Abcdefu

On Infidelity and cheating hearts

Warning, this song contains Anglo-Saxon expletives.

My Substack is a memoir of my life. It’s a living thing. I’m still here and while I have had a lot of experiences and been involved in evangelising new technologies and ways of living, I intend to do it for a few decades to come. The Top 500 songs that are the fabric of my life date back from before I was born to now, and there is space for a few more.

Gayle is only 18 years old. This song has charted all over the world and done really well on Tik Tok and Spotify. It hit number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

If you have ever been cheated on, you will totally relate to this song. I will probably write about that one day too. As a songwriter, you look back at those experiences as fodder for new songs, but at the time it hurts, it sucks and makes you angry.

I wrote a song called You Oughta Run, which was where I vented my anger at my ex of many years ago. In the song, which features the saxophone of my late friend Charly Nice, the storyteller gets a tip-off that his woman is sleeping with a friend. He goes on a journey with a gun in one hand and a bourbon in the other. You’ll have to listen to the song to find out how it ends. Sometimes my hackles come up when I perform it, and I love when the audience in a bar sings the hook with me.

It’s not the first song I wrote about infidelity. Another Stretch in Iraq is featured in another post here, which is about the common experience of our service people, who go off to war, hanging on to the love of their partners, and get a Dear John letter, or come home to find the love of their life has left them.

I was going to write about NFTs, as I have started a project on Rarible called Molten Earth. But I think I’ll come back to that in a future post.

My granddaughter, Madison is only 13-years-old and is already a great singer and we are building up a setlist to record together, her singing and me backing on the guitar. I’ll have to find a video of us performing at Torbay Theatre. A song we are working on at the moment is Driver’s License by Olivia Rodrigo.

Usually, she picks the songs, but this time I did, because I think it fits her voice to a tee. It’s another teenage lost love song from my Top #500 Songs. She thought it would be forever, she thought he was on the same page as her.

I got my driver's license last week
Just like we always talked about
'Cause you were so excited for me
To finally drive up to your house
But today I drove through the suburbs
Cryin' 'cause you weren't around

I suspect that there are thousands of teenagers who will relate to this song. Rumour has it that she wrote the song about her break-up with High School Musical star. Joshua Bassett. If that’s true, she has something to thank him for. There is nothing like having the last laugh.

Olivia Rodrigo is also still a teenager, well only just, at 19. She has already won a Brit Award and three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist. Time named her the 2021 Entertainer of the Year and Billboard named her Woman of the Year in 2022. She followed this song up with 2 Number One Hits.

While I’m on a roll, let’s have a look at a couple of older songs on my playlist. I am a big fan of the blues and the shouters like Koko Taylor (watch out for stories about my visit to her club in Chicago) and Big Mama Thornton. You may have heard Elvis sing this song, but check out this version.

I’m going to finish with a live version of Bob Dylan, Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright. I hardly ever sing covers, but this is one I used to play and sing back in my folk music days.

I only saw Bob Dylan live once and it was not a concert I enjoyed much. He sang almost all of his songs as Reggae and I wanted to sing along with the songs as I remembered them, the curse of many a hit songwriter.

When I watch a band that has hits that they have to play every time they gig, I wonder how they can do that, singing the same songs hundreds of times a year. Sometimes it must get them down, although it probably depends on what they get back from the audience and in this 1999 performance he got a lot back. And yet, when he performed this to a reggae beat at Western Springs in Auckland in 1978, the lyrics had a double meaning for me.

I ain't a-sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

So this was totally not what I was going to write about today, but these songs all live in my Spotify Top #500 collection. They are there because they are great songs, but they might also resonate because of a weekend, a lifetime ago when I came home from a fishing trip many years ago. I left the boys a day early because I had a bit of a premonition. And like another song says, when I got home “there was a head on my pillow, where my head ought to be”.

I have much to be thankful to her for. She gave me material for songs and the opportunity to meet my awesome wife of 38 years. Together we have 2 daughters with great partners, 3 grandchildren, and a foster granddaughter. It was meant to be.