Revenge of the Quirky Genius: lyrics
REVENGE
OF THE QUIRKY GENIUS
The Best of
Steve Knowlton and the Knowl-Tones
About The Songs
Successful Mistake (I Wanna Be Your) Garbage Man Saskatchewan Auburn Mist (Wingtips) Stand Over Me
Oar to Oar Michigan Stomp Sea Sick Good Neighbor (Spackle and Grout) Rock and Roll Machine
Knowlton Road My Love is a Rock I Don't Medicine Head I Stand Corrected Aluminum Foil
Grass Skirt Pound Away
Steve Knowlton reminisces about the tracks on Revenge of the Quirky Genius
Successful Mistake 
(From Spackle and Grout)
One day, I was listening to Science Friday on NPR, and in a discussion of evolution a scientist referred to it as “successful mistakes.” That is, genetic variations (mistakes) that lead to an organism that is more fit to survive. The first verse came to me pretty quickly, with just a brief consultation with Jessica, who studied paleontology in college, to get the details straight. For reference, amphibians were the first aquatic creatures to move onto the land, and it happened during the Devonian period. Hence, my presence as a land-dwelling creature can be traced to those early amphibians. I sat on the verse for a couple months, and then one day it hit me that I could make a whole song out of examples of this kind of adaptation. The second verse is a true story: a chemist at 3M was trying to invent a super-adhesive glue, but he left the concoction on the heat too long, and instead developed the minimally sticky substance that is used to keep Post-It notes attached. The third verse is a political interpretation about the impact of Christianity on the Roman Empire. By crucifying Jesus, the Romans intended to suppress a rebellious movement, but in the long run the spread of Christianity helped undermine the institutions (including emperor-worship) which had united the Empire as a political unit.
Musically, the idea of the piece was inspired by Led Zeppelin; I admired their use of contrast between heavy and light, and so I wrote the heavy riff and then just sketched in some chords for the verses. Jason Justian at first was baffled that I wasn’t playing in the verse; when I told him it was for contrast, he nodded sagely. It took us some time to work out the rhythms for this song; Ken must have played about twenty different styles before we decided that the rolling pattern worked best with Jason’s barrelhouse piano. I think this song shows the Knowl-Tones playing at our peak. Notice how every part is different, especially between the bass line and the piano in the verse, yet it all fits together in a flowing rhythm. Jason Bickford really outdid himself here, especially as the song is in F#, no bassist’s favorite key.
Some Devonian tadpole made a wrong turn
Wound up on the dry side of the lake
Now I’m standing in the sun getting burned
The result of a successful mistake
Whipping up a batch of adhesive gunk
The chemist left it too long to bake
Now we’re inundated with Post-It junk
The result of a successful mistake
Mistakes are made by the President
And 100,000 soldiers meet their rest
I just want to be the lucky gent
Who wakes up one day to find his screw-up blessed
They hung that rabble-rouser out on the hill
To shut his mouth and prove him a fake
Now he reigns in glory and he always will
The result of a successful mistake
Jason Bickford: bass guitar
Jason Justian: piano
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, lead vocal
Recorded September 27, 2000
(I Wanna Be Your) Garbage Man (From Knowlton Road)
This is one of the earliest Knowl-Tones songs, as we first rehearsed it while we were still auditioning guitarists. As I recall, the music and words for the first verse came quickly, and then I spent a week off and on getting the rest together. My friend Ian Kabell suggested recapitulating all the tag lines before the bridge, which I think is a nice dramatic touch. This was one of the constants in our repertoire; I believe we played it at every show. Whenever a new person joined the band, this song gave him trouble, as there are a number of moments when the same notes (two F#’s) are played with slightly different rhythms, and it can be tough to keep track.
People have commented that the lyrics seem a bit smutty, but I’ve always been careful to keep on the right side of that line, so that if I’m ever hauled before a Congressional subcommittee I can say that the song merely expresses the narrator’s desire to treat his loved one with the same level of service and dedication as the garbage man devotes to his work.
On stage, the actual performance was pretty regular, but we slowly developed it into a long showpiece featuring an elaborate introduction. It started when, after playing “Taxman,” I said, “but I never wanted to be the taxman, the truth is…” and began the song. They got longer and more fevered until they were regularly of this variety: “Now ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate having you here tonight, and I know you must be thinking that life is good for a guy like me, short and untalented, singing in a fine band for you lovely people, he must have everything he wants. But I’d like to let you know, there are still some unsatisfied desires in my heart, and I just don’t know what I’m going to do – I’ve been all over this world, I’ve been to New York, Los Angeles, been to Caracas, Venezuala, and I still haven’t been satisfied, ‘cause really when you boil it down, I don’t want money, I don’t want fame, I don’t want respect, I just, I just…” then singing the song. (That’s a rough remembrance, but they were usually similar to that.)
I wanna be your garbage man
Oh babe, I wanna bang your cans
And if the neighbors shout and say, “Keep it down!”
We’ll take it out to the dumping ground
Oh yeah, I want to be your garbage man
Early in the morning
When your bag’s outside
I’ll come to your back door
And pick it up with pride
I wanna be your garbage man
Oh babe, I wanna fill your land
And if the neighbors gripe and say, “What’s that smell?”
