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Doug Davis - Best of the Worst of Times

from Round 33, Week 3 by Monday Morning 3AM Music Club

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about

I think I like this one about as well as any I've done in a while. Definitely started out with a Josh Ritter vibe in mind, and I'm pleased to have actually had a lyrical concept in mind for this one.

As for the assignment, I like the idea of ending side one of an album with a bang, and the first song on the second side is an upbeat song that's not necessarily the barnburner that the side one openers ought to be.

As for the lyrics, I've had the pleasure in my life of knowing at least two or three solid, Grade A con men. Or at least con men at heart. The type of fellow (and it's always a fellow, at least in my experience ...) that stares right into your eyes and tells you the biggest whopping lies. But not maliciously; whatever the various cocktails of mental imbalance this particular type of person might have, they're not really liars - they're storytellers. They're just writing narratives, creating webs of inspiration out of conversation. You can't even really get all that bent out of shape about it. Optimally, you just sit back and soak up the tales and appreciated the experience. This song is sort of an amalgamation of the various folks I've met that have lived their lives this way.

lyrics

I remember nights on Second
And the smell of cheap cigars
How you’d twist those little stir-sticks
In the shapes of shooting stars
How you always had a story
And I never once believed
But I never failed to grumble
For the gifts that I’d received

All those cities under mountains
All the flashes in the clouds
Oh the brutal diagnosis
You could never speak out loud
Was it your schooldays in Tunisia
Took your bachelor’s in Trieste
We’d need an atlas and an astrolabe
To fill in all the rest

North as the crow flies
Watch for your star
Out by the old reservoir
Looks like it’s over
We’ve paid for all our crimes
Best of the worst of times

Well, you spun the sailor’s portions
Off the edges of the map
I don’t know if there be monsters
But I’ll forever tip my cap
From the golden age of wireless
To the shattered moons of Mars
Your delusions, our uncharted
From the booths of old-man bars

North as the crow flies
Watch for your star
Out by the old reservoir
Looks like it’s over
We’ve paid for all our crimes
Best of the worst of times

The tale least like to ring true
Proved no fools’ gold, in the end
You were fading in the ether
There was no coin left to spend
And as you slipped beneath your slumber
Well I swear I heard you say
“Won’t you tell me a sweet story
Of the one that got away?”

North as the crow flies
Watch for your star
Out by the old reservoir
Looks like it’s over
We’ve paid for all our crimes
Best of the worst of times

credits

from Round 33, Week 3, released July 26, 2021

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