A ton of excitement in the past couple days about Kamala Harris ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket.
I watched a lot of the news on Sunday afternoon and Monday, and by Monday night I wanted to write something. I sang what I put together on Tuesday night at Songwriter’s Open Mic. On Friday I posted a video version, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELuBGWa5Ec
It’s a parody song about Kamala Harris’s candidacy, but the first thing I remembered is that there is a already great parody song about her out there. It’s from about 4 years ago when she was put on the ticket to run as Biden’s VP in 2020. RANDY RAINBOW did one of his great parodies, based on show tunes as he often does, and this time the show was “Camelot” which started its long run on Broadway six decades earlier.
“KAMALA!” was a very clever parody song, and Randy sang it to the tune of the title song. All of his YouTube videos are AMAZING. Here’s his “Kamala”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RbKStEFNT8
“Camelot” the musical was 1960 — also the publication year for a song that I’m using for my own, brand- new parody celebrating Kamala Harris. The song I’m using sold over as million for Jimmy Jones, who co-wrote the song with Otis Blackwell. (And later, Del Shannon had a great version, and later still, James Taylor recorded it, around 1977….)
It’s called HANDYMAN.
In the middle of the night on Sunday, I recalled a refrain that I thought might work for me, which I could hum but I couldn’t remember the song it came from. So I sang it into my phone and right away, “Handyman” came up. A phone really is like having a second brain.
It’s the part that goes Come-A, Come-A, Yay, Yay, etc
And I thought I could work it into some sort of a Kama-Kama_Kamala thing…
The original by Jones and Blackwell, 1960, is based on good old “doo-wop chords,” and fun to play. Here’s the 3 versions that are most revered:
Jimmy Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf6ZuwccJ48
Del Shannon’s version is a little faster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm2svFSCXfY
The first performance of “Kamala Can” was at Songwriters Open Mic (on Zoom) on July 23, 2024. To perform or listen in to the Tuesday virtual open mic’s, get the weekly zoom link and other details by emailing jimnovakmusic (at) gmail (dot) com. Songwriters Open Mic is in its 28th year, welcoming songwriters to play their songs and talk about them as well.
My song celebrates Michigan Central Station, the Detroit train station built in 1913 and once regarded as more beautiful than Grand Central Station in New York City. Abandoned by Amtrak in 1988, it was acquired by the Ford Motor Company, restored beautifully and officially re-opened on June 6, 2024, to house the “next generation of transportation engineers.” Despite its falling into ruin over a period of 30 years, the building is deeply woven into the psyches of three generations of Detroiters.
A recent performance of “MICHIGAN CENTRAL STATION,” at Songwriters Open Mic, is on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Ub1FJe2Fgps
SONGWRITERS OPEN MIC started as a monthly event in Ann Arbor in 1996, and since 2020 has evolved into a weekly event on Zoom, involving a small group of regulars and occasional visits from songwriters joining in from a couple dozen states and several countries. Songwriters receive an mp4 video of the entire evening of songs and conversation. An archive of over 200 half-hour, lightly edited excerpts of past sessions of Songwriters Open Mic, featuring songwriters from New York to California, and the UK, Canada and Australia, is on YouTube at “songwriters open mic Ann Arbor.”
LYRICS:
MICHIGAN CENTRAL STATION (Words and Music by JIM NOVAK)
In Detroit, like Ancient Rome, marble pillars inside
A public palace, an office tower, 18 stories high.
The 20th Century picked up steam, the Common Good a common dream,
Fortune seemed bright ahead, while the Fates unspooled their thread. …
The last train – in 1988 – it left the Station for a different day,
Three generations of us, we let it go to scrap and rust.
Legend says a station space has people stories and stories of places.
Common knowledge it retains, of what depended on those trains. At the
Michigan Central Station, grandest in Creation, we’d get on board
Michigan Central Station, Detroit to the Nation, we’d get on board.
To Chicago, Toledo, Windsor or Mackinaw –
Michigan Central Station, grandest in the Nation, we’d get on board.
