Blog of Procrastination

It's time to clean my house so I am blogging. Putting off the inevitable. Don't bother reading this. I've got nothin'.

Um, let's see...

One of the few things I can play on the guitar at a regular tempo without messing up much is Gordon Lightfoot's heart-wrenching tale of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It only has an easy 5 chord progression which is repeated over and over, so it's not too hard. I'm not much of a strummer though...could use more practice. So anyway I was playing it last night and Kev said What are the words? and I said I don't know, so I consulted the all-knowing internet and printed the lyrics.
I showed Kev the printout of all 14 verses.
K: Geez Louise!
T: Well, It's a long story.
K: The boat sank. That's all we need to know.

Thus began our debate: Do we really need ballads? I think so. Think Rocky Raccoon, John Henry, etc. Simple music with lyrics that tells a story. Kev argues that such songs are too repetative and should just be left as poems or else make the music more interesting. I said making the music more interesting would distract the listener and compete with the story. He said no, more interesting music would compliment the story. Then somehow we got on the topic of what drives capitalism and the song and debate about ballads were forgotten. This weekend I am going to write a ballad about something I think. Topic ideas, anyone?

Anyway, I guess 14 verses is kinda a lot, but I like that song and don't mind the duration. I have more of a problem with Gordon Lightfoot's attempt to rhyme "Wisconsin" with "well-seasoned," and "Cleveland" with "feeling" and so forth.

So now I guess it's time to embrace house-cleaning. Perhaps I'll see how many verses of the Edmund Fitzgerald it takes to clean the bathroom....