There's a warrant out for my arrest....
I sent a check in to pay for the speeding ticket, but i guess they didn't receive it in time, so i'm an outlaw.
We were on our way to play Good Folk Concerts in Fayetteville, Arkansas for Emily Kaitz's birthday party and we had a great time. Of course the ticket was for 9 dollars more than what i made at the gig, and with the warrant it's a whole lot more now, but of course, one doesn't play music for the money.
When I played out in San Francisco in August, I got a parking ticket and that sucked because i came out more than 50 dollars in the red on that little venture. But it was good to see Guy and Sofia whom I'd met in Okemah last summer at WoodyFest. And they had come over from Santa Cruz so that was cool.
On our way to Fayetteville we stopped off in Tahlequah to see a friend, Bill Erickson. He has a ton of great songs, and one that we want to cover he put on a CD for us to take. Which also really came in handy because Emily has so many great songs, but some that stick in your head, ~not that that's a bad thing~ but one in particular that she sang this night we absolutely could not shake the entire first half of the drive home.... "Mamma, what happened to Suzy Rosen's nose...." we kept singing it over and over in that particularly Jewish mode, laughing and groaning hysterically. In an effort to remain sain, we tried to occupy our minds with other things but then there it was, popping up again: "Mamma, what happened to Suzy Rosen's nose...." We remembered we had Bill's song on CD. Quickly, we stuck the ammunition into the CD player.... "Katy was a beauty, had to have her...." Ahhhhhh..... we spent the second half of the drive listening to that song over and over working on memorizing it..... by the time we got home, somehow, "Mamma, what happened to Suzy Rosen's nose" had finally slipped out of our minds and the speeding ticket was just a piece of paper I had forgotten about.
Such was not to be the case with "Gliddy glub gloopy."
I was in a department store, and there it was: "Good Morning Starshine! "....gosh, I always loved that song. It had been YEARS since I'd heard it. I didn't know any of the words, didn't even know that first line or that that was the title, but the music and that curious melody are so infectious~ I wandered the aisles happily thrown back into my childhood humming along.... forgot what I was doing there, that it was the dreaded holiday season, that I had things to buy, that i was in a hurry.... until the song was over, and I snapped out of it, went back to being about my business~ somehow feeling a little lighter, and thought it would probably be years before I'd hear that song again.....
But then, there it was again.
It's about one week later, and I'm driving down to Luckenbach, Texas for the "Piano Sessions," a gig that wonderful singer~songwriter, Bill Lewis has invited me on, when my traveling companion (who shall remain nameless in an effort to not musically incriminate him,) all of sudden breaks into song: "Good Morning Starshine, The Earth says hello, You twinkle above us, we twinkle below!" It's THAT song~ and he knows all the words! I can't believe it. I can't believe it's that song again. And I can NOT believe that this person knows the words, not only to the entire first verse, but also slightly knows some of the words to the chorus, which I had no idea what they were. But, wait. He's mocking the song. How could he mock this song? I love this song! He actually googles the lyric on his phone to mock it some more, and he reads it out loud like a secretary might read the minutes of a boring meeting: "Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba lee lee lo lo tooby ooby wala Nooby aba naba Early morning singing song." "That's just someone giving up completely on songwriting," he states. I can't believe it! I'm just thrilled, argue that it's perfect, can't believe it's this great song AGAIN, can't believe THIS person knows the song, and truly, am in utter disbelief that THIS is the actual lyric. "Genius," i say! The nonsense perfectly conveys that feeling. And anyway, I never even knew the words; it might just be that the music is more important. "One of those one-hit wonders," he scoffs. "Yeah, maybe, but it's almost 50 years later and we're googling and singing the song!" We go back and forth, and now, for real, i can not get the song out of my head. It's there when I go to bed that night. It's there in the morning when I wake up.
One week passes. It's still there. "Good Morning Starshine...."
Now I'm starting to get scared: "... the Earth says, 'Hello'"
Seriously, ......what if it never leaves?
Two weeks pass, I'm lying on the couch. I think I've got the flu or something. I fall asleep watching "THIS," the movie channel... it's some pleasingly cheesy long-haired hippy film from the 70's that's on, but i'm not paying much attention. I'm feverish, like somehow I've possibly been slipped a hit of acid.... the next thing I know, half-asleep, half-awake, I squint my eyes to see, and there on the tv, all these hippies are riding in a car down an open road in the early morning sunshine. I hear them first, though-- and there they are, all of them singing: "Good Morning Starshine, you lead us along, My love and me As we sing our Early morning singing song, Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba lee lee lo lo tooby ooby wala Nooby aba naba Early morning singing song!"
I am crazy. There's no doubt about it.
But without these songs, I would be completely insane, and I'm even more sure about that.