Vaudeville stars, vacationers, businessmen and kids on dates,
Some were scared, some excited, some were Strangers at our Gates.
Imagine that you’ve just arrived and passed through Immigration,
Your first step in the USA was Michigan Central Station!
Michigan Central Station, grandest in Creation, we’d get on board
Michigan Central Station, Detroit to the Nation, we’d get on board.
To Chicago, Toledo, Windsor or Mackinaw –
Michigan Central Station, grandest in the Nation, and we’d get on board.
GI’s off to World War II, the Greatest Generation,
Sent their kids to college, too, from Michigan Central Station.
She’s been restored, thanks to Mr Ford’s engineers for transportation,
Bound for glory, back on track, at Michigan Central Station.
In Detroit like ancient Rome, marble pillars inside,
A public palace, an office tower, 18 stories high.
Buildings built like ancient Rome are glorious as ruins,
But in our dreams was a station dear to our destinies and doings.
Michigan Central Station, bound for restoration, get on board
Michigan Central Station, Detroit’s innovation, get on board
Beauty and Mobility, in Detroit, that strikes a chord…
Michigan Central Station, a brand-new iteration, come, get on board.
There’s a fun bit of 20th Century political trivia associated with the 1963 hit song for Lesley Gore, “It’s My Party (and I’ll Cry If I Want To).” In November, 1980, the freeform student radio station at the University of Michigan, WCBN-FM, played the song on its air continuously for 18 hours when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the presidential election.
I’ve taken a different tack in my homage to the classic work by the songwriters Weiner, Gold and Gluck. Here’s the link to my performing the song on ukelele: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkl6mwYBYJQ. My version says “I’ll LIE if I want to.”
A number of news articles in 2018 were saying that the popularity of the “establishment /business Republicans” was fading — or had already faded — under the blazing fervor and fawning of Trump’s supporters in “the base.” Those perceiving the GOP as HIS party were totally right, as far as I could tell. Cue Lesley Gore. Around the same time, fact-checkers at newspapers such as the Post and the Times were keeping track of the astonishing number of “false or misleading claims” the world was hearing from Trump. (Remember how reluctant they were back then to use the word “lies”?) Cue Lesley Gore again, this time with “lie if I want to”, and there I was, off to the races, with a song in the first-person, following the lead of Weiner, Gold and Gluck.
Red hat on GOP elephant
Here’s my lyrics as of early 2024. I’ve dropped some of the lines from my versions of the song in 2018 and 2022 —about emoluments for example — because there’s been just so much going on!
MY PARTY (AND I’LL LIE IF I WANT TO)
(1963, by Wiener, Gold and Gluck;
additional words by Jim Novak, 2018, 2022, 2024)
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I knew.
Nobody knows where the GOP’s gone, but Republicans get I’m the King
They wear my red MAGA hats, and kiss my ass and my ring.
GOP voters are solid for me, that’s where I get my clout
Elected Rep’s who don’t support me, I get their asses thrown out (Bye, Lizzie!)
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you do what I do
I flirt with Vlad Putin and Victor Orban, dictator talk is my style
Women, minor’ties, L-G-B-T, give vermin an inch, they take a mile!
GOP rank-and-file, best get this straight: Russia’s our friend, not the Press,
White supremacists, go ‘head & hate: you domestic terrorists (“Fine People”)
It’s my Party and I’ll act like I want to, distract if I want to, change facts if I want to, You would lie too if you knew what I knew
I tot’ly mishandled the COVID response, I kept saying Things would be fine,
It worked for me to play it all down. A half-million dead: my bottom line!
Impeach me once, and impeach me-ee twice, I got a legal bagful of tricks
I kick and scream all the way to the bank, & love the folks of JAN 6 (“You’re special”)
It’s my Party, I’ll collude if I want to talk crude if I want to, screw you if I want to, You’d cover up too, if you knew what I knew.