We’ll go incinerate for a spell
Oh yeah, I want to be your garbage man
I’ll give you service
To scream about
If your Hefty breaks
I’ll hose it out
I wanna be your garbage man
Oh babe, I wanna bang your cans
Oh yeah, I wanna fill your land
You’re on my discount plan
And if the neighbors say I come too much
We’ll have to find a different truck
Oh yeah, I want to be your garbage man
If your bag is leaking
I swear that I won’t curse
You’ll just hear me beeping
When I go in reverse
I wanna be your garbage man
Oh babe, I wanna bang your cans
And if the neighbors say I come too much
We’ll have to find a different truck
Oh yeah, I want to be your garbage man
Jason Justian: organ, backing vocal
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, bass guitar, lead vocals
Recorded July 2, 1999
Saskatchewan (From Half Jasons)
This song had a pretty complicated genesis. One night at rehearsal, Mike started jamming on a slow, minor blues riff. I liked it a lot and took it home to think about. I decided to write some words for it, and developed the lyrics to “Saskatchewan.” In the meantime, before we had a chance to work on that arrangement, we played a gig and I broke a string. To fill in, the band played Mike’s tune. We decided to keep his song as an instrumental for occasions when I needed to tune or change strings, and eventually renamed it “Down Under.” I still liked my lyrics, though, so I sat down with my guitar and wrote a new tune for them. My original intention was for a grungy sort of rhythm, but it so happened that Jessica played the Songs in the Key of Springfield CD, with “Burn Mr. Burns” played by Tito Puente, and I was inspired: what better contrast than a song about Canada with a latin rhythm? At rehearsal, Ken was the first to grasp the idea (I played “Burn Mr. Burns” for everyone) and hit a few different grooves before settling on the one we used. Mike’s bass line was quite surprising; he played by ear instead of reading the charts, and so played a line in G major instead of E minor; since E is the relative minor to G, it works, but there’s a nice unexpected brightness at the bottom. When Jason Bickford joined, he retained Mike’s part. This was our first real “jam” song, in the sense that there’s a lot of free instrumental space. We always played it with the same number of bars in each section, but Jason was free to extemporise, rather than playing a set lick.
The lyrics stem from my long-standing Canadophilia. I don’t do it as much these days, but I used to try to catch the CBC news and read the Globe and Mail web site often. Around the time I wrote this, A People’s History was airing, and I was struck by the parallels between the settlement of the Prairie Provinces and our own frontier. You can see in the attached annotated lyrics more about the song, but I chose to take the view of the Doukhobors and celebrate Canada’s religious freedom and economic opportunity.
The recording has an extra layer of percussion, added to emphasize the latin rhythm. It was recorded simultaneously, with all the players around one microphone. I invited Keith Meisel to play the guitar solo, because I felt the song deserved a nice fleet-fingered solo rather than my own less-than-stunning guitar playing. We faded out the song rather than giving it the complete ending, because I thought the nature of the tune, with its repetitious vamp, implied endlessness, like the horizon in Saskatchewan.
General notes: the song is written from the point of view of an immigrant to Saskatchewan, which was largely settled between 1890 and 1915. He’s a deeply religious man, from eastern Europe. There is, in fact, still a large population of eastern Europeans (Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians) living in the Canadian prairies.
Under the living sky¹
I let the past go by
Saskatchewan
By the swift-running stream²
I claimed a nation’s dream³
Saskatchewan
Lift my face to the golden light4
Write my name in the book of life5
A name land’s harvest has only begun
Born again in Saskatchewan
I bless these fruits6 in a tongue
Never spoken by the young7
Saskatchewan
Turned my back on father’s grave8
Never more to be a slave9
Saskatchewan
Lift my face to the golden light4
Write my name in the book of life5
A name land’s harvest has only begun
Born again in Saskatchewan
The reward for all my toil
My patch of free man’s soil9
Saskatchewan
¹The Saskatchewan tourism slogan is “the land of living skies.”
²The province takes its name from the Saskatchewan River, whose name means “swift-running stream” in Cree.
³There is a Canadian dream, much like the American dream (i.e. each person an independent citizen with a home that he owns) but is predicated on the rights to “peace, order and good government” instead of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
4The prairie provinces are known for their many cloudless days, in contrast to eastern Europe.
5See Revelation 20:12. The protagonist is a religious man, like many of the settlers to western Canada. In populist thinking of the turn of the century, the rural life was considered more godly than the urban life.
6See Deuteronomy 26:2. I don’t know if anyone practices that particular ritual, but even if he just prays thanksgiving, it’s a probable gesture.
7One complaint many immigrants have is that their children fail to retain the mother tongue.
8Another indicator of immigrant status – he will never visit his home churchyard again.
9The status of serfs in eastern Europe was, until the very late 1800’s, quasi-slavery. They were tied to the land, and could not move to the city without the landowner’s permission. Although serfdom was abolished, conditions did not improve much.
Jason Bickford: bass guitar, cowbell
Jason Justian: piano, clave
Ken Pope: drums, guiro
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, lead vocal
with: Keith Meisel: guitar solo
Recorded June 10, 2000
Auburn Mist (Wingtips) (From Spackle and Grout)
(by Steve Knowlton, Jason Bickford and Jason Justian)
This started out as a little riff I was playing around with one night, and the other guys started playing along. Just to keep things going, I improvised some lyrics and a melody. Later that night, Jason Bickford extended the song with a chord progression that became the chorus. While working through that, I improvised some lyrics about dreaming I was a bird; I don’t know why, but that was what came to me.
Over the next week, I developed the lyrics of the chorus, and also put together some verses. I can’t pinpoint any exact intentions I had when writing the lyrics, but I know that I wanted something to go with the dreamy mood of the chorus. The reference to “auburn mist” is actually the official name of the color our car is painted. Auburn is a brownish-red; some redheads say their hair is auburn. I just liked the sound of that phrase, so I decided to work with the image of a mist clouding the narrator’s dreams. The motif of wingtips was, if I do say so, pretty clever. I do wear wingtip shoes to work every day, and the use of them as a symbol of repression in that sense, and of freedom in the sense of a bird’s wingtips, is nice. There are times when I don’t know exactly where an idea comes to me, it just feels inspired, and this is one of them. The third verse is a classic poetic conceit, of taking the same situation described earlier and reversing the outcome; I used the idea that in Greek “spirit” and “wind” are the same word to make a parallel between breathing deeply of fresh air, and having the Holy Spirit lift me in my dream.
The next week, when we were putting together the song, I knew it needed a bridge, so I had the band play through the chorus, and told everyone to stop but Jason Justian to keep playing the first thing that came to mind. And that became the bridge.
