A Ditty, Likely Not of Distinction

Some events deserve memorialization in song, and since no one else has stepped forward to so treat a certain blogger's recent (but long-expected, trial-ballooned several times, and not at all surprising) decision to abandon the libertarian movement and redirect his appeal to slimier audience demographics, here's my new song, "Christopher Can't Dwell." Notes below the embed.


Yes, I am a frustrated musician and songwriter.

No, I'm not very good at it, and it's been most of 30 years since I last wrote and recorded a song -- "The Ballad of Tipper Gore," with Fred Johnson as "The Repulsives," back when the future VP's wife was crusading against rock'n'roll and two guys banging away on an acoustic guitar and a snare drum could get away with calling themselves a "band" (if you're in a charitable mood, think of us as teen would-be Mojo Nixons/Skid Ropers).

Furthermore, I am (at the very top of my game) a mediocre rhythm guitarist. Right now I am just plain bad. I haven't practiced in months because rotator cuff tears/frozen shoulder make it painful to hold and play a dreadnought acoustic guitar like my Epiphone PR-100. I've been messing with a ukulele, which solves the shoulder problem, but as I haven't achieved even mediocre levels of musical accomplishment with it, I decided to record using guitar.

Finally, let's cover the recording/engineering and mixing defects. I recorded the song on one track, standing in my office and playing/bellowing into my Blue Snowmall microphone and using Online Voice Recorder. Then I decided I needed to re-record the a capella bridge to reflect a one-word change in the lyrics, and did some cutting/splicing using the companion online apps Audio Cutter and Audio Joiner. So yeah, it's rough.

But I'm hoping someone with musical skill and talent might take it and do something cool with it. Naturally, like all my stuff, it is covered by the Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain Dedication, so it's yours to do anything you like with. I recorded it in G. It's not quite three chords and the truth (in addition to G, C and D, there's that little A7 outlier). Why G? So I could sing the low octave and (not too successfully, I think) go for a Johnny Cash vibe. Here are the lyrics for your convenience:

Christopher can't dwell
In a left libertarian hippy hell
He's gotta find a different story to tell
'Cause Christopher can't dwell

Christopher's a sleaze
So he's weighing anchor for more friendly seas
On a racist transphobic fake populist breeze
'Cause Christopher's a sleaze

Everybody scolds him
FTL cuckolds him
Free-Staters done rolled him
Yeah, I guess they went and told him that

Christopher can't dwell
No the stuff he's been up to well it just won't sell
I'd be lyin' if I said that I wish him well
'Cause Christopher can't dwell
Enjoy. Or not, as the case may be.