Send-‘em-back racism, dog whistles too, then I claim Whites are oppressed,
Evangelicals boy they love me: My greed and adulteries are blessed!
Top Secret documents, who gives a shit? I keep a bunch in my garage
So unfair now to come after me, but Fox News treats me like God (Or they used to)!
It’s my Party, I’ll lie if I want to, alibi if I want to, de-classify if I want to
You would lie too if you do what I do.
“Resistance” is futile, my voters don’t care, I’m disruptive, unstable, bizarre,
“Unhinged” and orange, I swear, they tell me ‘We love how you are!’
I gave you judges to end Roe vee Wade, and a wall against immigrants;
Fake electors were all set to go, but we were betrayed by Mike Pence!! (That Pussy)
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, deny if I want to, de-certify if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I knew.
91 felonies, 4 different courts, elections fraud, bus-ness fraud, theft
70 million voted for me, I claim what’s corrupt is the Left
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I You would lie too if you screw what I / You would lie too if you do what I do.
Ukulele song
[SAMPLE OF A DELETED VERSE:
I punish my enemies, payback is sweet, and emoluments were no prob,
Money laundering, shadowy deals, I’m like the Boss of this Mob!]
“The Mastodon Conversation” concerns climate change and environmental stewardship, and it takes the form of a discussion between me and an animal that went extinct about 14,000 years ago. Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4iqeF3Jw2I
Two enormous skeletons of Mastodons greet you at the entrance to the Natural History Museum in Ann Arbor. I’m a fan. I got a nice selfie on a recent visit.
at the Natural History Museum in Ann Arbor
I wrote the song in the spirit of the wonderful British duo of the 1950s-1960s, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, particularly their collection of songs called The Bestiary. The best known is “The Hippopotamus” with its stirring chorus, “Mud, mud, glorious mud”, and they also wrote about such beasts as the gnu, the rhino, the warthog, the armadillo and the sloth.
Flanders and SwannPlaying “Mastodon Conversation” on the 12 string in my studio in Virginia
YEAR IN REVIEW: 2023 at Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor
It’s the 29th year of Songwriters Open Mic, now that the month of February has rolled in. And in Spring, we’ll hit 4 years on Zoom, as a weekly musical event. During 2023, 40+ musicians Zoom-ed in to Songwriters Open Mic from 14 states. Around 40% of the 2023 performers are Michiganders, which reflects our long history there as an in-person event. And if we add the Ohioans and Illini, it’s a little over 50%. The 14 states from the past year are mapped out here in yellow.
A core of 6 or 8 regulars welcomes “irregulars” and first-time visitors. We leave time each week for discussion of songwriting technique, and some music history, and general encouragement. Our sets are 3 songs or 15 minutes, but if more than a dozen performers turn up, we limit our sets to 2 songs or ten minutes.
The first Tuesday evening of the the month is for original songs only; the other Tuesdays are “anything goes” (covers or originals). As always, this year’s original songs covered a wide scope. Love songs. Topical or political observations. Nature settings. Family stories. Exotic travels. Everyday reporting.
The covers were acoustic but all over the place, from The Folk Revival to Sixties Rock and Pop, and on to recent decades of Americana and Indie songwriters. Some of the singer-songwriters whose names frequently came up in 2023 were John Prine, Gordon Lightfoot, Guy Clark, Jason Isbell, Bob Dylan.
As I recall, it was a bigger-than-usual year for songs played in alternate tunings. And for ukuleles! You never know, on any given Tuesday, what songs you’ll hear and what musical topics will arise.
There is a video archive of hundreds of original songs from the open mic (both the in-person years and the Zoom years). Search YouTube for the channel called “Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor.”
The Zoom link for Songwriters Open Mic changes each week. If you want the link, either to perform your set and talk about songs, or to just listen in, write to at jimnovakmusic (at) gmail (dot) com.
