This song takes a soccer tactical approach — Total Football — popularized by the Dutch in the 1970s, though it’s used elsewhere before and after — and applies it as a metaphor to the basic tenets of socialism, which, yes, I am the target market.
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Maybe for the first time in this whole project, this is just the electric guitar, me and the microphone placed in a useful place for picking up my vocals, while the guitar is kinda impossible to miss. Seems appropriately lo-fi, and I’m glad I don’t have time today to try and drop a multi-track opus for this one.
This is another one of those moments where I’ve tuned to something weird-ish (Double Dropped D, in this case), and mess around with songs in that tuning until I find something viable. I was down there for Blue Ridge Mountains (Fleet Foxes), which I’m not ready to record yet, despite plans to be in those precise hills next week. Then I gave The Chain (Fleetwood Mac) a shot, which has wholeheartedly been on my list since I listened to one of those song-deconstruction podcast episodes about it. Then I gave the Dylan Chords site a browse, and found this song, which I only vaguely recognized, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s one of those open chord Dylan blues things, and in open D? I can handle that.
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Had to stop and start when the computer fell asleep, so there’s a small edit and transitions, but I’m still not ready to pull out Garageband and try to produce anything elaborate.
Oh, and I drew this out like two more minutes longer than the Dylan version?
Honestly, if this song doesn’t remind you of anyone, or several anyones, I feel bad for you. But there’s always hope, maybe it will remind you of someone(s) in the future.
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The nights this goes well, it’s because I can tell my basic guitar skills are improving. (I think this went well!)
Sure, more Rolling Stones, because once again, I feel like weird tunings are a little investment you can let pay off for a couple days.
This is in open G DGDGBD IIRC, because Keith Richards.
Y’all heard the whole Let It Bleed story already, so I’ll leave it at th— actually, did I ever tell you about the time I saw the Rolling Stones at the Orange Bowl? Steel Wheels tour, and my 13-year-old brain was pretty scrambled by the stadium-grade showmanship, which, I believe, may have included at least one if not two giant inflatable women of some vintage for this song.
Which, ew, but also, I was 13.
I remember being truly, intensely amazed when they did Sympathy for the Devil and Mick appeared on top of some tall scaffolding tower thing, like a fricking David Copperfield trick, but make it rock and roll.
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I also took out an ancient and little used slide for this, because it is literally what it is for. Added some goofy pianee, and continued the “not drunk but sure sounds like it” theme with the bass and sloppy drums.
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OK, I went to look for some picture of that ridiculous set, and I found literally the video of that song from the show I was at, so here it is.
Honestly no idea when I started listening to the Mountain Goats, but I mostly stick with the classics. This and No Children and This Year are just absolute anthems.
One take and one overdub on electric for, uh, “solos.”