There was a time in the mid-’80s when I lived and breathed for Bob Marley tunes. I was in college when the reggae great died in 1981, and, soon after, his tunes were all I played on my car cassette player. I went through phases of which Marley album was my favorite: “Catch a Fire,” “Exodus,” “Rastaman Vibration,” “Natty Dread,” “Uprising,” and, the one I still go back to today, “Survival,” which, to me, is filled with his most powerful writing.

His legacy is made up of a tremendous and inspiring collection of songs –– from “No Woman No Cry” to “Lively Up Yourself,” “Jammin’ ” and so many more.

To pick out one Marley song as a favorite is very tough, but the one that stands out to me is one that he actually didn’t pen the lyrics to. “War,” from the album “Rastaman Vibration” and recorded blisteringly live (and segued into “No More Trouble”) on “Babylon By Bus,” is an angry rebuff to the prejudices and social issues facing the world. The lyrics are actually part of a 1963 League of Nations speech written for Haile Selassie I, a messiah figure to Rastafarians, in which he calls for equality and peace for all.

The lyrics in “War” follow a portion of the speech word for word, calling for an end to prejudice: “That until that day/ The dream of lasting peace/ World citizenship/ Rule of international morality/ Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued/ But never attained/ Now everywhere is war – war.”

Put to the hard-chugging beat of Marley and the Wailers’ rhythm, it stands as one of the great protest songs. When Bob spits out: “That until there no longer/ First class and second class citizens of any nation/ Until the colour of a man’s skin/ Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes/ Me say war” … I’m right there, fist in the air, marching next to him.

What’s amazing to me is this song continues to feel relevant… which I guess means that the world has not lived up to finding answers to “world citizenship.”

Note: You may remember that this was the song that Sinead O’Connor sang when she was booed off “Saturday Night Live” in 1992 when she tore up the picture of the Pope (see video below). Ben Harper and Lauren Hill both have sung this song in concert as well.

War

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war -
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes -
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race -
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained -
Now everywhere is war – war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed -
Well, everywhere is war -
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south -
War – war -
Rumours of war.
And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight – we find it necessary -
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory

Of good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!

It’s not often that I feature a hit song in a Lyrically Speaking entry. It’s not that I have anything against hits, it’s just that usually even an artist with a hit has better songs than the one that gets the most airplay on the radio. And that’s probably the case here with the Counting Crows‘ “Round Here” from their debut album, “August and Everything After.” I’m a fan of the band, but not a super big one, so I don’t know all the albums, all the tunes (and I admit I should spend more time listening to them).

But I do know that whenever this song comes on when I’m in the car, I always listen… and sing along with the lyrics. And it always gets me thinking about the characters in the song: They sound vulnerable, lost, searching for meaning in life.

Adam Duritz’s voice is an amazing musical tool, unleashing emotions in the wavering of his voice. I have a couple acoustic versions of the song that just send shivers up my spine in the beauty of  the lyrics, stripped of its original sonic backing. Duritz, in those songs as I’m sure he does on most occasions live in concert, improvises some of the lines adding nuance and new meaning to the tune.

What will happen to Maria? is this the same Maria who is mentioned in the opening of “Mr. Jones”?  Duritz sings: “Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/She said she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis/And she walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land/Just like she’s walking on a wire in the circus/She parks her car outside of my house and takes her clothes off/She says she’s close to understanding Jesus/And she knows she’s more than just a little misunderstood/She has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous.” The words tumble out. It’s A lot to take in. But by the end we feel for her, wonder what will become of her.

And what about the guy who’s telling the story? Duritz explains it this way: “The song begins with a guy walking out the front door of his house, and leaving behind this woman . But the more he begins to leave people behind in his life, the more he feels like he’s leaving himself behind as well. The less and less substantial he feels like he’s becoming to himself. And that’s sorta what the song’s about because he feels that even as he disappears from the lives of people, he’s disappearing more and more from his own life.”

I love driving in the car singing the chorus at the top of my lungs (windows closed, of course!): “Round here she’s always on my mind/Round here hey man got lots of time/Round here we’re never sent to bed early/and nobody makes us wait/Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late oh/I can’t see nothing… nothing round here.”