30-plus years ago, I made a tape of Michael Smith playing 4 songs on the popular CBC Radio show “Swinging on a Star” (1989-1994). It was 1991, and I taped off the air from the Windsor station with an inexpensive Radio Shack cassette recorder. I digitized the audio recently. Michael performs Panther in Michigan, Sister Clarissa, Dead Egyptian Blues, and I Brought My Father with Me.
For this video, at https://youtu.be/a1w_ZiIhCKw I used iMovie to add photos and still images. The show was hosted by Canadian singer-songwriter Murray McLauchlan (11 Juno awards, 20 albums). During the interview portion, Michael talks with Murray about his early love for the Kingston Trio and Elvis, and how all of that music was either “very very dramatic or very very sentimental,” and when he started out as a coffee-house performer he felt he needed to write dramatic songs and funny songs. Michael is accompanied by the house band for Swinging on a Star: Danny Greenspoon on guitar, and Kit Johnson on bass.
At the Anything Goes open mic on September 26, I marked the 249th anniversary of the birth of John Chapman — who planted thousands of apples trees from seed in the late 18th and early 19th Century in the Ohio River Valley — by playing 3 songs from my solo musical theater project, “Crossing Paths with Johnny Appleseed.” Chapman/ Appleseed was a much loved figure in his day, though regarded as more than a little bit eccentric for his passion for planting apple seeds and never grafting the trees, which meant that his apples were small and sour, much like what we think of as crab apples. But he was celebrated as a good and resourceful man, and folks called him Apple John. The pioneer settlers in Ohio and Indiana went ahead and did the grafting themselves, and had apples for cider, including hard cider, and for vinegar, which had uses in cooking and cleaning and medicine. Chapman created a large number of small orchards at locations along rivers where he cannily suspected that settlers would soon be arriving, and would find his apple tree seedlings useful as they built their new homesteads. Overall, Chapman was a savvy fellow about three things: the cultural, the commercial and the ecological.
Painting of Johnny Appleseed
For that evening’s open mic, I selected three songs from my collection of originals written for the Appleseed project: “Apple John,” which opens the show and establishes the largely positive feelings that people have for him and his “peculiar” ways; “Pearl Inside the Shell,” which invents a romantic relationship for him; and “Not Over Yet,” which is one of the songs in the show emphasizing the social and political climate of his time, that is, the first generation born after the Declaration of Independence. Back then, they were just figuring out their identity as Americans, and facing up to some of the same dilemmas and conflicts about “democracy” that we still grapple with today.
Video of the three Johnny Appleseed songs from Sept 26, on YouTube:
Audio of the entire Appleseed project in a version recorded in 2020, on Bandcamp:
For INFO on participating in Songwriters Open Mic as a performer or audience member, write JimNovakMusic(at)gmail(dot)com, and you’ll receive the Zoom link (it changes each week).
Album cover ( by Celeste Novak)
SONGWRITERS OPEN MIC started as a monthly event in Ann Arbor in 1996, and since 2020 has evolved into a weekly event on Zoom, involving a small group of regulars and occasional visits from songwriters joining in from a couple dozen states and several countries. Songwriters receive an mp4 video of the entire evening of songs and conversation.
An archive of over 200 half-hour, lightly edited excerpts of past sessions of Songwriters Open Mic, featuring songwriters from New York to Califfornia, and the UK, Canada and Australia, is at https://www.youtube.com/@songwritersopenmicannarbor7761/videos
To mark the decade since he passed, I played 3 songs written by Ray Whitley at Songwriters Open Mic this week. I did some research about Ray, searching online plus checking in by email with Chuck Mitchell, an old friend of his and a fellow performer at celebrated Southern folk music venues of the 1960s-1970s, such as The Bistro on West Peachtree Street in Atlanta. Ray Whitley was a Georgia native who started writing songs as a staff professional shortly after high school. At one time, Chuck regularly performed Ray’s song “Making Music Momma,” and I heard it often enough (in Detroit) to learn to play it myself, after a fashion, perhaps 40 years ago.
