Vidalia Belle

Here we meet El Cocinero, The Cook. Cisco is trying to enjoy a smoke break away from the heat and noise of the kitchen he commands. He is confronted by a belligerent local who questions his immigration status, he very right to toil and create the food the local consumes. The cook tells him what's what in this sprightly Norteno waltz. 

This particular type of Mexican music, it's oompah sound, is the result in part of the dispersal of the troops of Austrian emperor of Mexico in the 1860s and subsequent German and Czech immigration. Immigration coming and going!

I wrote this song in the macaronic style, mixing two languages at once. Kinda fun.

Below  are some songs in the macaronic style.

Next we meet one of Vidalia's coworkers, Jenny Rolls. She is a veteran waitstaff type of person, with evident competence and inner strength. She tells of her journey from chattel wifery to capable individual.

Roller Derby was sweeping the land when I wrote this. In my town its effects were seismic. It was a gushing fountain of self-realizations and affairs and divorces, sweeping and smashing all the ill-made marriages and mesalliances to flinders. A first-marriage destruction engine. I figured the newly empowered ladies who practiced the sport would appreciate a song that musically mimicked the rhythm and pace and faintly sinister undercurrent of the sport.

This song has no particular antecedent. It's just what happens sort of naturally when you combine fingerpicking  the key of D minor.

Here we meet the villain of the opera, the manager of the local Hooters at which Vidalia has applied for work. How do we know he's evil? Primarily through the repeated interval of the tritone. And also we can listen in on his dark inner monologue. 

Particularly for a guitarist, writing a 12-bar blues song is a terrible cliche, rife with pitfalls. But I refuse to duck the challenge. The starting point for this song is Muddy Waters' version of Walkin' Blues. The turn-around is an under-exploited part of the 12-bar pattern, so I put one in here. Led Zeppelin's Since I've Been Loving You is an example of an interesting turn-around.

But the unique part of the song is the strange tuning I concocted for it. Rather than find out what Skip James' "Benetonia" tuning actually was, I used my ear and surmise. As is often the case with me and surmise, it was wrong! Wrong but interesting. My tuning (Bloomingtonia? Barringtonia?) is in a dark, minor key and rife with tritones. Perfect for villain music.

In spite of the strong feelings about the hick town from which she comes, Vidalia is a dutiful daughter and accompanies her family to church one last time before moving to the big city. The song takes a dialogue form, alternating points of view from Vidalia and the Preacher. None of these songs are from Alex's point of view! That is, the “I's” and “me's” are the characters speaking for themselves. There is some omniscient narration here and there to set the scene or advance the, ahem, “plot.” So much rock music is done in the personal-confessional vein, I think the default is to imagine that the singer is pouring his shriveled little heart out about his innermost feelings. This becomes important later on as less savory characters are revealed. 

This song is truly ballad opera-like; it is a 19th century hymn I have repurposed. The Young Tradition did the version that inspired me to thieve it. But that version is not readily linked to anywhere I can find. The fella down below does a nice job with it.

I think it's just an artifact of the recording, but I kind of sound like I have a lisp on this track. I don't sing with a lisp, do I? You'd tell me, right?

To begin, we meet our protagonist, Vidalia Belle. A simple-hearted, average young woman with no greater immediate ambition than to escape her pokey hometown. She lives on a farm out in the county, the nearest town being Anchor, IL, a drive-past town in flyover country. She is typical in the sense that, like many young people, she sees her situation in more adversarial terms than those who surround her. 

Musically, I can tell you that “Big Rock Candy Mountain” was a conscious, direct inspiration. I think Tom Waits' “Singapore” was an unconscious, indirect inspiration. It has never diminished in its capacity to delight me since I first bought Rain Dogs on cassette, uh, looks like almost 40 years ago now. Wow. 

I'm sorry. I wasn't precisely straight with you. We didn't just make a new record. We made a rock opera. Why is this happening to you? Read on!

My wife Sarah and I played in a band together for a while and we specialized in playing traditional songs and fake traditional songs. You certainly know a traditional folk song when you come across it . An example of a fake traditional song would be "Long Black Veil." It sounds old timey, but it was actually written in 1959. The Pogues made a whole career of making trad-flavored music. 

Researching repertoire for us to play I discovered that 18th century musicians would slap together a bunch of popular songs of the day and change around the words to tell a little tale. This is called a ballad opera. That is what The Beggars Opera is. The Threepenny Opera is based on The Beggars Opera. I'll bet you've seen that.

It first occurred to me to compile some songs, change their lyrics and do our own ballad opera. Then I wondered if I could concoct my own homemade fake traditional songs. Turns out I could!

Sarah got busy with becoming a famous scholar and so we had to dissolve our little band. I kept playing and working on the songs I had written and gradually they began to feel more like rock songs. Like Constant Velocity songs. So, I got the boys together, they wove their alchemy and a mere 12 years later, voila! 

I was determined at the outset to do my utmost to fashion the words in such a way that the plot, whatever plot there be, of the opera could be apprehended just by listening to the songs. In this I failed, not totally, but mostly! Our opera makes as much sense as Tommy or The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Afraid I can't do you any better than that.

But that is not why I am writing so volubly about our album. Not understanding whatever cockamamie “story” I had in my head will not detract from your experience, but your pleasure may be enhanced if I show you what kind of musical inspiration was my starting point for some of these songs. Knowing their DNA is fun. But neither thing is necessary to enjoy the album. Ars est celare artem is our motto. Okay, I promise no more preamble.

Ordinarily, in the 6 months prior to the release of a new album, I would be busily emailing the bookers of swanky mid sized venues around the Midwest. And also bookers of chic, small clubs. Not to forget the proprietors of shabby punk rock dives. So this is spot where I would be announcing all the shabby punk rock dives we would be playing over the summer. But something has happened to our band; I got old and honestly can’t be arsed to figure out where those dives are nowadays. Nor arsed to drive half a day to get to them. 

So, I’m doing this instead. I’m disseminating our work as widely as possible on the socials. Forgive me. The dissemination will be entertaining, I promise! I won’t just spam your face with OUT NOW ON SPOTIFY. I’m going to explain the hows and whys of each song. So, brace yourself. 

I’m also bringing back artisanal blogging! My impression is that the social media sites are in a death spiral of VC mismanagement, Nazis, cretins, and AI. It’s time to return to the old ways. So, I will encourage you to visit constantvelocityrock.com.