Round Here

Step out the front door like a ghost
Into the fog where no one notices
The contrast of white on white.
And in between the moon and you
Angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
And I walk in the air between the rain, through myself and back again
Where? I don’t know
Well, Maria says she’s dying
Through the door I hear her crying
Why? I don’t know

Round here, we always stand up straight
Round here, something radiates
Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
She said she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis
And she walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land
Just like she’s walking on a wire in the circus
She parks her car outside of my house and takes her clothes off.
She says she’s close to understanding Jesus
And she knows she’s more than just a little misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous

Round here we’re carving out our names
Round here we all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she’s slipping through my hands

Run home, sleeping children better run like the wind
out of the lightning dream
Mama’s little baby better get herself in
out of the lightning
She says “it’s only in my head”
She says “Shhhhh I know it’s only in my head”
But the girl in the car in the parking lot
Says “Man you should try to take a shot
Can’t you see my walls are crumbling?”
Then she looks up at the building
Says she’s thinking of jumping
She says she’s tired of life
She must be tired of something

Round here she’s always on my mind
Round here hey man got lots of time
Round here we’re never sent to bed early
and nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late oh
I can’t see nothing… nothing round here
Will you catch me if I’m falling
Will you catch me if I’m falling
Will you catch me cause I’m falling down on you
I said I’m under the gun around here
I’m innocent, I’m under the gun around here
And I can’t see nothing
Nothing round here

For some reason, I remember being the ringleader (I’ll have to ask my sisters if this was really the case!). I would hold up an album and there’d be an amicable debate before the victor got the spoils. There was Bob Dylan’s “Freewheelin’,” there was a Mamas & Papas album and one by Phil Ochs… very ’60s folky, and looking back it now, very cool.

When I found “Give It Up” among my Mom’s collection, I couldn’t remember it from the Big Record Split-Up and I had never heard of Bonnie, but she was awfully cute on the cover, very young, very hippie-chick-ish, which I was pretty into at 16. So I grabbed the album and immediately made a cassette of it (yep, those were the days!).

Her voice immediately struck me as otherworldly. She could hit the high notes, bend her voice so beautifully and make you totally believe the way she was feeling in the lyrics. And did I mention that she could really play guitar?? I found that out later, but don’t think that didn’t just make her even hotter!

The song that really got to me was “Too Long at the Fair.” There were other more rockin’ and more funky songs on the album and the whole record is really great, but she sounds so tired when she sings “Won’t You come and take me home?/I’ve been too long at the fair/And, Lord, I just can’t stand it anymore.”  “Too long at the fair” just sounded to me like, wow, you must be really beaten down. I could just totally relate to be feeling like that.

What I didn’t know at the time, was that she didn’t pen the song. It was written by a guy named Joel Zoss. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on how Bonnie ended up recording the song: “Early in the 1970s Zoss performed at Club 47 (now Passim) in Cambridge. While he was onstage, Bonnie’s manager was in the club trying to get a booking for her. The manager heard Zoss sing “Too Long at the Fair.” After the show the manager asked for a tape of the song to play for Bonnie.”

There are so many lines in the song I’d love to know their meaning, but that’s part of the greatness of it: “Well, you can give my soul to Abraham/Give my soul to Saul/Give my bones to Canada/My teeth they don’t hurt at all.”

If you haven’t heard “Give It Up,” please track it down. I believe it’s Bonnie’s best album ever. She is someone who I really don’t think gets enough credit… maybe because she didn’t write many of her own songs, but she’s an amazing singer and an amazing guitar player and deserves to be heard.

For more Lyrically Speaking entries, click HERE.

Too Long at the Fair

Jesus cried, wept and died
I guess he went up to heaven
I’ve been downtown such a long long time
I’ll never make it home by seven

Won’t you come and take me home
I’ve been too long at the fair
And Lord I just can’t stand it anymore

I went down to Jason’s
Walked till my feet were sore
But I never knew what laughing was
Till you walked out the door

Won’t you come and take me home
I’ve been too long at the fair
And Lord I just can’t stand it anymore

You can give my soul to Abraham
You can give my soul to Saul
And give my bones to Canada
My teeth they don’t hurt at all
I don’t know who made the highway
But I guess that’s just my pride
And I have heard the Prince of Darkness
On his charger ride

The silver blade is gleaming
The scales are in his hand
I swear the night is falling
Don’t you lose another man

Won’t you come and take me home
I’ve been too long at the fair
And Lord I just can’t stand it anymore
And Lord I just can’t stand it anymore

I’m not sure how I ended up with the album “Decade.” I think I bought it from a used record store on one of the many excursions into Cambridge as a teen. My friends and I, or even sometimes me on my own, would drive into Harvard Square and spend hours walking the streets from used record store to used record store looking for cool albums or even just checking out the album covers… something today’s teens probably don’t get to experience. That album cover, with Neil’s arms and head sticking out from his guitar case, is one of the classics.