We only played this once on stage, but I think it is one of our finest recordings. Not only does everyone play excellently - Jason Justian with his counterpoint to the riff, Ken with subtle fills and a sensitive cross-stick pattern, Jason Bickford with a psychedelic yet restrained line under the riff - but the sound quality is pretty good, and I think I sang it about as well as I’ve ever sung anything. This is my favorite Knowl-Tones record.
Reconciled to cursing at my fate
Kicked off my wingtip shoes after working late
Collapsed into bed, praying for relief
From vices and regrets, drifted off to sleep
And I dreamed that I was a bird
Soaring over everything
But the auburn mist of memory
Obscured the tips of my wings
Every day I read the same old news again
Violence, poverty, the greatest hits of sin
Saw it on the bus asking for spare change
Stared at my wingtip shoes and wished myself away
And I dreamed that I was a bird
Soaring over everything
But the auburn mist of memory
Obscured the tips of my wings
The clicking of my heels in the empty hall
Ticks away the years, winter, summer, fall
Opened up a door, stepped into the sun
Closed my eyes and smiled, filled up both my lungs
And I dreamed that I was a bird
Soaring over everything
And I felt his spirit lifting me
Clearing auburn mist off of my wings
Jason Bickford: bass guitar
Jason Justian: piano
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, lead vocal
Recorded September 27, 2000
Stand Over Me (From Half Jasons)
In the fall of 1999 my grandmother had a stroke, and was bedridden, hardly able to move or speak. Over the next few months she grew worse and worse, and she died in January 2000. My sister moved north to help nurse her, and she and my mother spent many a long hour at Grandma’s bedside. This was on my mind one day when, at rehearsal, I started jamming out this little riff in C minor. The band fooled with it for a while, but I took it home and worked it into a song. I believe I wrote the riffs first, then added the lyrics, but I’m not sure.
The idea in the song is that, when I’m dying, I’ll want someone to be with me as my grandmother had my mother and sister. It’s not all that profound, but I think it’s a powerful emotion that doesn’t get much attention in rock music.
Mike picked up on the bass riff pretty easily, and I added some guitar chords. Later, I changed to picking the guitar arpeggios between the verses. Because of the C minor riff, I played the guitar in A minor fingerings with a capo. The main problem we had rehearsing this was getting the parts in order. There were some funny moments, like when I distributed charts with shapes drawn by the verses to help identify the different parts. I never lived down saying “Triangle, then another triangle, then circle.” Whenever anyone wanted to puncture my ego, they just said that phrase.
The recording features a ton of overdubs. I added a second bass line to thicken the bottom. There are about four guitars: a couple play the main part, a third actually plays the arpeggios in half-time, and there’s a doubled solo on the same track as the vocal.
In those awful days
When I am Death’s prey
Say you’ll never turn away
But stay
And stand over me
My lips cannot speak
But my heart still beats
Whisper gently unto me
“Believe”
And stand over me
If you ever loved me
Do for me one thing
Hold my hand until
I go to meet my King
Stand over me
Wipe my sweating brow
Kiss my wrinkled cheek
Stand over me
Stay
And stand over me
If you ever loved me
Do for me one thing
Hold my hand until
I go to meet my King
If my painful cries
And my aching sighs
Give you need to turn aside
Your eyes
Just stand over me
Stand over me
Wipe my sweating brow
Kiss my wrinkled cheek
Stand over me
Jason Bickford: bass guitar
Jason Justian: organ
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitars, bass guitar, lead vocal
Recorded July 5, 2000
Oar to Oar (From III)
Jessica’s mother subscribes to The Atlantic Monthly, a fascinating magazine about literature, current events, and science (it’s hard to describe). When she’s done, she passes them on to us. I was reading one book review of a collection of poetry aimed a college students who were planning on marrying, and the reviewer quoted in full Robert Frost’s “The Master Speed.” I was struck by the beauty and profundity of the work and thought it could be adapted into a love song, so the next couple days during my commute on the bus I wrote my adaptation of the poem. Ian has complained to me that it’s not entirely clear what the song is about, so here’s the original for comparison:
No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still--
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
Frost wrote it as a gift for his daughter on her wedding, but I decided to change it to first person, and shift the meter. Musically, it’s based on some chords I simply played around with until I liked. The original bridge didn’t work in rehearsal, so I wrote a new one that fit a lot better.
This was a pretty straightforward transition from my guitar to the band; I enjoy Ken’s playing a lot on the final take. I wrote in a long guitar solo break for Charlie, during which he sometimes fit some beautiful Allmans-like passages.
The recording was one that Charlie didn’t get around to playing on, so when it became crunch time, we had Joe play the solo. I edited it down at his request, but I think he got some tasty licks in. Joe also sings the second vocal line, which overlaps the melody of the first line, and does a lovely job of it.
Swept away, swept away
I’ve seen too many good loves swept away
In the rushing stream of haste
When the precious turns to waste
I’ve seen too many good loves
Swept away
Standing still, standing still
Bustle with the speed of standing still
Resistance to the frenzy
Is granted to us when we
Bustle with the speed of
Standing still
We will conquer time
Riding streams of glory to the sky
With this gift of speed
Given us so that we may be freed
To be
Simply be
Oar to oar, oar to oar
Love is only life lived oar to oar
All the blessings of our speed
Are secure once we’ve agreed
That love is only life lived oar to oar
Joe Toro: bass guitar, lead guitar, vocal
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: acoustic guitar, vocal
Recorded April 11, 2001
Michigan Stomp (From Half Jasons)
At the end of 1999, all sorts of decade-in-review shows were appearing, and I happened to watch MTV’s view of the 90’s biggest hits, one of which was the Macarena, and it occurred to me that we haven’t had a big dance craze since. I decided that I wanted to try to start one.
I took the approach of trying to recreate the early 60’s twist scene, so I included the “one two three kick” line from “Peppermint Twist” and added some other lyrics specifically about Michigan, including a reference to the terrible state of our roads, and the fact that we’re one of the fattest states in the union per capita.
Like I said, I thought this might be a twist song, but when Ken got a hold of it, he started pounding out a very powerful beat, especially in the kick drum, and we turned it into an old fashioned bar band song. Jason Bickford added a lot of new parts to the backing vocals; previously it had strictly been call-and-response, but he created some harmonies that add a lot to the texture of the song.
