#26: Hopefully Paranoia (June 25, 2011)

This week's tune is "Hopefully Paranoia", recorded at Jason's Pub last Monday. #26 means the SAW project is one semester done, half a year completed, and that calls, I think, for a special effort, and this tune fills the bill. Almost all of Bimini Road helped out, Shelley's mandolin and Ruthie's voice adding their talents to those of Jason, Clark and myself. We only missed having Richard to round out the whole Bimini Road ensemble. "Hopefully Paranoia" has been a Bimini Road staple for many years. From the first person perspective of the singer, "Hopefully Paranoia" sees the world in somewhat frightening, shadowy forms. In a mind looking at things "from the edge", the observer can only hope that what he experiences is paranoia; otherwise, his fears would be even more terrifying. After all, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, right? I've had more than one person tell me, after we played this at a show, how it truly seemed to capture the edginess that accompanies some of the darker places in our souls. You be the judge...

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#27: Old Khayyam (July 1, 2011)

This week's tune is "Old Khayyam", recorded at Jason's Pub back in March, but I'm just now publishing it. "Old Khayyam" is based pretty closely on three of my favorite quatrains from the Edward Fitzgerald translation of "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", probably the most well-known translation, to which I was introduced back there in seminary school at Tuscaloosa. That edition was illustrated by Edmund Joseph Sullivan, and the illustration accompanying the verse that comprises the chorus of this song is the same illustration Deadheads will be familiar with as the famous "Skull & Roses" album cover, a fact that likely first drew my attention. But moreso is the "live for now" philosophy so well-expressed in that quatrain: "One thing is certain - time flies/ The rose that has bloomed once now forever dies".  If you've never read the Rubaiyat, I encourage you to.

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#28: Goodbye Wyoming (July 10, 2011)

This week's tune is "Goodbye Wyoming", recorded at Jason's Pub on June 27. This tune harkens back to my hitchhiking days (no longer the noble endeavor it once was). Back in the day, a hitch tour out West was de riguere for a lot of people, myself included. It was the first time I got to see just how big things are out there, out on that western track. It was a life changer, though there were a few perilous moments I never told my mom about. But I was young, and strong and a bit foolish. Then was the time to do it; there may not be such a time again in this land.

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#29: Do What You Gotta Do (July 17, 2011)

This week's tune is "Do What You Gotta Do", recorded at Jason's Pub on June 21. I guess you might say it's a country song about cheating - but with an almost heart-wrenching twist (there's always a twist, is there not?). Shelley plays a wonderful mandolin riff that truly defines much about the song.

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#30: Kindness Of Strangers (July 24, 2011)

This week's tune is "Kindness of Strangers", recorded on Saturday, July 23, so it's fresh. Bimini Road never really played this, although the earlier incarnation of the band known as Mister Charley used to do it regularly. (Mister Charley was me, Richard Eade, Shelley Heard and occasionally Chad Edwards on drums). "Kindness" is another of what you might call my "literary" songs. Heraclitan Boogie (#17 in the SAW series) had its genesis in the writings of the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, certainly the primary reason for its wide commercial success. The title of "Kindness of Strangers" obviously came from Tennessee Williams, and much of the underlying personality seeks to move in a similar vein. But it does not recapitulate, and there is certainly no pretension to the song being a musical Streetcar. But the woman in the song has a fragility about her that might remind you of those echoes. Plus, it has the word "trepidation" in the lyrics: you'll have to go a long way to see that again!

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