Sure, I had heard of Neil Young, and knew all his hits: “Hurricane,” “Southern Man,” etc. And of course had followed him into Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young territory. I think “Rust Never Sleeps” had just come out, which may have propeled me into a search for older, more obscure Neil. The best thing about “Decade” is that it isn’t so much a greatest hits album as a look back at a young career, mixing the hits with cool songs that hadn’t made the radio.
When I first heard “For the Turnstiles,” which was originally released on the album “On the Beach,” it wasn’t like anything I had heard before. Neil plucks out a haunting, almost sad bluegrassy melody on banjo and Ben Keith adds nifty Dobro over the pair’s harmonizing. Being a big baseball fan, the lyrics “All the bushleague batters/Are left to die on the diamond/In the stands the home crowd scatters/For the turnstiles” really threw me as I tried to figure out what was going on.
To this day, the sailors, the explorers and the ballplayers kind of haunt me. What is Neil trying to say? Here is one explanation, though I do not know its origin: The song was “inspired by the stadium tour he had just completed with Crosby, Stills & Nash. Mr. Young was clearly disturbed by the fact that big business was starting to take over rock and roll and art was suffering for commerce. The song foretells of the selling out of musicians and the forming of corporate rock.”
OK, I guess if you dig really deeply into the lyrics you can come up with that. I’d also say this is what’s missing from Neil’s music today… a little subtlety, mystery.
In the past couple of years there have been some nifty covers of the song: The Be Good Tanyas do a great version on their album, “Hello Love” and Redbird recently released a slowed-down version on their album “Live at Cafe Carpe.” Check them out.

For the Turnstiles
All the sailors
with their seasick mamas
Hear the sirens on the shore,
Singin’ songs
for pimps with tailors
Who charge ten dollars
at the door.

You can really
learn a lot that way
It will change you
in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence
may be shattered,
It doesn’t matter.

All the great explorers
Are now in granite laid,
Under white sheets
for the great unveiling
At the big parade.

You can really
learn a lot that way
It will change you
in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence
may be shattered,
It doesn’t matter.

All the bushleague batters
Are left to die
on the diamond.
In the stands
the home crowd scatters
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles.

A rare electric version by Neil in 2008

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWBlL9myZAU]

With a new album, “Smart Flesh,” ready to hit the streets on Feb. 22, I figured it would be nice to give some kudos to Low Anthem’s surely most popular song from its 2009 album, “Oh My God Charlie Darwin.” It’s a song that despite how many times you hear it, it still sends chills down your spine.
  The Rhode Island band of Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams provide some of the most beautiful high harmonies and ethereal moody instrumentation to back lyrics of a world in turmoil. Are they about the past or the present?: “And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin/The lords of war just profit from decay/And trade their children’s promise for the jingle/The way we trade our hard earned time for pay.” Adams’ sparse bowing of her instrument called a crotales as well as a beautiful clarinet solo adds to ghostly atmosphere of the tune.
  We can’t wait to hear what the band has in store on the new album.

Charlie Darwin
Set the sails I feel the winds a’stirring
Toward the bright horizon set the way
Cast your wreckless dreams upon our Mayflower
Haven from the world and her decay

And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin
Fighting for a system built to fail
Spooning water from their broken vessels
As far as I can see there is no land

Oh my god, the water’s all around us
Oh my god, it’s all around

And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin
The lords of war just profit from decay
And trade their children’s promise for the jingle
The way we trade our hard earned time for pay

Oh my god, the water’s cold and shapeless
Oh my god, it’s all around
Oh my god, life is cold and formless
Oh my god, it’s all around

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX7FjQ1TPHE]

