Hey everyone. Just a heads up, this is a very sarcastic and playful joking type of song and post. This is not to be taken seriously. This is all made for and supposed to be fun. With that disclaimer out of the way, have fun and enjoy.
I was listening to some different bar-bands all over the internet – both live and studio performances/recordings – and decided to write my own. I wrote the lyrics and, therefore, the song, in about one minute. The reason the song was written in less time than it takes to listen to it is because it’s a 12-bar blues song. This track is in honour of every terrible bar/blues band you’ve definitely heard before. Let’s give this trash-heap a listen and then discuss how to write your own.
Listen here:
How did I construct this?
I was in the middle of my morning constitutional and produced this little nugget. While listening to the different bands/songs I noticed a list of similarities:
- They suck
- There is no substance or meaningful material
- The guitar solos were terrible, however, often announced
- The bass was normally solid
- The form was 12 bar blues in very basic forms (I for 4 bars; IV for 2 bars; I for 2 bars; V for 1 bar; IV for 1 bar; I for 1 bar; V for 1 bar
- There were entire albums of this method with little to no variation in tempo, key, or lyrical topic
This pretty much gave me everything I needed to produce my own bad bar-band song.
The key is E major and every section is 12 bars and matches the above mentioned basic blues form:
- Verse
- Bad solo
- Verse
- Bad solo
- Verse
- Bad closing solo
There is no drummer in this recording as a deliberate example of how (good) drummers are hard to find.
The guitar solos were played deliberately badly and with the unearned confidence of somebody that owns extremely expensive gear while wielding less than no idea how to use any of it. You could describe each solo as a sonic embodiment of the Dunning-Krüger Effect.
Everything you hear is first-take and unedited. So what you hear is directly what I made up for the song as it went along.
Let’s look at the lyrics:
Lyrics
Take a listen
What do I hear?
A whole lotta nothin
And some words about beer
They’re drinkin and drivin
Their talent is hiding
Until a break in the vocals
And they play a bunch of bad guitar
*Bad Solo*
Still I listen
Didn’t skip ahead
Hopin my hope
Doesn’t end up dead
They’re drinkin and flailin
The image is fadin
Another break in the vocals
And they play a bunch of bad guitar
*Bad Solo*
Now that I heard it
I wish I didn’t
A waste of my time
Now it’s stuck in my mind
They’re still repeating
My ears are now bleeding
Another break in the vocals
And they end with some bad guitar
*Bad Closing Solo*
There you have it. You don’t need a song to be good to be a song. You just need to manifest the image of being an older white male in a music shop that talks about how they have seen Eric Clapton more times than anyone else, has spent more money on gear than most people on food and housing, and have “a ball and chain” that doesn’t approve of their ever growing gear collection; all while holding the most expensive guitar in the shop, plugged into either a Fender Twin Reverb or the most expensive Marshall, and not playing a single note while talking about the finish on the guitar and dropping less than vaguely racist lines about how “white people invented the blues” and then trying to defend it with Eric Clapton’s existence.
Parting Thoughts
Have fun. Make fun of yourself and what you do from time to time. Enjoy what you do as well. Just try to find some enjoyment and fun in life; we don’t have that long to live and we should try to fill it with as many laughs as we can. Don’t take things seriously, especially when people state they’re not being serious and then launch into a series of sarcastic paragraphs about bad bar-bands and, effectively, those that play in them.
I probably won’t be posting next week (it’ll be the day after christmas and I have a lovely 2 year old daughter and my family I’d like to spend time with), so I’ll probably see you in the new year.
As always, I’m always accepting students and it would be a perfect time to check my services and contact me or email me to book your lesson(s) for the new year. There’s never a bad time to start doing something and it’s never too late to start something new or to continue on improving yourself on something with somebody that can help you.
Thank you for your time, happy holidays to you all, and I hope you had fun with this joke post/song.
All the best,
– Matt