We did this on stage throughout the Knowl-Tones’ career. Oddly, it never did get anyone up and dancing; the only song that consistently produced dancers was “My Love is a Rock.”
This is one of the better-sounding recordings of our career, with a terrific drum sound. To spruce up what is a pretty undistinguished melody and arrangement, I asked Ken if he knew any harmonica players, and he mentioned that Kevin Meisel could play. Kevin had been in the band Treehouse with Ken and Keith Meisel (his brother) but has since enjoyed a moderately successful career as a solo artist. He’s by far the most successful musician I’ve played with. Although he hasn’t quit his day job, he’s got a record with national distribution (on which Ken plays a couple tracks), plays a lot of paying gigs around the midwest, and has been written up in a number of magazines. He’s even in the All Music Guide. Kevin came to my house and did his part in about half an hour. On stage, I usually did the invitation to dance, but I thought it would be a nice touch to have Ken do it, so then everybody in the band would have a vocal on the disc.
All the yoopers1 and trolls2
Wanna rock and roll
Do the Michigan Stomp
It’ll rattle your soul
Like a big pothole3
Do the Michigan Stomp
Well you kick to the left, kick to the right
And you call to your baby with all your might
One-two-three kick; one-two-three kick
Baby Baby Baby Baby!
Do the Michigan Stomp; do the Michigan Stomp
Do the stomp; do the stomp; do do do do the Michigan Stomp
So put down your beer
And get over here
Do the Michigan Stomp
Suck in your gut5
And wiggle your butt
Do the Michigan Stomp
Well you kick to the left, kick to the right
And you call to your baby with all your might
One-two-three kick; one-two-three kick
Baby Baby Baby Baby!
Do the Michigan Stomp; do the Michigan Stomp
Do the stomp; do the stomp; do do do do the Michigan Stomp
In Grosse Pointe Farms4
In Ishpeming5
Do the Michigan Stomp
It won’t do you no harm
So shake your thing
Do the Michigan Stomp
Well you kick to the left, kick to the right
And you call to your baby with all your might
One-two-three kick; one-two-three kick
Baby Baby Baby Baby!
Do the Michigan Stomp; do the Michigan Stomp
Do the stomp; do the stomp; do do do do the Michigan Stomp
1”Yooper” is a term used in Michigan for residents of the Upper Peninsula (U.P.er)
2”Trolls” is a derogatory term used by yoopers for residents of the Lower Peninsula (who live “under the [Mackinac] bridge”)
3Michigan’s roads are generally in a state of disrepair; recent estimates indicate that fully 25% of them are in need of replacement within seven years
4Grosse Pointe Farms is one of the posh suburbs of Detroit
5Ishpeming is a poor city in the U.P.
Jason Bickford: bass guitar, backing vocal
Jason Justian: piano, backing vocal
Ken Pope: drums, introduction vocal
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, tenor saxophones, lead vocal
with: Kevin Meisel: harmonica
Recorded July 5, 2000
Sea Sick (From Knowlton Road)
(by Steve Knowlton, Jason Justian and Ken Pope)
While on our honeymoon in Panama City, Florida, Jessica expressed an interest in deep sea fishing. I’m not much of an angler myself, but I bought some tickets. How it works is, a pretty large boat takes on several dozens passengers, sails for an hour or so, then everyone drops their lines. Apparently we were not having a good day, but Jessica still hauled in 9 or 10 fish. Meanwhile, I was pretty miserable. The motion of the boat kept me feeling nauseous, and the smell of live bait (mostly squid) didn’t help. I managed to hold everything down, but the kid sitting next to me had about four episodes of vomiting. As a way to distract my mind from my stomach, I started writing the lyrics to this song. It was finished by the time we docked. I’m a little embarrassed by the lyrics. They seem pretty juvenile, and “walk/talk” is a lazy rhyme.
Once we returned from the honeymoon, I wrote some music. The main riff was originally on guitar, and I had a bridge in C major. When we started rehearsing it, Jason quickly picked up the riff to play on a synthesized bass, so I could play some chords. After a few weeks of trial and error, he finally figured out how to play the “Sailor’s Hornpipe” in the correct way during the verses (it turns out the original is in a major key, but our song is in B minor). He was able to do this because his keyboard has a split point, so he can play one voice with the left hand and another with the right. The guys pretty quickly abolished my bridge and instead opted for a drone on B while I spoke the lyrics. A neat touch Ken added was making seagull noises with his mouth.
This has long been one of Ken’s favorites; I think he enjoys the challenge of the rhythm.
The recording has a couple nice touches: Jason programmed his synthesizer to make some wave noises which we overdubbed, and during the bridge I was able to imitate Ken’s seagull noises by using massive echo on the guitar.
CHORUS:
I’m sea sick, no time to talk
Sea sick, yeah I can’t even walk
Trying to make it to the rail with a trembling belly
But I can’t do it with these legs of jelly
Oh my God, I’m sea sick
Thought I’d take a trip on the Gulf of Mexico
Brought along a six-pack and a bag of tangelos
That big old ship was bobbing and weaving
And pretty soon my stomach was heaving
CHORUS
My baby pointed out to endless horizon
Said, “That’s the place to keep your eyes on”
I got up for a trip to the head
Found myself headed for the railing instead
CHORUS
I don’t mind my land legs forcing me to kneel
And I’m OK to lose my lunch – it was a Value Meal
And it’s fine to face the laughter of the crew when I’m finished
I just hate doing it every ten minutes
Well, I’m standing by the captain with a smoldering cigar butt
He’s chopping off the fish heads and cleaning out the guts
Thought I’d catch a big one, join the ranks of real men
But you better look out, ‘cause here I go again
CHORUS
Lord, I’m not a praying man, I hope you understand
But I’ll make any vow to get back onto land
In the name of holy Mary and of all of the saints
Oh never mind, I think I’m gonna faint
CHORUS
Jason Justian: keyboard bass, synthesizer, sound effects
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, bass guitar, lead vocal
Recorded July 2, 1999
Good Neighbor (Spackle and Grout) (From Spackle and Grout)
(by Steve Knowlton, Ken Pope, Jason Justian and Jason Bickford)
In May of 2000, Jessica and I bought our first house (using the inheritance from my grandmother). Naturally, we spent most of our weekends and evening that summer changing it to our tastes, painting, wallpapering, gardening, tiling, etc. One night while puttering in the yard, it struck me how many slang phrases for romantic activities are related to home maintenance. From there it was an easy leap to putting a few of those phrases together into a lyric. I thought a James Brown beat would be a good base for them, and I even threw in a call-and-response part for the band, just like Brown did so often.