Pity us poor Gillian Welch fans!  We keep tapping our toes, checking our watches, paging through our calendars waiting for the next album to drop. I mean, she’s got plenty of time to help her partner David Rawlings put out a nifty album, fly ‘cross country to Portland to sing back-up on nearly every song on the new Decemberists album… But she can’t piece together enough songs over the past, whatever, seven years for her own new album? We’ve even heard some of the new songs — “Throw Me a Rope,” “Knuckleball Catcher” — and we love them. So please, Gillian…
In the meantime, here’s an old song of hers I love.
Off of the still-amazing “Time (The Revelator)” album, from 2001, “April the 14th, Part 1″ is part history lesson, part story of a band on the run.
Gillian details what she terms “Ruination Day,” April 14th, a day in history that includes the Lincoln assassination (1865), the sinking of the Titanic (1912) and “Black Sunday,” one of the worst Dust Bowl storms in Oklahoma (1935).
Over haunting minor-chord acoustic guitars, the first lines of the song set the tone: “When the iceberg hit/Oh they must have known/God moves on the water/Like Casey Jones.”
Gillian sings about an anonymous young band playing a nowheresville Idaho festival presumably on that same grave April Day: “They looked sick and stoned/And strangely dressed/No one showed/From the local press.”
Is she comparing the band’s experience to the date’s other tragic events? The lyrics do read like a disaster: “And the girl passed out/In the backseat trash/There were no way they’d make/Even a half a tank of gas.”
The bleakness of the lyrics, sung in Gillian’s aching yet beautiful voice meld beautifully with her strummed chords and Rawlings haunting plucked notes.
A second part to the song, “Ruination Day, Part 2″ is a two-minute, 37-second epilogue repeating the same disaster themes and bringing the whole thing to a close, counting down the miles, like counting down the years: “That’s the day…/The day that is ruination day./They were one/They were two/They were three/They were four/They were five hundred miles from their home…”

April the 14th, Part 1
When the iceberg hit,
Oh they must have known,
God moves on the water
Like Casey Jones.

So I walked downtown
On my telephone,
And took a lazy turn
Through the redeye zone.

It was a five-band bill,
A two-dollar show.
I saw the van out in front
From Idaho,

And the girl passed out
In the backseat trash.
There were no way they’d make
Even a half a tank of gas.

They looked sick and stoned
And strangely dressed.
No one showed
From the local press.

But I watched them walk
Through the bottom land,
And I wished that I played
In a rock & roll band.

Hey, hey,
It was the fourteenth day of April.

Well they closed it down,
With the sails in rags.
And I swept up the fags
And the local mags.

I threw the plastic cups
In the plastic bags,
And the cooks cleaned the kitchen
With the staggers and the jags.

Ruination day,
And the sky was red.
I went back to work,
And back to bed.

And the iceberg broke,
And the Okies fled,
And the Great Emancipator
Took a bullet in the back of the head…

   It almost feels like cheating to pick a Beatles song for this feature.  I mean, just because everyone knows every note, every lyric by heart — does that mean I shouldn’t be able to share my thoughts? I say no.
  Yes, I could have pretty much picked any song from their epic discography, but “For No One,” off of arguably the best Beatles album ever, “Revolver,” is an amazing song.
  What gets me the is the depths of the heartache in each stanza: “She wakes up/ she makes up/ she takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry/ she no longer needs you.” The horrible emptiness of a guy whose lover has psychologically left him.
  And the chorus — “And in her eyes you see nothing/ no sign of love behind the tears cried for no one/ A love that should have lasted years” — is broken-hearted poetry.
  The music too is sparse and sad, just Paul and Ringo on this cut. Paul reportedly plays a clavichord (a medieval stringed keyboard), as well as piano and bass. A French horn takes the solo, adding to the mood.
  From Wikipedia: McCartney recalls writing “For No One” in the bathroom of a ski resort in the Swiss Alps while on holiday with his then girlfriend Jane Asher. He said, “I suspect it was about another argument.” (To read the whole entry, click HERE)
  For some reason, when I think of the Beatles and how they broke up in 1969, this song always comes to mind…


For No One
Your day breaks,
your mind aches,
you find that all her words of kindness linger on
when she no longer needs you.

She wakes up,
she makes up,
she takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry;
she no longer needs you.

And in her eyes you see nothing,
no sign of love behind the tears cried for no one.
A love that should have lasted years.

You want her
you need her,
and yet you don’t believe her when she says her love is dead;
you think she needs you.

And in her eyes you see nothing,
no sign of love behind the tears cried for no one.
A love that should have lasted years.

You stay home,
she goes out,
she says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s gone;
she doesn’t need him.

Your day breaks,
your mind aches,
there will be times when all the things she said will fill your head;
you won’t forget her.

And in her eyes you see nothing,
no sign of love behind the tears cried for no one.
A love that should have lasted years

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo2UbO1JMQo]

Blaze Foley

   Some songs just grab you the moment you hear them. That’s how I came to “Drunken Angel,” one of Lucinda Williams’ best songs. The tune, off her famously popular 1998 album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” is a tribute to Texas folk-blues singer Blaze Foley.  I had never heard of Foley before this song. Apparently he was some sort of Texas legend, and friend of another tragic folk hero, Townes Van Zandt. While Van Zandt’s life and death is well-documented, Foley pretty much lived in obscurity and was shot dead in 1989 trying to help a friend defend himself.

