Sometimes They Come Back(orders): Feel Better Now
Let's Not Be L7
A lot of songs from the '75 sessions were in various stages of completion when disaster struck and my equipment was stolen, an event that caused a near-total rethink of the Won Out project. Fall On Me, Love Is All Right, Lend A Hand and Whatever You Want were the only songs that were completed and only the first two ended up on the album (the other two were included as bonus tracks. The electric full band approach was abandoned for a softer acoustic sound. Going forward the songs would feature just my voice and guitar(s) and Arlene's keyboards.
"Feel Better Now" came from The Great Song Explosion of '73, It's based on a Flo and Eddie song called "Feel Older Now". My GSE songs were influenced by what I was listening to at the time: The Mothers, Flo and Eddie (late of the Turtles and The Mothers), The Beatles (there they are again), Love (the seminal LA group), British Invasion and American rock from the same period. It would slot right in with pop/rock from 1966. The lyrics are nonsense - a first pass that I meant to rewrite but ended up liking what I came up with. I'd recorded guitar, vocals and bass and were discussing what to do next when the thing happened. "Feel Better Now" is still on the session tapes, unmixed and unfinished and I don't have a version from those sessions to present here.
But all is not lost. The songs has been on the set lists of my current band, the Backorders, since I formed the band and several versions exist, two of which are presented here - one is a brief segment of the middle of a performance (from the 2013 band) and the second is the full song by the current group (from 2022). I'll go into details of both bands in future entries. But trust me, they're both great bands!
The Backorders at Oakland's Stork Club, 2013
Sittin' underneath the lawn thinkin' 'bout the girl who's gone
Sittin' underneath the road thinkin' 'bout the girl who go'ed
She's gone - I don't mind
I feel better now, I feel better now, so much better
I feel better now, I feel better now, so much better
Sittin' underneath the street under all the people's feet
Sittin' underneath the ground tryin' not to make a sound
She's gone - I know why
I feel better now, I feel better now, so much better
I feel better now, I feel better now, so much better
Let's not be L7, let's not be L7
Sitting underneath the dirt tryin' not to feel the hurt
Sittin underneath the sky 'cause it costs to much to fly
She's gone - goodbye!
I feel better now, I feel better now, so much better
I feel better now, I feel better now, so much better
As I said, the lyrics are mostly nonsense but it's an exciting song and would have made the album had it been finished. In fact if the infamous burglary hadn't happened the album would have been completed in '75 instead of taking another 4 years.
The present day Backorders, 2023So that's the story of "Feel Better Now, one of the many songs from the first sessions for Won Out that just refuses to go away - fun to listen to and fun to play. I'm gonna Igloo now - it's been a pleasure!
More stuff: I saw Johnny Cash once at the old Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos. A friend of mine could get promotional tickets to shows there. Johnny was in fine form. The Circle Star was a circular building (hence the name? Prob'ly) and the stage would rotate so the performer would face a different sections of the audience. Sometimes we would just see Johnny and the band from behind. I remember him wearing a long black coat. He sang his hits, joked with his band, The Tennessee Three, and thrilled all of the blue-haired little old ladies. Another performer I saw there was Pia Zadora. Pia is (if she's still around), was (if she's not) a modestly talented but attractive - I hesitate to say beautiful because she's not - performer who had tried many different styles of music - disco, rock, pop, other stuff - in her attempts to become the star she could never be. She was married to and old rich guy who bankrolled her career. At the time of this performance she was singing The Great American Songbook - classics from the good ol' days of Frankie, Dino and the tux and gown crowd. The show was sparsely attended, but Pia gave her all (which sadly wasn't much). My friend and I, quite drunk, were sitting in a nearly empty section sipping drinks becoming quite bored with the proceedings. We started heckling poor Pia, shouting "where's the beef?" and "take it off!". Finally security came over and offered us a chance to leave without involving law enforcement> We thanked them for their discretion and beat it out of there. I think that was my last visit to the Circle Star. And I'll leave with that.
Today's lesson:
Their: belonging to them
There: in, at, or to that place or position
They're: abbreviation for they are
example; They're not there but their dog is in the window.
See how easy that was? I don't know why people have trouble getting these word right.
Okay lesson over, now go play
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| Here she is in her disco incarnation. This was not a hit. |
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