The Originals

“Life”—the record of my life—has eleven songs: six covers and five originals. What follows is a brief backstory for each of the five original songs, how they came to “Life”, and what they represent to me as the composer. Enjoy!

 

“Wisdom” is a song I started writing for our two sons almost twenty years ago when they were little bitty guys (they’re 21 and 23 now!). I wanted to write them a song that would be meaningful, and be something of lasting value that I could leave to them, because it doesn’t look like I’ll be leaving them any money!

Beth always liked “Wisdom” a lot, but it remained unfinished, inside a notebook for fifteen years, until about three years ago in the midst of the covid quarantine, when I had nothing but time on my hands. I took “Wisdom” from the notebook it had been incarcerated in, and began working on her. I finally got the bridge it desperately needed, and worked out a beautiful acoustic guitar part for the intro. I also figured out a neat little break, and a cool, BB King-inspired lead guitar part for the back half. Beth and I are both so excited to finally have a song for our two sons, as we did a song for our daughter on my last record called “Lily’s Song” (ladies first!).

The lyrics of “Wisdom” are almost exclusively from the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (The Wisdom Books), and were meant to be a roadmap for our young sons, as they grew into manhood and navigated all the toils and snares of life. But wisdom is still the solution for a lot of troubles—and the means to avoid a lot of troubles—and is the recipe for fulfilment and joy for anyone, at anytime, and at any age. So, Sid and Sam . . . this one’s for you!

I got to play a bunch of great guitars on “Wisdom”. That’s my ’68 Gibson J200 on the intro, followed by my Gibson J45 and my Guild 12-String. The electric guitar is my “Sister Rosetta” ’61 Gibson Les Paul Custom. I also played piano and clavinova on it, and the vocals were cut up in Canada on an unbelievable matched pair of 1953 AKG C12 microphones that Ella Fitzgerald recorded on, that are probably worth more than my house!

 

In a broad sense, my song “This House Ain’t Home” is about a broken relationship and a good love gone bad. But more specifically, I wrote it about the curse of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, and its disastrous “scorched earth” effect on relationships. It’s more than a little autobiographical, since Beth and I (and our three kids) were caregivers to my Mother, who passed away last year after a long and dreadful struggle with this ghastly disease.

My Mother lived with us for 11 years, and we were dealing with cognitive issues for five or six years, but things really started getting bad by 2018 or 2019. For anyone who has dealt with this nightmare, you know what I’m talking about. I wrote “This House Ain’t Home” about the devastating effect that her Alzheimer’s and dementia was having on our home, turning it into a toxic and unpredictable place, and the toll it was taking on Beth and I and our kids was catastrophic. Our sanctuary, our home—and the only home our children have ever known—became increasingly dark and dangerous until it eventually became a 24-hour geriatric psych ward. Our home was an unsafe place, filled constantly with chaos, confusion, and even violence. “This House Ain’t Home” was written from me to my Mother, and was me lamenting over our lifelong love that was now lost, our relationship that was shattered, and me crying over the fact that my family’s house wasn’t home to us anymore.

But just after recording my demo, while looking at the lyric sheet, I was shocked to realize that “This House Ain’t Home” made as much—or more sense—from the point of view of the Alzheimer’s and dementia patient themselves, rather than from the POV of the caregivers.

What makes one’s house a home? It’s not the brick and mortar. It’s the love, and the memories, and the joy that resides there. That’s what connects you to that house. That’s what differentiates your house from all the other houses in the neighborhood, and what makes your house a home. It’s the experiences you’ve shared with friends and loved ones within those walls, and under that roof, that make that bunch of drywall and lumber a home. 

I realized this song was not as much about me and my house—as about my Mom and hers. Alzheimer’s and dementia cruelly robs its victim of all sense of belonging, inside even themselves, stripping away their life experiences, their relationships with everything and everybody, their loves, their memories, and their joys, leaving them like strangers, trapped inside their own mind, body, and spirit. “This House Ain’t Home” was more about the tragedy of my Mother living inside a “house” that wasn’t “home” to her anymore, because everything that made her house a home was gone. Her true self was gone. She was lost inside herself, and couldn’t find her way home.

I remember reading about victims of Hurricane Andrew that had been evacuated out of South Miami and Homestead, Florida being allowed back into their neighborhoods after the storm had passed, and there was nothing left standing. There was only piles of rubble and devastation. They had no means of identifying their house, or even their street, because every street sign, every tree, every landmark, and every building was leveled and blown away. In many cases, their only means of finding the neighborhood where their house stood was by chance finding and recognizing—in the wreckage—a family picture or a piece of furniture that they knew as theirs. But without that memory, or cognitive connection, they had no way of telling which house was their home.

Alzheimer’s is such a devastating and demonic disease because of how it robs its victims of their identity. And its collateral damage to everyone around it is devastating, with the more you love that person, the more excruciating it becomes. When speaking at my Mother’s funeral, I said that the saddest thing for me wasn’t that the disease would sometimes make her forget who I was, but that it made ME forget who SHE was.

