Tag Archives: original songs

Light work.

Okay, ready? On three … one, two, THREE! Arrrgh. I meant, on the count of three LIFT the freaking thing, not wave your hands in the air. What the hell’s the matter with you? It’s like you just don’t care.

Yeah, I guess you could say we’re having a little moving party here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green’s adopted home for the last two decades. (I think we technically have squatter’s rights, but what law is there in a place such as this?) No, we’re not vacating the premises – far from it. I just wanted to move my piano from one room to another. No particular reason. Maybe that’s why I can’t get any cooperation out of this crew. I KNEW I should have done one of those leadership retreats! Curses.

Sure, there are useful things we could all be doing, but who’s got the time for that? I mean, I’ve been putting off restringing our borrowed electric guitar for about two weeks now. That sucker isn’t going to string itself, right? Things just keep getting in the way. Like Marvin (my personal assistant) – he got in the way yesterday when he was vacuuming the hall. To get to the guitar, I would have had to maneuvered around him. And well … I just don’t feel like stringing the guitar, Put your back into it!that’s the point. You see? When all else fails, the truth will out!

While we’re not moving things around at random, we are actually working on a music project. As I mentioned last week, it’s kind of similar to our first album in that we’re reworking some of the songs Matt wrote as low-rent Christmas gifts in the 1980s and 90s. The biggest difference is that we’re recording it for the podcast … and we’re twenty years older than we were for 2000 Years To Christmas. So this may sound more crotchety … or not. But hey … it’s free, right? To us, you’re all kids, and on Sundays, kids eat free. In fact, in my book, kids always eat free. That’s how we roll.

So, let’s put the piano the fuck over there, and let’s get recording, damn it. Christmas is almost here, right?

THIS IS BIG GREEN: April 2017



Big Green heralds the arrival of Spring with a remarkably ludicrous installment of Ned Trek, some recent recordings, random utterances, and more. Here comes the sun.

This is Big Green – April 2017.

This is Big Green – April 2017. Features: 1) Ned Trek 32: All Our Festerdays; 2) Put The Phone Down: The cornbread song; 3) My friend, Mr. Worm; 4) Contemplating the wisdom of Kung Fu; 5) News from the falcon box; 6) The Akita factor; 7) Scat-singing Dalek; 8) Song: Freedom Gained (with Intro), by Big Green ; 9) Song: Neocon Christmas, by Big Green; 10) Song: Jesus Has a Known Mind, by Big Green; 11) Song: Up On The Bridge, by Big Green; 12) Out of here.

Wait a minute.

Got this song running through my head. It’s one of Matt’s from some time ago. I get that a lot, actually. Our entertainment center hasn’t worked in ages, so when we’re not playing I have to rely upon the jukebox in my mind for my entertainment. And just now it’s playing Big Green circa 1989, maybe. Couple weeks ago. The lyric goes like this:

Thought we were madly in love
but we were just plain mad
I always thought we were in love
But we were mad, just mad

Under a Gothic sky
we heard an ancient choir
In an amphitheater
we compiled notes and prayed aloud

We held our breath and heard the voice
of uncommon sense
We dropped our eyes and saw the floor mosaic move
We were in need of uncommon sense
We met the face of foolishness

In the torrential rain
we still open the mail
We still shake the pieces
Still building boats unsafe to sail

We were badly in need of some
uncommon law
We were sadly in need of some corrective lens
We were in need of uncommon sense
We met the face of foolishness

We weren’t in love
We were mad

That song is called “Uncommon Sense” and I literally haven’t heard it in years. So why is it bouncing around in my bean? No freaking clue. Stuff just bobs up like an inflatable horse in a swimming pool. Or something else that bobs up … maybe somebody named Bob who comes up for the weekend. Not that that’s ever likely to happen. And what if he has special dietary restrictions? Okay … where was I?

Eight-tracks are just fab, man.I think I’m hearing music because my mind is wandering. It’s like hold music – something has to fill the void, and since my psyche is out on vacation, someone fired up the old juke box. Sometimes it’s junk-ass radio pop music from the 1970s. I won’t even name some of the ear-worms I get because then you will have them to grapple with for the rest of the day, and you will end up hating me until the end of time. You know, songs like “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero”, for instance, or “The Night Chicago Died”. Oh, God damnit!

Fortunately for me, my brother and collaborator in the musical collective enterprise known as Big Green has written a smoking ton of music over the past three decades. I can run his song list end-to-end in my head literally non-stop for about three weeks and never play the same song twice. Admittedly, I don’t have a lot of control over what I’m hearing with my mind’s ear – not like Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who actually has an 8-track cartridge deck built into the side of his brass head. All he has to do is hit the channel button and it hops over to the middle of another song. Welcome to the future, friends.

Note to cognitive scientists: if you figure out how to change earworm songs, let me the fuck know. Thanks mucho.