I had a melody, lyrics, and a chord sequence, but no idea exactly where I wanted to accents to be when I came to rehearsal. I told Ken about my idea, and he whipped out his James Brown’s Greatest Hits CD and we scanned through a number of tracks ‘til we found “Mama Popcorn” as the beat we wanted to use. Ken started playing a variation, and Jason Justian quickly developed his piano line. It’s not a funk piano part at all, but it works. Finally, Jason Bickford came up with the bass line. I was still at sea on my guitar part until Ken suggested a rhythm.
The only extra touch to the recording was a horn line; I tried to keep it pretty simple and staccato to go with the funky inspiration of the rest of the track. I must say, though, that overdubbing the guitar part was very difficult for some reason; I remember it took about an hour of take after take.
Whenever a single lady
Moves into my street
I make sure that I am
The handyman she meets
I’m a good neighbor, yeah
I can help you out
Everybody needs another
Man around the house
I’m here to finish off
Your homeowner’s wish
Laying pipe, running hose
Trimming up your bush
You need your walls whitewashed
I can do it in and out
You need all your cracks filled
Here I come with spackle and grout
Spackle and grout
Spackle and grout
I’m the good neighbor with
Spackle and grout
I’m a good neighbor, yeah
I can help you out
Everybody needs another
Man around the house
I can drill your drain pipe
With a larger bore
And while I am puttering
I’ll put in a back door
Welcome to the neighborhood
If you seek me out
Just watch me coming
With my spackle and grout
Spackle and grout
Spackle and grout
I’m a good neighbor with
Spackle and grout
I’m a good neighbor, yeah
I can help you out
Everybody needs another
Man around the house
Jason Bickford: bass guitar, backing vocal
Jason Justian: piano
Ken Pope: drums, backing vocal
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, tenor saxophone, lead vocal
with: Pam Knowlton: trumpet
Recorded September 27, 2000
Rock and Roll Machine (From III)
This originated as a riff I was playing with at rehearsal one night in the Jasons era. Ken liked it a lot; he said it reminded him of the “generic rock and roll” sound that they used to play on TV in the sixties (for example, when a character would turn on the radio and fake music would come out). I originally wanted to write a song called “Hurricane Steve” but never got around to it.
Then, one night we had a terrific rehearsal with Joe and Charlie; really tight and loud. I said to myself, “This band is a rock and roll machine.” Once that thought crossed my mind, it was an easy move to decide it was a song title. The basic conceit is that there’s a machine that’s been neglected but is still functional. I goofed a little by making it gas-powered in the first verse and electric in the bridge. The second verse features a little biographical information: Ken was born in Detroit, Joe’s from Delaware, Charlie is half-Comanche (and half-Polish).
In early rehearsals this was a real stem-winder, with Charlie playing a really long solo and sometimes me throwing on another, but we eventually trimmed it down. It was Joe who devised the ending, which sometimes was pretty hard to sing. When we recorded it we had to slow the tape down so I could hit a slightly lower note.
I imagine we would have played this a lot, but we didn’t get any chances; it was included in our last show. In our rehearsals both Joe and Charlie sang backing vocals, but to save time as we finished the album Joe sang both parts.
In a warehouse
Covered in dust
Stands a gadget
Starting to rust
No one knows
Who used it last
So plug it in
And let it blast
It’s a rock and roll machine
Hear that baby scream
It’s a rock rock rock rock rock and roll machine
Made in Detroit
With American parts
Engineered
With Delaware smarts
Upholstery
Comanche style
Warranteed
30,000 smiles
It’s a rock and roll machine
Hear that baby scream
It’s a rock rock rock rock rock and roll machine
Rock and roll machine
Plug it in now
Rock and roll machine
Give it juice now
Rock and roll machine
Turn it on now
Rock and roll machine
Crank it up now
Rock and roll machine
To eleven
There’s a rumbling
When the motor turns
And the engine knocks
When the octane burns
There’s a funny smell
And clouds of smoke
Don’t fix it now
It sure ain’t broke
It’s a rock and roll machine
Hear that baby scream
It’s a rock rock rock rock rock and roll machine
Charlie Magiera: lead guitar
Ken Pope: drums
Joe Toro: bass guitar, backing vocals
Steve Knowlton: rhythm guitar, lead vocal
Recorded April 11, 2001
Knowlton Road (From Knowlton Road)
This was originally intended to be part of the solo material on the Knowlton Road album. We went out to visit Jessica’s Aunt Danielle, who lives on Flame Lake near the town of Roaming Shores, Ohio, and when we turned down Knowlton Road I couldn’t resist the idea of a mock-homage to my own prowess. The first verse came very suddenly, but it was a couple days’ work to pull the rest together. The “blue highways” line is a reference to Blue Highways, a popular book in the ‘80s by William Least-Heat Moon about his travels down the back roads of America, which are marked with blue lines on some maps. By the slums of Ypsilanti, I was specifically thinking of an apartment Jason and I shared in ‘97-’98 that was utterly decrepit. The double-entendre in the chorus and second verse is completely intentional.
Once I had the lyrics, I thought I would try to build a track around a drum line I had recorded but never used when I was trying to re-make “Should Have Been There” (I ultimately decided the original version wouldn’t be bettered). I sat down with the tape and a keyboard and played what came to mind, and it turned out to be the keyboard bass line used in the solo version. From that I extrapolated the chords and added the tune. The fact that I was using a drum track designed for a different song explains the uneven number of bars in each section.