  The greatness of this song is in the detail of Lucinda’s lyrics. She captured the devotion of his fans and the self-destructiveness of his personality. Each stanza builds him up and knocks him down:  ”Followers would cling to you/ Hang around just to meet you/ Some threw roses at your feet/ And watch you pass out on the street/ Drunken Angel.”
   Her lyric ”Some kind of savior singing the blues/ A derelict in your duct tape shoes,” perfectly captures this antihero, who according to Wikipedia “had a love affair with duct tape. Initially he placed duct tape on the tips of his cowboy boots to mock the “Urban Cowboy” crazed folks with their silver tipped cowboy boots. This love of duct tape grew until he’d made a suit out of duct tape that he used to walk around in. At his funeral, his casket was coated with duct tape by his friends.” (Click HERE to read the whole entry on Blaze Foley).
   Of course, Lucinda’s sort-of slurred/sneered Texas accent and the added 12-string guitar sound completes the song.
  I never tire hearing it. I just don’t know how you beat this line: “Blood spilled out from the hole in your heart/ Over the strings of your guitar/ The worn down places in the wood/ That once made you feel so good.”

Drunken Angel
Sun came up it was another day
And the sun went down you were blown away
Why’d you let go of your guitar
Why’d you ever let it go that far
Drunken Angel

Could’ve held on to that long smooth neck
Let your hand remember every fret
Fingers touching each shiny string
But you let go of everything
Drunken Angel

Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side
Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side

Followers would cling to you
Hang around just to meet you
Some threw roses at your feet
And watch you pass out on the street
Drunken Angel

Feed you and pay off all your debts
Kiss your brow taste your sweat
Write about your soul your guts
Criticize you and wish you luck
Drunken Angel

Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side
Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side

Some kind of savior singing the blues
A derelict in your duct tape shoes
Your orphan clothes and your long dark hair
Looking like you didn’t care
Drunken Angel

Blood spilled out from the hole in your heart
Over the strings of your guitar
The worn down places in the wood
That once made you feel so good
Druken Angel

Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side
Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side

Sun came up it was another day
And the sun went down you were blown away
Why’d you let go of your guitar
Why’d you ever let it go that far
Drunken Angel

Lucinda Williams performing “Drunken Angel”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cckroKLPsqg]

Blaze Foley performing “Oval Room”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRLc2O1xtYk]

  ”Mission in the Rain” is my favorite Jerry-penned Grateful Dead song…
  That’s how I was going to start this Lyrically Speaking entry. But I could just hear in my head Deadheads everywhere grumbling and huffing and puffing, and decided just to get the disclaimer* out of the way, right up top, to help ease their worried minds.
  So here it is:
   *“Mission” technically is not a Grateful Dead song, since it was recorded (on the album “Reflections“) and mostly performed as Jerry’s solo project the Jerry Garcia Band. And, technically, Garcia didn’t write the lyrics — they were penned by Robert Hunter, Garcia’s songwriting partner.
So anyways, ”Mission in the Rain” is my favorite Jerry-penned Grateful Dead song.
  I love the imagery — a guy walking through a deserted part of the city at midnight thinking about his life and the choices he has made: “Ten years ago, I walked this street my dreams were riding tall/ Tonight I would be thankful Lord, for any dream at all/ Some folks would be happy just to have one dream come true/ But everything you gather is just more that you can lose.” Wonderful.
  Though Hunter wrote the lyrics, Garcia has been quoted as saying, “it’s autobiographical, though I didn’t write it.” Very Grateful Dead-esque. He actually sings the tune like he’s lived it. You really feel the guy’s pain, and yet the comfort he gets from his surroundings: “There’s some satisfaction in the San Francisco rain/No matter what comes down the Mission always looks the same.”
  Hunter says he wrote the tune about his time that he lived in the Mission District in San Francisco in the ’60s. The area apparently came alive with hookers and other creatures of the night after dark. (For more on the history of the song, click HERE).
  As stated in the disclaimer, the Dead only performed this song for a brief period, and I’m not sure why. All I know is that when it comes on my iPod, I turn it up real loud and sing every word — with feeling.

Mission in the Rain
I turn and walk away then I come ‘round again
It looks as though tomorrow I’ll do pretty much the same.