So that’s the story of how I found out my song was really about something completely different than what I thought I had written it about. I miss my Mom so much now that she’s gone, but I’ve been missing her for years, because she left a long time before she died. I love you Mama. My hands are still on the plow, but mine eyes are fixed on heaven, where we will one day have a homecoming to beat all homecomings, where no disease can rob us of anything. Paul sums it up in Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

“I Ain’t Playin'” is a Buddy Holly/Elvis-flavored rock ‘n’ roll tune with a lot of tongue-in-cheek references to the pandemic. Written during the shutdown, it’s about a guy who is demanding some serious social distancing from the gal who has done him wrong. She’d better disappear . . . this dude’s dead serious, and he ain’t playin’ (or is he?)!!!

Filled with guitars, harmonies, tenor sax, and even a blistering Hawaii Five-O drum roll, “I Ain’t Playin'” features some of the vile vernacular of the day such as “flattening the curve”, “social distancing”, masks, quarantines, vaccines, etc. This was my attempt to escape the dire realities of the day, by writing a silly rock ‘n’ roll song. Because when the world gives you lemons . . . make lemonade!

 

Among some of these heavy subjects, we’ve got a lighthearted 50s-style boogie romp called “Lorraine” about young love blooming under the stars in Corinth, Mississippi. Our next-door neighbors are from Corinth and Tupelo, and I’ve always wanted to write a song about Corinth, not because I’ve ever been there, but because of our neighbors who we love, and because I think “Corinth, Mississippi” sounds good lyrically. I’ve also always wanted to work the name Lorraine into a song, because my Aunt Jeanette was good friends with Elvis’ Aunt Lorraine. We stayed at Aunt Lorraine’s house in Memphis when I was a teenager. I’ll never forget Aunt Lorraine showing me some HUGE jewelry of Elvis’ from Las Vegas, along with other personal belongings, with the greatest of these being his personal study bible, a white leather-bound KJV, as dog-eared as any Bible I’ve ever seen. The thing that blew my mind about that Bible was the notes Elvis had written in it. Everywhere in it. There wasn’t a spot in the margin of any page between Genesis and Revelation that you’d have room to write your initials in! Wish I had a cellphone to take pictures of some of that!

“Lorraine” is also my homage to one of my rock ‘n’ roll heroes Little Richard. I named my band The Upsetters after Richard’s road band of the ’50s that was the baddest of the bad. Little Richard’s Upsetters are credited with being the first to put funk and swing into rock ‘n’ roll. Little Richard recorded at Specialty in New Orleans, and he recorded with the Specialty House Band, which featured the legendary Lee Allen and Red Tyler on saxophones. This was the same band that played on all of Fats Domino’s hits. They were phenomenal. But Richard’s road band The Upsetters were something else. All of Richard’s Specialty sides are with the Specialty band except for two. “Keep A’Knockin’” and “Oooh My Soul!” were recorded by Little Richard and The Upsetters, and you can hear a marked difference in these two songs and all of Richard’s other sides at Specialty. As tremendous as his other hits on Specialty are—they’re some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll records of all time—these two songs motor like a Mack Truck comin’ down Mount Everest without any brakes! They’re relentless! So after fronting my Upsetters for thirty-six years, I’ve finally released a tribute to Little Richard and His Upsetters!

I play guitars, piano, and sing harmony with myself on this one (Hey, I think I sound alike!). The saxophone player is a great Canadian musician named Darcy Hepner, who toured for years with David Clayton-Thomas and his pretty fair little horn band called Blood, Sweat & Tears!

 

Finally, there’s a unique and amazing folk ballad called “American Eulogy”, which is the most political song I’ve ever written (it’s maybe the ONLY political song I’ve ever written!). “Eulogy” has been an absolutely sensational song for me, and holds a very unique place in my repertoire, for its effect on audiences, and the unprecedented manner in which it came.

When played live, it consistently gets more response and praise from fans than any other song I’ve ever written, and maybe more than any song I’ve ever done! In March of 2021, Beth and I performed it live for the first time at a taping of PBS-TV’s “Song of the Mountains” in front of a masked and socially-distanced audience at the Lincoln Theater in Marion, Virginia, and it received a long and passionate standing ovation, in spite of the masks and distancing! After the show aired on TV, all over North America, I got scores of calls and emails asking about “Eulogy”, and where they could buy it, download it, etc. More than one person emailed me asking for the lyrics, which I sent (since the song’s copyrighted and protected from being pilfered!)

It’s been a very gratifying experience to me as a songwriter, to see “American Eulogy” reach and touch listeners in a big way. And the way “Eulogy” first came about was—like most of this album—yet another happy accident!