The band version took the guitar chords from the solo track, and let the rest of the arrangement build from there. It was Jason who discovered that the melody could work over the chords played in half-time, and we worked that into the third verse for a nice dramatic moment. Ken’s lightly swinging beat is a departure, as is the simpler bass line. This has one of my favorite keyboard parts in the band’s catalog, like a cross between a celeste and a Fender Rhodes, playing a very cool modal melody. The track just features one overdub, an acoustic guitar.
There is a freeway full of men to love you
And slip away in the night
But you’re gonna have to travel those blue highways
If you want your loving done right
CHORUS:
Come on down to Knowlton Road
It’s a bumpy ride down a dirt two-track
But once you come you’ll never go back
Come on down to Knowlton Road
Now this trip out is not for weaklings
You might wear out your shocks
And the neighborhood is swampy ground
So bring an extra pair of socks
CHORUS
From the roaming shores of Flame Lake
To the slums of Ypsilanti
Oh girl, you’ll never find a place
With the comforts of my shanty
CHORUS
Jason Justian: electric piano
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, lead vocals
Recorded July 2, 1999
My Love is a Rock (From Half Jasons)
In 1999 a number of my loved ones fell ill, got divorced, or otherwise had a bad year. I got to thinking about all these things, and decided to write a love song. The first verse took its thematic quality from Bruce Springsteen’s “Be True,” and the chorus took its imagery from the parable of the house built on the rock. Further ideas developed from the chorus as I used all sorts of Biblical imagery. See the annotated lyrics for more details.
Originally, I had a rather odd riff for the lyrics, and the band really didn’t get into the tune. So I decided to rewrite it as a soul music number, complete with 12/8 time signature. The chords of the verse are simply the Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” taken down a step, and the rest of the music proceeds naturally from there. For the solo, there’s an entirely different chord pattern; I did this because, lacking a bridge, I thought the song could use a bit of a musical change there.
After a few weeks of rehearsal, I decided to add an instrumental motif to the breaks, and I hummed a line for Jason to play. The only big trouble we ever had with the song was working out the timing of the guitar solo parts. It’s a cycle of five bars repeated three times, which was pretty hard for us to get together on, but eventually we did.
I had my mother, who plays the French horn in her local community band, play Jason’s organ line, and since we were there, double it on trumpet.
You built your dreams on promises
That washed away like sand
You can close your eyes again
‘Cause I intend to stand1
My love is a rock
My love is a rock
In the driving rain of a hurricane
My love is a rock
Votes are cast and guns are drawn
Kings and temples fall
While the first become the last2
I’ll be your Western Wall3
My love is a rock
My love is a rock
In trying times of changing minds
My love is a rock
When the angels blow the final trump4
And sort the goats from sheep5
I’ll hold you in those streets of gold6
Or in the fiery deep7
My love is a rock
My love is a rock
When horsemen ride stay at my side8
My love is a rock
1In Luke 6:46-49, Jesus tells the parable of the man who built his house on the sand and the man who built his house on the rock. This notion gives rise to the title and refrain as well as this verse.
2See Mark 10:31. This is a phrase often used to indicate revolution. See Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’”.
3The Western Wall (also called the Wailing Wall) is the only remnant of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Jews visit it to pray and remember.
4See Revelation 11:15-19. Many of the events described in this verse are predicted to occur in the end of time.
5See Matthew 25:31-46. This is how Jesus describes Judgment Day.
6See Revelation 21:21. St. John describes Heaven as having streets of gold.
7See Revelation 20:13-15. St. John describes Hell as a lake of fire.
8See Revelation 6:1-8. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are well-known characters of the end of time.
Jason Justian: organ
Ken Pope: drums
Mike Koch: bass guitar
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lead vocals
with:
Keith Meisel: guitar solo
Pam Knowlton: French horn and muted trumpet
Recorded December 14, 1999
I Don’t (From Spackle and Grout)
(by Jason Bickford , Jason Justian, Steve Knowlton and Ken Pope)
There’s nothing like listening to Elvis Costello to get your bile up. “Living in Paradise” happened to be stuck in my head one day, when I saw a news report about how foreigners view everyone in the United States as hedonistic wastrels, and I got to feeling like a had to write a song declaring that not everyone buys into the stupid choices of the majority. A few of the things I objected to: the proliferation of SUVs, the objectification of teenagers as sex idols (e.g. Britney Spears; not only is it ethically questionable to ogle young girls, it’s also aesthetically weird – I mean, why drool over these girls who haven’t grown into their faces yet when full-grown women like Elizabeth Hurley are so beautiful?), state-sponsored gambling (if it’s wrong for us to gamble in private, why is it right when the state organizes it?), the fact that most Americans feel that prisons need to “toughen up”, support capital punishment, think prison sentences are appropriate anti-drug measures, and are willing to sacrifice certain civil rights in order to fight drug trafficking (when, in fact, research shows that prisoners are less prone to recidivism if given educational opportunities, and drug users rarely sober up in jail), and “reality TV”. To make it juicier, I wrote from the perspective of a paranoid conspiracy theorist who believes the collapse of civilization is imminent. The line about “thanking God for atom bombs” is taken from Paul Fussell’s book of the same title, in which he argues that the use of the atom bomb in 1945 not only saved his own life (he was scheduled to invade Japan in 1946) but that of thousands of Japanese as well, and helped keep World War III from breaking out; the disincentive to war once atom bombs were available was so strong that neither side was willing to risk it. (Ozzy Osbourne has a song with a similar title.)
Since I still had “Living in Paradise” in my head, I wrote the words to that tune and couldn’t figure out another. So, at rehearsal that night, I asked if anybody had a musical idea we could work on for the song, and Jason Bickford started jamming on his bassline. Lord only knows why he chose A-flat, but Ken picked up the beat and pretty soon Jason Justian developed the ascending riff, which he showed me how to double on guitar. The only problem was in the chorus, which Jason demonstrated was actually on a different set of chords, and once we straightened that out, we had ourselves a song.