Ray Whitley performing
I remember from my teenage years a hit song by The Tams, the R&B group, called “What Kind of Fool Do You Think I Am,” and the other day I found that Ray had written that one for them, and they had a Billboard and R&B chart hit with it in 1963. That’s a pretty good range of styles for the first two Ray Whitley songs I was aware of: a sweet and slow folk-pop ballad, and a doo-wop song that rocked not only for the Tams but later for Del Shannon.
By now my hunt for Ray’s songs was on in earnest. I saw numerous mentions of another of Ray’s hits, also done by The Tams, and others, called “Be Young, Be Foolish (But) Be Happy.” As wonderful as that song is, what grabbed my attention was one called “Think I Feel A Hitchhike Comin’ On.” With my history of transcontinental hitching in the US and Europe, I wanted to focus on learning that one. Larry Jon Wilson, another Georgian like Ray, has a version of it on Youtube, done with his impressive vocal and guitar prowess. It’s a country song that I feel has a lot in common with songs like Gentle on My Mind, with its wistful wanderlust and straightforward chord changes.
So those were the three Ray Whitley songs I put together that night: Making Music Momma, What Kind of Fool, and Hitchhike Comin’ On. Here’s the link to the video from the open mic: https://youtu.be/EdEh0lcEHMM
Here’s some sidebar material about Ray. First, he’s not the only songwriter named Ray Whitley. There was another Georgian named Ray Whitley, born in 1901, forty-plus years before “our” Ray Whitley, and he was a real-life cowboy who became a popular cowboy actor, and wrote cowboy songs, including one that Gene Autry really liked, the famous “Back in the Saddle Again.” That Ray has a fairly long wikipedia entry and other online stories, and there are several places online where the two songwriters are totally confused and cowboy Ray is mistakenly given credit for things like working with The Tams.
Next, The Bistro is an interesting aspect of the career successes of Ray Whitley. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, The Bistro was a major stop on the singer-songwriter circuit, and it wasn’t uncommon for performers to be booked for a full week of shows. Ray was just the right age to join that bunch of singer-songwriters that played there and/or the Flick, down in Miami. At those places and others like them, the stages were graced by the likes of the young Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kenny Rogers, Gamble Rogers, Guy Clark, Steve Martin, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Steve Goodman, and two guys I got to know pretty well in Michigan years later, Michael Smith, and of course, Chuck Mitchell. I have a picture of a poster advertising Ray at The Bistro.
Poster from The Bistro
Ray Whitley died at age 69 in 2013. Ray had fallen in alcoholism and suffered from depression, and his last address was a homeless shelter in Gainesville, Georgia. But his youthful energy was strong, his output was impressive, and many friends recall him with fondness. In my version of the Hitchhike Comin’ On song, I use the key change near the end which Larry Jon Wilson’s version has, and what I’ve done is use the key change as an opportunity to write a few new verses, just to show my admiration for this wonderful songwriter as I try to channel a little piece of the appealing charm of his songs, with their eager longing and dreamy yearning.
Jim Novak, September 2023
MAKING MUSIC MOMMA RAY WHITLEY
Hear the rain on the roof, tap-tapping loud and clear,
Don’t it sound soft and sweet, music to your ear.
It’s making music momma, making music momma,
Me and you, we make music too.
Take a bass and a drum, add a tambourine,
Take a bird, add spring, you can hear it sing.
It’s making music momma, making music momma,
Me and you, we make music too.
Just say you love me, bells ring, birds sing
and when I hold you, it feels so good, I knew it would.
Hear the wind through the cracks in the wall, sounding lonely in the night.
Hear the blue bird when it calls, everything’s all right.
Thought I found the girl that I’ve been waiting for, right here in this town
Pretty girl with ribbons in her hair, the girl she let me down, way down
There’s a voice out there somewhere callin’ me
A few more places left I gotta be
Think I’m gonna pack my bags at the break of dawn
Think I feel a hitch-hike comin’ on.
