She decided to team up with the bass player, who was one of those amazing talents who would never be recognized.
"Testy" was his nickname, or at least that was the polite spelling. He was always jumpy, twitchy and nervous. Thin as a bean pole, it looked like an impossibility of physics that his skinny arms could even hold a guitar. He always looked down when he was doing a solo, one of those incredible moments where you feel as if you had never heard music before. He played guitar and wrote songs as well. Incredible stuff, but he would never look out at the audience. His face looked blank, his eyelids covering his eyes out of shyness and introvertedness, even when he was connecting with everyone in the room during a solo.
The mean spelling was "Teste", as in, he has testicles where his eyes should be. Which profoundly granted him an extra set of balls. In a deep drunk, she pondered this point with the drummer.
"It's mean that you guys call him that,"
"He's got balls enough for two guys. It shows in his writing and his playing. Nothing left over for the rest of his life. That's fine by me,"
So she went to him to collaborate on her latest masterpiece. It would be a spoof on one of The Group's most popular songs done in concert. It was a bouncy tune, completely misogynistic, zenophobic, American arrogance glorified in country music. During the last round of concerts, after He left the stage doing his embarrassing yet still absurdly popular novelty song, they'd all get back on and do the rousing number for an encore. Except the very title suggested that they were asking themselves why they kept doing this thing-this music. They were all old men by then, loyal fans and everything, but the idea of questioning themselves made the audience question them as well. The Rolling Stones, they weren't.
She wanted her version to be from the woman's point of view. This gringo thought he could just take advantage of a girl because she didn't speak English. But she wanted a baby. She didn't want to be forced into a marriage with a man she didn't love. Her family was rich and important in Mexico, something he had no clue about because he didn't speak any Spanish. She'd be sent off to Spain to finish up the pregnancy, like they did with her cousin. Her cousin stayed in Spain, and so would she. They'd raise their kids together and never have to learn English. If he ever came looking for her, she would have disappeared with his son. She even told him about her plan, in Spanish, he was clueless. She kept waiting for him to get on his train, but he was a good kisser. How cruel to make him miss his train for just another kiss, he'd be out money and he'd be a few hours late. The one thing she did understand was that he was even poorer than anyone she knew in Mexico. She was NOT going to let him stay with her, an albatross around her neck.
It would have been easy to flip all the lyrics, and they did in the first version. Slowed it down into a ballad, a simple answer song. But Testy kept adding frills to each of the lines, changing the melodies slightly. And the story evolved and evolved, until the only recognizable lyric was the title. And that turned too.
They performed it on stage, in the middle of a set. He just stood back, silent and (she hoped) blown away by what he heard. Backstage, when they were packing up, he told her how much he loved it. Genuinely. And then she screwed everything up . . .
"Aw, it weren't nuthin'. Nuthin' t'all. I just wanted to write an answer song to that one you guys do. The one that The Great Texan is known for. The song that launched country-folk-rock. The one where you guys are up on stage asking yourselves why you are still doing this . . . "
With that, he turned his back on her and walked to the door.
"He didn't even write that song. He gets all the credit and everything that has a country sound gets attributed to him! I did all the arrangements on that song. He asked me to make it sound "Country"! He had the voice and the ego! Damn him, he just sat back and took all the credit!"
The band just sat back and took all the shouting. She had inadvertently hit a nerve, a big faux paux.
The Group never played that song publicly again.
"What Am I Doin' hangin Round?" written by Michael Martin Murphy
"Testy" was his nickname, or at least that was the polite spelling. He was always jumpy, twitchy and nervous. Thin as a bean pole, it looked like an impossibility of physics that his skinny arms could even hold a guitar. He always looked down when he was doing a solo, one of those incredible moments where you feel as if you had never heard music before. He played guitar and wrote songs as well. Incredible stuff, but he would never look out at the audience. His face looked blank, his eyelids covering his eyes out of shyness and introvertedness, even when he was connecting with everyone in the room during a solo.
The mean spelling was "Teste", as in, he has testicles where his eyes should be. Which profoundly granted him an extra set of balls. In a deep drunk, she pondered this point with the drummer.
"It's mean that you guys call him that,"
"He's got balls enough for two guys. It shows in his writing and his playing. Nothing left over for the rest of his life. That's fine by me,"
So she went to him to collaborate on her latest masterpiece. It would be a spoof on one of The Group's most popular songs done in concert. It was a bouncy tune, completely misogynistic, zenophobic, American arrogance glorified in country music. During the last round of concerts, after He left the stage doing his embarrassing yet still absurdly popular novelty song, they'd all get back on and do the rousing number for an encore. Except the very title suggested that they were asking themselves why they kept doing this thing-this music. They were all old men by then, loyal fans and everything, but the idea of questioning themselves made the audience question them as well. The Rolling Stones, they weren't.
She wanted her version to be from the woman's point of view. This gringo thought he could just take advantage of a girl because she didn't speak English. But she wanted a baby. She didn't want to be forced into a marriage with a man she didn't love. Her family was rich and important in Mexico, something he had no clue about because he didn't speak any Spanish. She'd be sent off to Spain to finish up the pregnancy, like they did with her cousin. Her cousin stayed in Spain, and so would she. They'd raise their kids together and never have to learn English. If he ever came looking for her, she would have disappeared with his son. She even told him about her plan, in Spanish, he was clueless. She kept waiting for him to get on his train, but he was a good kisser. How cruel to make him miss his train for just another kiss, he'd be out money and he'd be a few hours late. The one thing she did understand was that he was even poorer than anyone she knew in Mexico. She was NOT going to let him stay with her, an albatross around her neck.
It would have been easy to flip all the lyrics, and they did in the first version. Slowed it down into a ballad, a simple answer song. But Testy kept adding frills to each of the lines, changing the melodies slightly. And the story evolved and evolved, until the only recognizable lyric was the title. And that turned too.
They performed it on stage, in the middle of a set. He just stood back, silent and (she hoped) blown away by what he heard. Backstage, when they were packing up, he told her how much he loved it. Genuinely. And then she screwed everything up . . .
"Aw, it weren't nuthin'. Nuthin' t'all. I just wanted to write an answer song to that one you guys do. The one that The Great Texan is known for. The song that launched country-folk-rock. The one where you guys are up on stage asking yourselves why you are still doing this . . . "
With that, he turned his back on her and walked to the door.
"He didn't even write that song. He gets all the credit and everything that has a country sound gets attributed to him! I did all the arrangements on that song. He asked me to make it sound "Country"! He had the voice and the ego! Damn him, he just sat back and took all the credit!"
The band just sat back and took all the shouting. She had inadvertently hit a nerve, a big faux paux.
The Group never played that song publicly again.
"What Am I Doin' hangin Round?" written by Michael Martin Murphy
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