Dirty Old World

Another pickup line for the fern bar. This is the oldest composition on the CD. I wrote this song soon after picking up guitar again in the early 90s. During that time, most every public announcement had to do with safe sex. Sex is never safe, certainly never clean for anything other than mechanical deer. Yeats had it right. At any rate, this commences a sort of cycle in the CD: seduction (Dirty Old World), betrayal (Waiting), resolution to leave (Bull Gator), the upshot of leaving (Hobo Supper).

On this cut, I use three guitars: an old German archtop with jazz pickups, a Silvertone Danelectro for slide, and the Strat for fattening up the theme. Sean here (and later on "When the Moon Comes Out to Play") lays down that sort of heartbeat bass line that I love so much and that gives plenty of air to let other instruments fly about. John Magnie's piano solo is brilliantly "sinister", as one critic puts it. That first note he plays is positively pelvic. The "drums" are simply Steve on tambourine. He can probably do more with a tambourine than anybody on earth. Background vocals are John Toebbe, Eloisa, and, most prominently, Craig Meadows. A whole bunch of folks, including the engineer, Mark, contribute to the chain-gang "whoofs" you hear after the solos.