Thought I found the girl that I’ve been waiting for, right here in this town
Pretty girl with ribbons in her hair, that girl she let me down, way down
There’s a voice out there somewhere callin’ me
A few more places left I gotta be
Think I’ll be on my way at the break of dawn
Think I feel a hitch-hike comin’ on.
(Song by Ray Whitley; additional words below by Jim Novak)
There’s a moon that’s risin’ on a meadow dim
There’s a sunset fallin’ ‘neath Lake Michigan
Think I’ll grab my backpack at the break of dawn
Think I feel a hitchhike comin’ on.
There’s some songs I this guitar I gotta play
There’s some changes and some shapes I’ve yet to learn
Think I’ll grab my backpack at the break of dawn
Think I feel a hitchhike comin’ on.
There’s a cabin by a lake that calls to me
There’s a city with a downtown gallery
Think I’ll grab my backpack at the break of dawn
Think I feel a hitchhike comin’ on.
Thought I found the girl that I’ve been waiting for, right here in this town
Pretty girl who helped me find my way, that girl she let me down, way down
All my friends are working jobs and digging in
Producing and connecting and a-gettin’ ahead
Think I’ll grab my backpack at the break of dawn
Think I feel a hitchhike comin’ on.
SONGWRITERS OPEN MIC started as a monthly event in Ann Arbor in 1996, and since 2020 has evolved into a weekly event on Zoom, involving songwriters from a couple dozen states and several countries. Songwriters receive an mp4 video of the songs and conversation. For INFO on participating in Songwriters Open Mic as a performer or audience member, write JimNovakMusic(at)gmail(dot)com
Archive of over 200 half-hour excerpts from Songwriters Open Mic:
Link to the recording of Songwriters Open Mic with the 3 songs written by Ray Ripley (Making Music Momma, What Kind of Fool, and Hitchhike Comin’ On), performed by Jim Novak: https://youtu.be/EdEh0lcEHMM
At a Showcase for VOCAL (“Virginia Organization of Composers and Lyricists”) in March, 2023, there was enough time for 5 songs, several with connections to Michigan, and one from the current project, my set of songs and narratives about the 19th Century American environmentalist and folk hero John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. A link to the VOCAL Showcase performance is here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJfTUd2zWRs — and the 5 song titles plus a log of the approximate starting times are here:
Blue Star in the Window (42:00)
Mastodon Conversation (46:00)
First Class View (52:00)
Maple Sugar Snow (58:00)
River Nearby (1:03:00)
VOCAL Showcase
The Virginia Organization of Composers and Lyricists is a not-for-profit serving all of Virginia and headquartered in Richmond. https://vocalsongwriter.org/
Performance Lane, offered by Folk Alliance Region Midwest (FARM), provides an opportunity for songwriters to do “two songs or ten minutes” at their online open mic. The February show is archived at https://www.facebook.com/FolkAllianceRegionMidwestFARM/videos/1619410058508390. I did an oldie, Maple Sugar Snow (at approximately 1:11, and a rather new one, A River Nearby (at 1:17).
Note the Michigan State University sweatshirt, worn in recognition of the mass shooting that had happened on campus only 10 days early, in which 3 students were killed and 5 others were injured. The Spartan Strong Fund has been created to provide a variety of supports to students and staff: https://givingto.msu.edu/spartan-strong.cfm
Jim Novak on Zoom with host Caroline Barlow
FARM is one of 5 regional affiliates of the Folk Alliance International. FARM serves 15 states and provinces, and includes Michigan. The Southeast region, SERFA, covers 12 states including most of Virginia. The Northeast region (NERFA) serves northern Virginia, including Prince William County, where I now live, and 16 states and provinces of Canada.
Folk Alliance International, maps of regions of North America
February’s virtual Performance Lane for FARM totaled a dozen stellar performers including Host Caroline Barlow, Carla Ulbrich, Bryce Taylor, The Rough and Tumble, Karyn Oliver, Digawolf, Megan Bee, Aleksi Campagne, Sarah King, Carole Wise and Beth Padgett.
