Week 20: Cannonball Creek

Week 20, leaving the teens behind and heading into what?
Well, if everything that has ever happened is happening right now, then I probably know the answer on some level. I think what I’m heading into is this space where the songs come to me every week.
I don’t have to try and ‘make’ them, I just ‘let’ them happen.

And then once they happen, I let them be. I don’t pull them apart or butcher them to within an inch of themselves, I let them be.
I was at a mate’s place for dinner last night and one of the conversations around the table centred on research that found that children are told what to do, on average, around 300 times every day.
300 times a day.
If someone told me what to do 300 times a day I’d go spare. Why do our kids have to cop it?
Let them be.
Songwriters often talk about their songs fondly, personally, like they’re children or perhaps slightly deranged uncles you only see at Christmas and funerals. I perhaps don’t view them quite the same way, but I still have a real fondness and empathy for them.
I’m now of the belief, after my experiences of the past few weeks, that I’ll suggest to my songs the right way to go only if I see that they’re way off where I think it’s at.
Otherwise, I’m gonna let ‘em be.
Take this week’s tune for example – it’s a two chord kick drum song about a murder, recorded on a cigar box guitar.
This time last week I had no idea this is what week 20 would be about. I went around to catch up with my mate Marcus on Monday afternoon and we had a bit of a jam.
Marcus (Chooka to his mates) picked up a cigar box guitar when he was in Queensland a while back, it’s a three string thing that has a really distinctive sound. I was playing around with it and he pulled out some lyrics he’d been working on, wrote them out for me and away we go.
I got home, did a bit of a rewrite, thought about the story a bit and worked up the groove.
He was good enough to lend me the guitar to record with and I’m grateful to him for collaborating with me on this week’s offering.
All it is instrumentally is kick drum, hats, two passes of the cigar box guitar and two vocal passes with lots of effects. There’s nothing else at all. Any really weird stuff you hear is just the vocal.
I reckon half of you will hate it and half of you will love it.
Some of you will hear the child, some the deranged uncle and some will hear the child uncle who is slightly deranged…
Is it a true story? Of course it is.
It’s all real, because everything that has ever happened is happening right now.

Polish artist Władysław Teodor ‘W.T.’ Benda, was responsible for this week’s cover art.

Take me down the nine mile road

Over cannonball creek

Where the Gypsies live the real life and the locals are the freaks.

Did you see what happened there?

Under the bridge down there

There be a murder down there

She was floating face down

Take me down the nine mile road,

Through the pouring rain

You’re the one who found her and you’re the one they blame

Take me down the nine mile road

Find me in the drain,

You’re the one who found her and you’re the one they frame