Bob’s Music

Welcome to my music page. I’ve been thinking for quite a while about putting some of my original songs and arrangements on this site, and after some affirmation from a friend here it is. My hope is that you’ll like some of what you find here. I’ll try to include lyrics and some thoughts about the songs and maybe just a bit of randomness. As with all posts on this site, I invite you to comment as you please.

Thanks for listening!

 

Lie to Me

Posted by Bob

Ok.  This is one of my earliest songs, written some time in the mid-1980s and recorded in the early 1990s at a little studio in Santa Clarita.  When I originally wrote the song, it was shortly after receiving my first real keyboard and I was in the midst of a real Depeche Mode influence.  Later when I recorded it I was beginning to really feel passion for acoustic instruments.  The piano solo in the middle posed a dynamic juxtaposition (I’ve always wanted to use that word!) with the very digitized instruments through the rest of the song.

Here are the lyrics:

I’m hurtin’
I wish someone would care
She said it wasn’t me
She told me she was sorry

I don’t see
A stake burns in my heart
It’s happened to me before
I’m closin’ off my door

I wish that I could find
Someone to love me
Someone to care

Tell me why
I don’t know what to do
About this life I’m givin’
Tell me what’s wrong with just livin’

Lie to me
Tell me that you love me
Tell me that you care
Run your fingers through my hair

I wish that I could find
Someone to love me
Someone to care

One of the things that’s always bugged me about this song is that it’s not all that long.  I remember that somewhere fairly early on in my music awareness I learned that a song has to be around the three-minute mark to be considered playable on the radio.  This one (at just two-and-a-half) never fit the bill.  And at the same time, I didn’t think it needed any more lyrics.  So I left it.

In hindsight, I kinda dig it.  It’s clearly about wanting to be with someone and not really caring if any feelings were reciprocated.  Combine that with the aural dissonance between the piano and the digital-keyboard-ness and it’s all a bunch of dramatic contrast.  So, clearly I wrote it!

Enjoy…

Georgia Man

Posted by Bob

I’m finally putting another song on this site.  I suppose it’s taken me so long because this is probably my least favorite of my songs!  To be brutally honest, I think the lyrics are cheesey, the chord progression is adolescent, and the melody lacks…  melody!

With that said, I remember something my sister said about the song once.  She pointed out that I wrote the song while in high school about racism and asked me how many teens were really present to the continuing challenge we face in race relations?

I really appreciate that compliment, and it’s for that reason that I’ll post the song here even though I don’t like it.

I wrote this song in the late ’80s, probably close to ’87, and I recorded it with a new 3rd verse at around the same time as Lie to Me.  It’s a song that remembers Martin Luther King and has a little bit of a U2 influence (although it’s hard to find).

Here are the lyrics:

A white man burns a cross in a black man’s yard
A mexican is stabbed; we hear and we laugh hard
Five asian children are shot without regard
To the family that feels a stab of pain deep inside their heart

A man came down from Georgia
With peace on his mind
But a burned down house and a gunshot wound
Are the only way we’re kind

Martin Luther King – he’s a man we all knew well
A man who taught that violence is not blessed, it’s hell
But still the white man claims that he’s the best race in the land
He’s got to learn that if he says that crap war is close at hand

A man came down from Georgia
With peace on his mind
But a burned down house and a gunshot wound
Are the only way we’re kind

White cops beat down a black man; King’s suing for a couple o’ mil…
Black men take down an Arab and they videotape for a thrill
I’ll cry as I watch the news tonight ’cause every night is always the same
We’re killing each other, every man ane brother; we’re the only ones to blame

A man came down from Georgia
With peace on his mind
But a burned down house and a gunshot wound
Are the only way we’re kind

Ok.  So, do you see what I mean about cheesey lyrics?  Actually the third verse isn’t entirely horrible.  Just a little horrible.  The hook references MLK directly, and the second verse and the bridge reference a school shooting I remember hearing about in Stockton where five kids got shot.

I suppose what I was uptight about most was how we as humans divide ourselves and often act out that division in violent ways.  I do remember that I played this song for something in High School (without that third verse) and a friend who is African American told me how touched she was about its social awareness.  I suppose that’s something…

Take Me Home

Posted by Bob

Ok. It’s come to my attention that those who read this on Facebook aren’t able to listen to the song. For those people, follow this link to the native blog.

Take Me Home.  It’s very nearly one of my best songs, and clearly the best on my original demo.  It’s not uncommon (maybe even typical?) for a teen to write about lost love and I was no different.  This song outlines a real relationship that took place my senior year of High School.  She was from the “rival” school, but we worked together and we found connection.  As you might guess from the “lost love” theme, the way it ended was not – at least in my view at the time – what I wanted.

Here are the lyrics:

It’s all gone now and I don’t know how
A million years won’t dry my tears
Independence, I thought it would make sense
But that hole in my heart is tearin’ me apart

Baby, baby would you put your hands in mine
Take me home where there’s no such thing as time
Try to love me, let me love you too
Tell me what I can do
Tell me what I can do

Rumors, lies, or love in disguise
It’s our secret and I’ve tried to keep it
Kisses in the shadows and a love that only we know
But now time goes on, the start of a new dawn

Baby, baby would you put your hands in mine
Take me home where there’s no such thing as time
Try to love me, let me love you too
Tell me what I can do
Tell me what I can do

Baby, baby would you put your hands in mine
Take me home where there’s no such thing as time
Kiss me softly under full moon’s light
Take me home to a place with endless night
Love me tender, love me true
Tell me what I can do
Tell me what I can do

What can I do?
I’m listening to you
‘Cause I’m in love with you
I’ll do it all for you

Kiss me softly under full moon’s light
Take me home to a place with endless night
Try to love me, let me love you too
Tell me what I can do
I’m listening to you

So I wrote this in either 1989 or 1990 and recorded it in the early ’90s.  The amazing acoustic guitar is a guy by the name of Eric DiBerardo who also engineered the recording.  He just rocks.  You’ll also hear the Bryan Adams style end-the-song-and-then-drum-fill-it-back-in goodness!!  I still really like the lyrics to this song, with the possible exception of the “baby, baby” at the top of each chorus.  But even that has its charm…  I hope you like this one.  It’s one of my favorites…