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Over the years, I've played a lot of songs. I've also had a lot of criteria
to determine what songs I wanted to learn and which I wanted to bring to a professional
band. Here are some of the determining factors that I can recall. Keep in mind,
some of these go back to the mid to late 60s!
The first criteria that I can recall is the actual liking
of a song. If you don't like it, you won't learn it very well and certainly
won't put forth the effort to perform it well.
When I was just learning the guitar, The Ventures were guitar
gods. Every guitar player, even today, knows the guitar intro to Pipeline.
Of course there are at least two ways to play it, the official one and the one
everyone uses. Officially, the slide down is done on the fifth string, but unofficially,
a lot of people do it on the sixth string. Whatever.
I wanted to learn guitar so badly that I spent $2.00 on The
Ventures' album that taught how to play three of their hit surf songs—Walk
Don't Run, Wipeout, and Pipeline.
I wore that album out.
First, I learned the guitar intro to Pipeline. I played
it for friends. I played it for mom and dad. I played it for my brother and
sisters. I played it anytime I got anywhere near a guitar. Of course, I couldn't
play anything else.
Once the audiences that were initially so receptive began
to first dwindle and then begin to throw things at me, I decided I needed to
learn the rest of the songs. What I hadn't counted on was how long it would
take me to learn the stuff. I worked harder on that material than I did my homework,
yard work and housework combined. Every waking minute, I was working on those
songs.
I still remember and play them.
Along the way, a curious thing happened. I began to learn
chords. I began to learn where the notes were on the guitar. I went so far as
to chart out where the entire scales were on the guitar neck. I discovered all
the sharps and flats, noticed that there was not a B sharp or E sharp, nor a
C flat nor an F flat. I started figuring out what notes made up what chords.
About a year after picking up the guitar, a light came on in that deep, dark
chasm of my brain pan, the learning curve leveled out, and my speed took off.
I was learning a lot.
I also at this time began to pick things up by ear. If I heard
something I liked, I could try to work it out on guitar with no instruction.
The first song I can recall learning by ear was For Your
Love by The Yardbirds. The chords weren't difficult and the song was powerful.
That made it a prime choice. While I loved The Beatles, their music was much
too complex. I even bought a book to learn some Beatles tunes, but the weird
chord inversions were so far over my head that they looked like some kind of
Martian Sanskrit code.
Other songs began to come along. Incense and Peppermints
was an easy one and one of the first where I actually did the whole song with
bar chords. Satisfaction was my first foray into a lead guitar type of
thing. Again, anyone who has ever picked up a guitar does that intro lick.
More than anything, I wanted to learn songs by The Lovin'
Spoonful.
My mom new my pain and bought me a Lovin' Spoonful songbook
with all the music and chords. I don't know who put these books together, but
it was just as complex a Beatles stuff and I gave up.
Until I saw them on Ed Sullivan.
I saw John Sebastian using a thumb pick and doing the intro
to Daydream. I burned that video into my brain and I worked at it for
weeks. That was the beginning of my finger picking history. I still drop my
pick and play with my fingers, even in some of the rock, blues, folk, jazz,
Christian and ska music that I play today.
The point of all this background is that you have to like
a song. If you don't, don't do it.
I played in bands that had members who liked material I didn't
like and I would have rather been in algebra class that working on Yummy
Yummy Yummy, I Got Love In My Tummy.
There is an inherent problem with doing stuff that you like‹not
everyone likes the same stuff you do.
Case in point one: Big Leg Emma. I love that Frank
Zappa song. Unfortunately, only other idiots like me who have a taste for rock
and roll humor could stand the song. I played it with everything I had in my
own band, but no one else in the band gave it much enthusiasm. The result was
that I eventually dropped it unless someone remembered it and made a request.
Yeah, that happened.
Case in point two: Cheeseburger in Paradise. Another
rock humor song by Jimmy Buffett, but the bass player that was in the band at
the time hated the song and even went so far as to put a pig mask on whenever
we played it. That always made me uncomfortable, and I would be lying if I said
that it didn't help me decide to leave that band.
Sometimes, you can learn a song that becomes one of
your most requested songs even though you really don't care for the song. I
have two. Lyin' Time by Mel Tillis and Unchained Melody by everyone.
I don't care for either song, but people ask for them everywhere I play. So,
over time, I have gotten better at the songs and even play them as well as I
can out of respect for the audience.
I was on the cutting edge with Lyin' Time. I
had heard it before Mel released his album and fortunately recorded it off the
radio. I learned it that night and we started playing it a week later. I became
a top request and about six months later, it hit the charts. People even came
up to me and asked if I had written it for Tillis.
Probably the most profound thing anyone ever said to me regarding
learning a song was a gift from Terry Lovelace, country superstar Patty Loveless'
first husband, a heck of a good drummer, and the moving and crushing force behind
the biggest potential band I was ever in.
At practice at the club one night, we were going through some
of the songs we were learning and wanting to learn, and Terry said "I want to
do this one," and popped in You Give Love a Bad Name—obviously a
jab at Patty. I listened to the song, the lyrics, the guitar work and though
he was kidding. I looked at him in disbelief. We were, after all, a country-oriented
band at the time.
"You want to learn that?" I said.
"Why not? We're a band aren't we?" came his reply.
I'll remember that exact phrase for the rest of my life because
he was so right and it hit me like a ton of bricks that musicians are only limited
by themselves. Look beyond the limits and and you will find a lot more than
just what is in your world.
We learned it and we played it hard. Then we started adding
more songs that I would never had dreamed that we would do. Hey Now by
Crowded House. Is This Love by Whitesnake. Bad Case of Lovin' You
by Robert Palmer. Songs by Journey, Toto, George Strait, Dwight Yoakum become
regular rotation songs and the crowds loved it. We had a great mix of songs.
At this point, music become a challenge like it had not since
I was a teenager. We had no keyboards and I was saddled with all those parts
on the pedal steel, which I have previously played strictly country. It became
our keyboard and at one point someone even came up and asked where was the keyboard
he kept hearing. I pointed to my steel proudly and said, "That's it."
When you pick songs to play, pick your favorites, pick other's
favorites but always keep an open mind. Most of all, look at every song as a
challenge and it will be ultimately more rewarding. Even on songs you don't
like.
The top reward comes when you begin writing your own songs.
When someone comes up and asks for a song that you wrote yourself, the reward
is indescribable.
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