John Krane: Songs

• MP3 play whole song, hi-fi (broadband)
• MP3 play whole song, lo-fi (modem)

I wrote this in about 10 minutes for the Chippewa Chapel open mic night at Fred's Six Feet Under. I would have thrown it away, but Fred kept insisting that I work on it. That South City bastard.

Anyways, I've got to give him some credit for this, and of course the magnificent musicians who played on this version of it.

Garrett Schmitt - Trumpet, fake drums (he mainly hit a banjo head)
Emma Tiemann - Violin, vegetarianism
Katie Jones - Violin, yelling the word "Go"
Jason Koenig - Bass
Nathan Jatcko - Organ
John Krane - Vocals, Guitar

Before you ask, everyone wrote their own parts for this, meaning that Katie and Emma arranged those intricate violin parts and Garrett arranged those fantastic trumpets. I'm really thankful to these fucking awesome musicians who took the time to come play on my silly song. In particular, Garrett, Katie, and Emma spent about 6 hours each recording, which ain't always easy to budget into a week, y'know? And Nathan traveled from goddamn Chicago to play on this and another song (well, he was in town for something else, but it still counts). Jason learned the song at night and plugged in the bass line in at most 3 takes, and two of them were spent on one particular 8 second section. Anyone who has recorded before knows that to record that quickly and accurately requires enormous musicianship.

He walked into a bar
Where he was supposed to play
Another band was set up
The bartender double booked that day
So he drank a free beer
Served in a plastic cup
It would have been really bad if any of his friends had shown up.

Stop leading me on
Stop leading me on
In another drink or two, I'll be gone
Stop leading me on
Stop making me blue
Oh, everything I think I want to do, I think I do for you

There's a girl on his street
And he's who she's been thinking of,
But he needs to be loved
A lot more than he needs to love
He flirts and he talks
And calls her every day
But he calls somebody else when he really wants to feel OK

(chorus)

I relate when she is late
And I don't think she's coming at all
When she gets low, I won't know
I won't call
Keep your love
Keep your love,
Keep your heart moving and stop leading me on

I try to be true,
And when I do I'm mostly fine
But sometimes I can't get across what's on my mind
I'm a bum and I'm a dog
But I keep a steady hand
If you want somebody fucked up to love
Baby, I'm your man

I won't lead you on
I won't lead you on
In another drink or two, we'll be gone
I won't lead you on,
I won't make you blue
Everything I think I ought to do I think I do for you