This was by far our “sloppiest” song; it was truly a jam because we never did have a set number of progressions – instead we relied on eye contact to keep together. We only played it once, and that was just the week after we wrote it, so there was a moment before the fourth verse when Ken stopped playing but I keep singing. We liked that so much that the next week, when we recorded it, we incorporated that into the arrangement.
The recording was strictly one take; it was at the end of the evening and Jason Justian wanted to go home. Knowing we’d never get another chance at it, I pleaded with him to do one last song, and this was it. The only overdubs were some extra acoustic guitar between the verses, and at the end I recorded, backward, a slinky going back and forth (just because I liked the sound).
Everybody wants to drive a twenty-foot truck
Everybody wants to have a teenage face to suck
But I don’t
No I don’t
I do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-don’t
I’m hatching schemes to be alive
When pension checks start to arrive
Everybody wants to win the state lottery
Everybody wants to watch their neighbors on TV
But I don’t
No I don’t
I do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-don’t
I’m just keeping on my guard
And burying cash in the yard
Everybody wants to give reform another try
Everybody wants to take an eye for an eye
But I don’t
No I don’t
I do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-don’t
I’m in the corner very quiet
Planning escape from the riot
Everybody wants to put the crackheads in jail
Everybody wants to put their freedoms up for sale
But I don’t
No I don’t
I do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-don’t
I’m just choking down my qualms
And thanking God for atom bombs
Jason Bickford: bass guitar
Jason Justian: piano
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, lead vocal
Recorded September 27, 2000
Medicine Head (From Half Jasons)
Jessica had a cold, and was taking some drug or other to combat the effects, but they were making her feel a bit woozy. She said, “I’ve got the medicine head.” Instantly I knew I had inspiration for a song.
I wrote the lyrics at work one day and brought them home to set to music. The chorus is just two chords, both major sevenths. The verse is more complex; it’s all various forms of D major or F# minor (which can all be played in the same places on the guitar by shifting a few fingers). The lyrics were mostly easy to write, although I had a bit of a struggle coming up with the end of the second verse, so I fudged the grammar with “half my paycheck is in the drugstore biz.” Should it be “half my paycheck goes to the drugstore biz”?
In rehearsal, Ken got the mood I was going for early, but Jason Bickford really surprised me with a bass line that was played on the off-beat. It was totally cool, and changed the whole mood of the song. He gets in some nice licks during the verse, too. Jason Justian didn’t quite understand the spirit of the song, an “over-the-counter drug song”, because he’s not really into classic rock and so wasn’t familiar with the Pink Floyd musical references. Nonetheless, he played some nice parts.
For the recording, Jason played a second keyboard line, emulating a string section for the psychedelic sound. I overdubbed a second vocal singing octaves on the chorus.
Medicine head
Drifting down the street
Detached from my feet
Medicine head
Antihistamine
Make my sinus clean
My old friend caffeine
Gives my eyes a sheen
Medicine head
Floating through the town
On the waves of sound
Medicine head
Sore throat lozenges
Stomach pills that fizz
Half my paycheck is
In the drugstore biz
Drifting left and drifting right
Blinking at the traffic light
No luck keeping my head upright
Not uptight
Alright
Medicine head
Swaying in the breeze
Wobbling in my knees
Medicine head
Jason Bickford: bass guitar
Jason Justian: organ, string synthesizer
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitars, lead vocals
Recorded June 10, 2000
I Stand Corrected (From III)
(by Steve Knowlton and Joe Toro)
I was in a meeting at work and someone uttered the phrase, “I stand corrected,” meaning, of course, that they had been wrong about something and were acknowledging it. My mind immediately turned the phrase into a play on words, and envisioned a person literally standing on his feet being corrected about something. A few mental images later, I had the picture of a man standing outside the house of his lover; he had planned to elope but she had not run away with him. The tin cans is a reference to the fact that cans are often tied to the bumper of a newlywed couple. Other references to marriage include that fact that, in Michigan, one must take out a marriage license by swearing an oath to the county clerk that you are not related to your fiancee.
This was another case of simply working on a guitar part until it sounded good with the tune. I had the bridge but never could think of any lyrics, so I just left them as repetition of the title. When I brought it to rehearsal, the guys took it over and changed it pretty radically. Joe introduced a prog-style bass solo for the beginning of it, and his bass line generally was a lot busier and more powerful than I had envisioned; this prompted Ken to play heavily too. Joe also made some structural changes in the bridge, switching a few chords around. Again, Joe played the solo because of time constraints.
I stood outside your mama’s house
With the tin cans we collected
Now the night has come and gone
And I stand corrected
Staring deep into your eyes
I never once detected
Restlessness or straying thoughts
But I stand corrected
Corrected
Corrected
I – I – I Stand corrected
Questioned ‘bout our love, I’d say
Two hearts truly connected
I swore before the county clerk
Now I stand corrected
Corrected
Corrected
I – I – I Stand corrected
Crossing bridges hand in hand was
No less than I expected
In the river ankle-deep
I stand corrected
Charlie Magiera: electric guitar
Ken Pope: drums
Joe Toro: bass guitar, guitar solo
Steve Knowlton: rhythm guitar, lead vocal
Recorded April 4, 2001
Aluminum Foil (From Half Jasons)
This song represents one of the major quandries of my career with the Knowl-Tones: the songs I dashed off with little thought were often more popular than the songs I labored over. The week before this song was written, we had jammed some and I took a couple of the riffs home and spent about four hours writing lyrics and melody for a song called “No Starch.” We labored over it in rehearsal for a couple more hours, only to have the Knowl-Tones reject it completely (I still think it’s one of my better songs.) Then, to lighten the mood, I had us do a tune I literally wrote while eating dinner before rehearsal, and “Aluminum Foil” stayed in our set for the rest of the band’s tenure.