One night, in early January, 2021, while lying in bed, I was vexed. I had probably made the mistake of reading some news at bedtime, and began angrily writing a kind of diatribe about the state of our Union onto my cellphone, upset at the kind of country that we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. Beth and I have always preached to our kids, “Always leave things nicer than you found them!” If you borrow someone’s car, wash it and fill it up with gas before you return it. If you sit down on a park bench next to a paper wad or an empty cup, pick it up and put it into a trash can. Blessed are the peacemakers. If everyone did that, the world would be a better place. And watching the news in 2020 and 2021 made me realize that I sure hadn’t practiced what I preached. Was I leaving my kids a nicer nation than the one I grew up in? Were their schools better, or safer? Did they have the same opportunities I had, to work hard, and make a living wage, and someday buy a home and start a family? Would they be able to afford groceries on one or two incomes? Could their kids—my grandkids—walk down the street, play with their friends, or go to a mall, or a concert, or church, and not have the constant fear of being gunned down, for no reason whatsoever? So the more I thought about what was our present situation in January of 2021—the pandemic, the riots, the violence, the political and social and racial divisions, the addictions, the suicides, the massive health care crisis, and all the lies—the madder I got. (I’m getting mad all over again!) So I was typing away on my phone in the dark, getting it all out! I didn’t know what I was writing, or why, but I knew it felt good to put down in print. But it’s important to realize that at no point was this a “song” . . . it was more of a rant. A rhyming rant! A venting verse, if you will. But in my mind, it was never a song, nor was it thought to be the makings of one. And that was the only time in my whole life that I ever wrote anything down that rhymed that wasn’t written with intentions of possibly using it in a song someday.

It was a really long series of couplets and rhymes, and had a lot of visceral Dylan-esque imagery, but I wasn’t thinking about melody, or a chorus, or a middle eight, or anything musical. I was just pouring out some thoughts—and quite cynically I might add! After a couple hours of this, still without any purpose or intention of it being—or becoming—a song, and with no clue what it all was, or why I was doing it, about 3am, I finally blinked and asked myself, “What the heck are you doing?”, and put my phone down and went to sleep.

I slept late the next day, waking up around noon (I am, after all, a musician!), got a cup of coffee and turned on the TV. And the first thing I saw was our nation’s Capitol absolutely engulfed in chaos. I watched for probably a half an hour before I remembered the rant I wrote the night before. I picked up my phone and scrolled over it, reading it with horror and amazement, because it read like subtitles to what was playing in front of me on my TV. I couldn’t believe it.

Usually I’ll write lyrics first, sometimes with a melody or a groove in mind, sometimes just lyrics. But almost always I’ll try several different styles, rhythms, keys, and tempos before finding the one that works best. I do this on everything I write, to make sure I’m giving the song every chance at success, and finding just the right fit for it. But this time (and I think it’s the only time in my life that this has ever happened), I picked up an acoustic guitar and thought, “Okay. I’ve got a real live folk song here. What would Jimmie Rodgers do?”, and so I strummed a C-chord and started reading/singing the words to Jimmie Rodger’s signature 3/4 waltz-time rhythm, and guess what? The melody fell in and fit instantly, like a hand in a glove. This song—that wasn’t supposed to be a song—became a song the moment I picked up a guitar and opened my mouth to sing. And God as my witness, that’s the way it stayed, and that’s the way we recorded it, and we never tried another key or another groove or tempo. Didn’t need to. So for the rest of that Wednesday, January 6th, I tidied up a few verses, added the falsetto “wooo” parts with Beth, and by bedtime that night,, I had “American Eulogy”!

(I thought for a week or two I must’ve subconsciously pulled the melody from some other song, but just like McCartney dreaming the melody of “Yesterday” and asking everyone he knew if they had ever heard that melody in a song before, I’ve never found any source of plagiarism, so it must be mine!)

Quick disclaimer here: It’s not my desire or intent to appeal to any political party or politician with “Eulogy”, nor do I think it leans towards one side of the aisle or the other. I just tried to tell the truth as I see it, and tell right from wrong as I know it, and let politics and sides be damned. My allegiance is to America and her people, and there’s only two sides for me: right and wrong. How amazing that when performing “American Eulogy” live, folks of very diverse cultures and appearances, of various ages and world-views, all seem to stop, listen, and love this song. And brother, that’s an incredible feat in a world where you can hardly say “Good morning!” to a roomful of people, and not offend someone! That would be way above my paygrade as a songwriter, to write a song that hits almost every hot trigger topic there is, and sing it, without enraging half the audience. And that’s proof that I didn’t write it—He did! And what we might call an “accident” or a “coincidence” is really God working anonymously.

Well there you have it! There’s some backstory on the original songs of “Life”. I hope you enjoyed reading about them, and I know you’ll enjoy hearing them. Our long-awaited, cheerful earful of La Dolce Vita—The Sweet Life—drops this Spring, in digital and CD formats, with vinyl LPs coming in Fall! Can’t wait to share our “Life” with you all!

Life is what we make it, so come on let’s take it!

Lightnin’ Charlie 2024