a bad sound out of it. At some point I may upgrade it to the 40w version, which has two channels. The best thing about it is that it takes about two seconds to dial in a sound... it's almost like playing an modelling amp because of the different voicings etc, but they're all analog all the time.

It had crappy tubes in it (rebranded Sovteks) when I bought it which made me think it was faulty at first (it was a 'used' one from Musician's Friend which means someone had previously returned it) but when I swapped out the preamp and phase inverter tubes for new ones it worked perfectly.
posted by unSane at 5:25 AM on April 30, 2012

I was trying to prove that despite the mammoth amount of dreck [Billy Joel] has produced over the years, there was actually some good stuff in there.

She's Always A Woman is a great song. Ok, maybe it's a bit schmaltzy and sentimental but a great song nonetheless. Uptown Girl is just great classic irresistible pop - Frankie Valli would have done a great job of it.

Joel exists in that treacherous no-man's land between great pop and showtune/cabaret pap. There are a few others that inhabit that territory - Gilbert O'Sullivan leaps immediately to mind. When he gets it right - Nothing Rhymed or Alone Again, Naturally for instance - he's pretty fucking stunning melodically (although lyrically he's always slightly cringe-worthy). But then there are woeful lapses of taste and you wonder whether he actually knows the difference between his good stuff and the shlock....? I wouldn't put Andrew Lloyd Webber in this category by the way, although others might - he's just irredeemably shit in my view. Music for people who don't like music.
posted by MajorDundee at 12:39 PM on April 30, 2012

I think my examples were 'the longest time' which really is a fabulous piece of pop writing. Miami 2017 is I think the best of his songs about NYC, the most unsentimental anyway. And I think the other one I picked out was Say Goodbye To Hollywood, which is pretty much pure powerpop, especially with that Phil Spector backbeat.
posted by unSane at 12:57 PM on April 30, 2012

And now I've got an urge to cover that last one.
posted by unSane at 12:58 PM on April 30, 2012

Also, I've been flirting with the idea of a female vocalist on some things. I know someone locally who's really good (I did a gig with her at xmas where we did Fairytale of New York and she was encouragingly rude).
posted by unSane at 5:16 AM on May 1, 2012

thats bloody great dude.
posted by marienbad at 9:37 AM on May 1, 2012