Every Moment Has A Song

Walker Hayes: “Dollar Store” (2017)

Ironic and sad that in our previous post of a Walker Hayes song (the brilliant “You Broke Up with Me”) we singled out for praise an uncommon lyrical freshness that went counter to the prevailing trend in contemporary country of piling cliche on cliche to make the same song again and again, year after year.

Perusing Hayes’ website for news of a follow-up to 2017’s Boom, I came across a new song (“Country Stuff”) which is probably the tallest stinkin’ pile of…uh, cliche on record.

In other words, this guy went from being (in this writer’s opinion) the Great Hope for the genre finding its way out of its current (un)creative mire to authoring possibly the genre’s most monumental exercise in banal formula.

So we went back to 2017 and “Dollar Store” to show you how brilliant and witty Hayes can be.

But we include the link to “Country Stuff” for perspective’s sake. Compare it lyrically to both “Dollar Store” and “You Broke Up with Me” (also linked below) and you’ll see a stark contrast between county as it could be and country as it unfortunately too often is.

Dollar Store

Saw a penny picked it up
Lady be a little luck
Stuck it in my pocket, hey
Wasn’t earned but it’s saved
50 cents in the console… cha ching
39 on the floor… bada bing
10 more till we got it made, babe, in the cash shade
Shopping time there’s a dime in the ashtray

Uh, woohoo
Mama let my money say I love you
We takin’ you and this GW
Down to the dollar store
Buy you whatever you holla for
Uh, woohoo
Baby I’m a million bucks from rich
But I can grant you a discount wish
Down at the dollar store
Buy you whatever you holla for

Baby, It’s your birthday I’mma be your sugar dad
Don’t even think about checkin’ one price tag
Whatch you want, flips flops?
Toothbrush, Clorox
Shasta, pop rocks
EPT… hope not!
Paper plates saying’ happy Halloween
Candles smellin’ like cookies & cream
St. Patrick’s day party hat with elastic strings
Girl you look fine in green

Girl, they got silly string, travel Scope
Knock off cereal
Ketchup, picture frames
Flash light, key chains
Paddle ball, Tylenol, Mardi Gras confetti
Drop it in the cart, watch me roll it to regi’

Uh, woohoo
I’mma let my money say I love you
We takin’ you and this GW
Down to the dollar store
Buy you whatever you holla for
Uh, woohoo
Baby I’m a million bucks from rich
But I can grant you a discount wish
Down at the dollar store
Buy you whatever you holla for

Songs You May Have Missed #700

26 Jun 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ballet for a girl in buchannon, chicago, colour my world, make me smile

Chicago: “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon” (1970)

Chicago represents different things to different fans.

If you came to this band in the post-Terry Kath 1980’s you might think sappy ballads were their forte. And you wouldn’t be wrong.

But long before that time, boys and girls, there was a time when driving jazz rock, ass-kicking brass and a diversity of musical styles were more their calling card.

And from that time of their “beginnings”–from their second album, to be exact–comes thie classically-inspired 13-minute progressive-jazz-and-pop masterwork.

Trombonist James Pankow wrote the suite originally as an attempt to win back his ex-fiancee who was attending West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, West Virginia (note the alternate spelling “Buchannon”, deliberate or not, in the song’s title).

I for one am glad he didn’t get the girl, ’cause as a result we got the song.

The 7-part epic song cycle includes two songs–“Make Me Smile” and “Colour My World”–that became top ten pop hits.

But those hits are framed wondrously by authentic jazz and jazz-rock sections sewn together to form a whole that calls to mind progressive rock suites such as Yes’ “Close to the Edge” or side two of Abbey Road.

This is rock from a time of remarkable ambition. And few bands exhibited more creative fertility than Chicago in their heyday.