Hypnotized

"Hypnotized" is not an official SOTGD entry but it continues the theme.

I've always been into original (& "neo") soul & R&B songs and arrangements, and I wanted to write something else in that vein.

Ball And Chain

Ball And Chain comes from a love of obscure 70's power-pop...There's a vibe there, redolent of dry bonus rooms, shag carpets, lava rock mantles, super 8 movies and records going 'round....an in-between spot in the church of rock and roll occupied by groups like the Guess Who, Badfinger and the early solo Beatles, human scaled, full of "exotic" friendly and lo-key charm....So here's "Ball And Chain", with a Soul School beat, a post-Specter/pre-Ramones melody, siren and frogs:

Happy Days Are Here Again

"Happy Days Are Here Again" came from a reverie I had after the Market crash in 2008...for some reason I flashed on a super 8mm scene of a bus full of economic refugees winding it's way through the trees to Portland, a scene of diminished expectations and a rolling back of our "standard of living" to come. The height of post WWII middle class aspirations used to involve a single car, a 1000 square foot house, occasional trips to Yellowstone and a steady manufacturing job until retirement. How ever did we come to rate McMansions, boats, RV's, exotic vacations and six figure salaries in "Corporate Event Party Planning"?
A Debt/Credit bacchanale, the likes of which the world has never seen.
The Party's over however and I don't know a single person who hasn't been or won't be effected by that fact.

Lazy Jane

"Lazy Jane" is now on SOTGD...

It's a gothic little alt rock morality story of how we give birth to our own tragedies.

(The current Depression being a case in point)

There Is A Reason For Everything

"There Is A Reason For Everything" is one of my favorites on "Songs Of The Great Depression". It too has a 70's vibe and is meant as a statement of Hope.
I've personally found that even the darkest moments of my life have led, step by step, into an inevitable blessing or revelation of some kind...That if i could go back in time to remove one horrible thing the blessing too, disappears...

the future

My blog header says "Vaughn Trapp's blog, Music, Economics, Politics, Songwriting, Songwriters and Gear"...a strange mix.... 
Money is a subject that underlies all others. Just ask a homeless man how high up on his list of concerns "Gay Marriage" is, or the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan (and soon Iran(?)), his thoughts on gun control, school vouchers or affirmative action. Ask a church in bankruptcy or a University or City Manager faced with 30% budget cuts....

Permanent Plan "B"

What can i say about "Permanent Plan "B"?

It's the weirdest song on SOTGD. It's a weird song for weird times.

I once read a piece on Little Richard that claimed "wop bop a loo bop ba lop bam boom" was LR exploding into sheer abstraction at the frustration of being a gay black man in '50's America....I think that's what happened here a bit...

"Plan B" started off with a Gary Glitter beat and soon found me channeling Thin Lizzy as I free-styled lyrically through the 1st drafts... Why?

I never liked TL before. I always thought of them as the masters of "Lunkhead" rock, the soundtrack of Joe 12 pack's clueless pastimes....

I guess I just wanted something decadent and annoying to go along with...

Paradigm Shift

"Paradigm Shift" is another from SOTGD. I was still in the process of rounding out the album thematically when I went to jam with a buddy, Paul Gagliardi, and a couple of his other friends one saturday.
Paul likes to freestyle lyrics at the mic and while i was playing these chords underneath Paul eventually latched onto a typically brilliant non-sequitor, "You can't have love without... law and order"...
Bingo. A toss-off for Paul (he wanted to change it), I told him that it ranked up there with Oscar Wilde or Orwell.
What does any government tell its people in the waning days of empire?

This Boy

Back in January '09 an old friend of mine, Dave Barratt, set himself the ridiculous task of covering all 185 Beatles songs with the UKELELE being the common thematic element to each rendition. (If you knew Dave, you wouldn't ask)
He aims to complete this Pyrrhic task by July 31, 2012. (The eve of the London Olympics. He's English you know... Again, don't ask) He has one other quite strict, quite stringent, some would even say, "ridiculously inflexible" rule...Each song is to be covered by a different artist each time. In other words, no matter how much of a Beatle FREAK an "old friend" might be....ONE CRACK at "Beatles with ukelele cover song glory" is all that would be allowed. ("lest chaos reigns" one assumes...He is English after all)

Let's Be Good

"Let's Be Good" is the first song that kicked off SOTGD...I've always loved Badfinger and had recently bought an Epiphone Sheraton hollowbody which inspired me to write something in a Powerpop vein....

Keep Your Lovin' Kind

2nd 1st post ;)

Just finished a new song. "Keep Your Lovin' Kind".

Felt like doing an old 1970's, elton john, "tumbleweeds connection" sort of thing for some reason and this is what emerged.

It came out so well that i appended it to "Songs Of The Great Depression". It just seems to "fit". (Not that any of the songs on SOTGD really "fit" together. My propensity for genre hopping remains intact!)