I must turn down your offer but I’d like to ask a break
You know I’m ready to give everything for anything I take.

Someone called my name you know I turned around to see
It was midnight in the Mission and the bells were not for me.

Come again, walking along in the Mission in the rain,
Come again, walking along in the Mission in the rain,

Ten years ago, I walked this street my dreams were riding tall
Tonight I would be thankful Lord, for any dream at all.

Some folks would be happy just to have one dream come true
But everything you gather is just more that you can lose.

Come again, walking along in the Mission in the rain,
Come again, walking along in the Mission in the rain,

All the things I planned to do I only did half way
Tomorrow will be Sunday born of rainy Saturday.

There’s some satisfaction in the San Francisco rain
No matter what comes down the Mission always looks the same.

Come again, walking along in the Mission in the rain.

Jerry Garcia Band – 11/11/93
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDBvqt2A64]

  A song’s lyrics don’t have to be overly poetic to be great. In fact, for me a story song, in which we can empathize with someone’s situation or one that places us in a situation past or present, can be just as moving as one that delves deeply into artistic verbiage or clever wordplay. (The worst is one that is cliche, where we can guess the lyrics before the singer ever sings them.)
  Bob Schneider is probably known more as a singer or performer than as a songwriter, though I think he is quite good in that capacity. He has a kind of dual musical personality: He’s got a raunchy, rockin’, rappin’ side and he’s got an acoustic-based singer-songwriter side. He’s an expert at balancing the two sides (though they don’t necessarily mix on the same album).
  His song “2002,” from his fantastic album “Lonelyland,” deserves some recognition. It’s him and an acoustic guitar and some really matter-of-fact, down-in-the-dumps lyrics of a guy who is missing is old girlfriend. He admits he’s done some things wrong in his personal life, really is trying to get his life together but realizes it’s pretty fruitless.
  The song is written as a letter to this woman telling her how his life has gone since their breakup. Sounds depressing? Yeah, well as he sings, “Doubt things are ever gonna get much better/It seems like life’s one big whatever anyway.”
  If you are not tearing up or feeling bad for the dude by the end of the song you have no heart.

2002
The year is two thousand & two
I’m doing exactly what I wanted to
And baby I don’t even think about you anymore

Just thought I’d drop you a line
And let you know I was doing fine
Cause baby it’s been a long long time
Since you walked out my door

It took me some time I must confess
For a while there I was feeling less than my best
Had to get out of town so I headed out west
Ended up in Seattle

I thought I’d start a brand new band
Thought I might call it Lonelyland
Things got a little out of hand
Ended up hooked on heroin

So I ended up moving back over to Germany
Living with the folks baggin’ groceries
But the time I had was mostly free
Spent most of it drinking

I got myself in a jam or two
Guess it’s what I had to do
But late at night I’d still think of you
Felt like I was drowning

‘Til I met this girl at a discotheque
She was a dancer, baby, but not what you’d expect
She taught ballet and she was half-Czech half Chinese

But after she decided not to have the baby
Said she might move back to the mainland maybe
By then I didn’t really care I was half drunk, half crazy

I got arrested but never convicted
My parents eventually had me evicted
Tried your number it had been disconnected
Guess I should’ve known

I heard you got married and you moved away
I called your folks but where they would not say
Said it’s probably better that way so I just let it be

I moved back to Austin ’bout a year ago
Drive a schoolbus I don’t drink no more
I go out every once in a while and see a show but mostly I just watch TV

So I don’t know where I’m gonna send this letter
Doubt things are ever gonna get much better
It seems like life’s one big whatever anyway

I just thought I’d drop you a line
Lie and say I was doing fine
‘Cause baby it’s been a long long time
Since you walked out my door

Here’s a short explanation of the song from Schneider in an interview with Andy Holloway in the online magazine 5 on Sunday in 2009 (to read the whole interview, click HERE) :
Andy: Your song ‘2002’ is one of the most sincere and genuine offerings about tri­als and tribulations I have ever heard from a musician. Can you explain the time period that caused you to write this song?
Bob: I wrote the song in 1998 after a bad breakup and I was sitting in a room in Denver. I knew that I’d be feeling better in six months or a year and I was daydreaming about having some kind of remote control that I could fast-forward through the next few hard months of heartbreak. Any­way, I ended up writing the song in an hour or two and now people think that it’s autobiographical when in fact, it was what I imagined the next few years would be like at the time.

Bob Schneider on Austin City Limits:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Uh68FEVY8]