The inspiration (if such a feeble thought may lay claim to the title) was the foil that had been wrapped around my sandwich – somehow the phrase “wrap it up in aluminum foil” got going in my head, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to the first verse. Just to be silly, I extended the concept to wrapping intangible or inappropriate objects in aluminum foil (the verse about doing crossword puzzles is a reference to the popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?: I assume people who do a lot of crosswords would be successful at a trivia game.) The tune is a simple 12-bar riff in A (played in G fingering capoed up a key). The only difficulty in rehearsal was figuring out how long to go between verses – we settled on six beats, which gives the song an unusual flow.
This has been one of Ken’s favorites, as he really enjoys the reggae/shuffle hybrid beat, which he seems to have invented. He also helped smooth out the singing, as I was having trouble articulating “in aluminum foil” so he suggested “with” instead. Jason and Jason wrote their own vocal lines (I had envisioned unison, but they wanted to do harmonies.) The vocals for the verse were all recorded on one mic, but I gave everybody his own track for the coda.
You’ve got a pound of Monterey Jack
You wanna keep it fresh for a midnight snack
Wrap it up with aluminum foil
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home
Politicians got opinions to preserve
Take a sample of the public they serve
Wrap it up with aluminum foil
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home
Say you wanna try to be a millionaire
Grab all the crossword puzzles you dare
Wrap ‘em up with aluminum foil
Take ‘em home, take ‘em home, take ‘em home, oh yeah
Take ‘em home, take ‘em home, take ‘em home, oh yeah
Take ‘em home, take ‘em home, take ‘em home
Girl, you’re such a fresh sweet succulent thing
I wanna buy you a big fat diamond ring
Wrap you up with aluminum foil
Take you home, take you home, take you home, oh yeah
Take you home, take you home, take you home, oh yeah
Take you home, take you home, take you home
Even if you’re still sitting on your thumbs
You know you got to give the drummer some
Wrap him up with aluminum foil
Take him home, take him home, take him home, oh yeah
Take him home, take him home, take him home, oh yeah
Take him home, take him home, take him home
You wanna save your mortal soul
From the heat of the devil’s coal
Wrap it up with aluminum foil
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
Take it home, take it home, take it home, oh yeah
(repeat)
Jason Bickford: bass guitar, backing vocal
Jason Justian: harmonium, backing vocal
Ken Pope: drums
Steve Knowlton: electric guitars, lead vocal
Recorded June 10, 2000
Grass Skirt (From III)
(by Steve Knowlton, Joe Toro, Ken Pope and Charlie Magiera)
When it looked like our third album would be pretty short on running time, I got the band together for one last session and recorded some jams to pad the disc (I mostly played percussion and let Charlie rip on lead guitar.) “Grass Skirt” was one of those filler tracks. However, Ken says that even though this was intended as filler, he enjoys it and it’s his family’s favorite track on the album.
Ken has a variety of exotic instrument lying around his garage, and one is a thumb piano: a hollow gourd with a sounding hole over which are attached several tuned metal tines. You press on them with your thumb and make music. I was just goofing around with it between takes on our jam night, and Joe picked up on the riff I had developed. I stopped him, set the tape running, and started over. After the band had picked up from the thumb piano, I switched to bongos. The rest was all improvised, although Charlie worked out a couple repeated motifs that are pretty catchy. The comment from Ken at the end derives from the fact that Joe was hula dancing during the take.
Charlie Magiera: electric guitar
Ken Pope: drums
Joe Toro: bass guitar
Steve Knowlton: thumb piano and bongos
Recorded April 18, 2001
Pound Away (From Half Jasons)
At our first gig, we played “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” because we were required to do Beatles covers. Mike raved about the groove we had gotten on that song. I figured we couldn’t keep doing that song, so I wanted to have another with that pounding groove. One day while driving in to work I came up with lyrics and tune for “Pound Away.” It’s a simple 12-bar progression so I didn’t even need a guitar to figure out the chords.
The lyrics are intended as a self-deprecating look at how much better at everything the other guys in the band are than me (I always felt that, instrumentally, I was the weak link in the band), using various meanings of “pound away.” Originally, the bass player’s verse said “skilled trade” since Mike is an electrician, but I changed it to “busy man” because Jason was a truck driver (I believe he’s working in computers now.)
My plan was for this to be a set opener, as a way of introducing the band, but in rehearsals we quickly developed the long false ending and sweaty, exhausting groove, so it became apparent that it must be a set closer.
The recording for this was fun. We had tried several takes earlier in the evening but they didn’t sound right, so we went on to other songs, and at the end of the night, we were discussing what the song would sound like played by Cobra Youth, a punk band we had been on a bill with earlier. This provoked some laughter, then I counted off at a quicker pace and we laid down a killer take. Later, I had Mike over to do a backing vocal while I did a lead vocal, but I had the mics set wrong, and his vocal was a lot louder than mine. So I double-tracked the lead when Jason came to do his part in order to make up the difference.
This closed every show we played after it was written. I must say, it was provided me with a small measure of aggravation. People have often come up to me to say how much they enjoy “Pound Away.” I’m glad they enjoy it, but it is frustrating that I’ve put a lot of effort into writing thoughtful lyrics and complex arrangements, and they like this little 12-bar ditty better.
Since the greatest hits album will be a retrospective including all the Knowl-Tones, I’ve changed the lyrics for this rendition.
Studied in the high school band
Played those scales all day
All those years of lessons
But grew up to pound away
Pound away
Pound away
Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound away
Some might cope with getting old
With sports cars and toupees
We’ll take our midlife crises
To the stage and pound away
Pound away
Pound away
Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound away
When the muse is calling
You can’t help but obey
If we can’t play a symphony
At least we’ll pound away
Pound away
Pound away
Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound away
This town is filled with seedy bars
Surrounded by decay
I’m proud to say we played ‘em all
And lived to pound away
Pound away
Pound away
Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound away
Jason Justian: piano, backing vocal
Ken Pope: drums
Mike Koch: bass guitar, backing vocal
Steve Knowlton: electric guitar, lead vocal
Recorded December 14, 1999
All songs written by Steve Knowlton (BMI) except where indicated
Lyrics copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001
