“Dr. Feelgood” by Motley Crue, as performed by Leon Redbone.

I heard this idea mentioned a long time ago, and it returned to my brain today for some reason. Don’t like the song in its original form, but…

“Marilyn, My Bitterness” by the Cruxshadows, as performed by Tom Jones.

Someone get a note into Mr. Jones’ people. He’d totally do this if he heard the song.

I’m a few weeks later than I wanted to be with this one, but better late than never, right?

Something True by Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

Something True: 320k MP3 | WAV

As a bonus, here’s the “slow” version of Something True, recorded live at The Overnightscape on December 29th, 2005. Thanks again to Frank Edward Nora and his lovely wife Denice for having me by the studio, and for providing us with this clip.

Something True (live at The Overnightscape): 320k MP3 (This one may sound less-than-320, as I’m pretty sure we transcoded it from a lower bitrate, and it was also recorded rather quickly without overdubs. There’s a weird static to it, but I find it charming.)

Part of the reason it took me so long to post this song had to do with my possibly foggy recollection of having recorded a studio version of the “slow” “Something True” here, but my searches through my archives don’t seem to bear that out. I’m guessing that if it did exist, it was lost in my one major drive failure. Ah well, one more thing to re-record.

Right-click these files (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save the. If you want to play them first to hear how they sound, click the play buttons next to the mp3 download links.

Something True
Music and lyrics by Scott Crawford

well I’m nearing the edge
and I don’t know what the fuck to do
‘cuz all I want is something true
just a sign this old man isn’t through

but I’m bored with everything
I don’t know what to sing
I haven’t got the game to bring
would you set fire to my broken wings

spinning heads and flashing lights
will this be like every night
breaking me down and destroying my faith
do good things come to those who wait

now I’m down on my hands and knees
my heart’s pissing razor blades
wasn’t I supposed to have it made by now
all my wildest dreams betrayed

still I scratch and I claw and I bleed
my spirit is black and blue
as I dig through the wreckage for something true
and I wanna believe that I’m lookin’ for you

something true
do I want you
are we through
is it true
tell you what I want

I want nothing
I want something true
I’m having trouble separating the two
and I came and I saw and I came again
I got too much time on my hands

I’ve got nothing
to offer you
nothing else but something true
but if you’ve got the strength to believe what I say
then I’ll bring you the world at your feet every day

Some info about this song: the bulk of the lyrics were originally ad-libbed by me over the top of some other music done by a band I auditioned for. Yeah, that all kind of came out because I had no idea what to sing, and I even said so in the song. The band complained that they couldn’t hear what I was saying, they went in a different direction singer-wise, we had a lovely dinner afterward and I thankfully remembered virtually all of what I sang long enough to make this. This recording sounds fuller than it has any right to, considering that it consists solely of one vocal track, 1 piano track, a bassline and a snare drum. Couldn’t you swear that there’s more going on there drumwise? Me too, and I made it. Go figure. I came up with the “slow” version of the song about a year later, and both will be on “babykiller.” I’ve performed both live in front of audiences, but mostly the original, fast version. Typically, I sing the second to last line differently live, though. I sing it as: “but if you can believe…all the things I say”, because damn it, what I wrote originally is a mouthful, and I end the slow version with “then I’ll give you the world…I’ll give you the world…”

From here, it gets interesting, because I’m out of “finished enough” tracks to post. I need to redo my home studio (suggestions for solid studio environments that aren’t crazy-making in either Mac or Windows format are welcome), finish off the few “babykiller.” tracks what need finishing (For example, the vocal track on “If I Could” needs some serious help) and finish my long-awaited collaboration with Richard Hackley (nope, not kidding; just needs some tightening up in the mix, maybe). It may be a little while before another song appears, but stay on me and I’ll finish things.

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can, as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com.

Remember this?

“Hi Scott,

It was a business decision to put ads in the applications…however, we have committed to providing a version of NetNewsWire that does not contain ads, and have in fact for the moment removed the ads that were in the original beta. So I’d request that you hang on with us for a bit, and hopefully this will all work out in a way that works for you.

Thanks for the note!

Greg Reinacker
Founder and CTO
NewsGator Technologies, Inc.”

My response to Greg’s response, just sent a minute ago:

“Greg,

Thanks for responding, Greg. Even if we don’t end up agreeing (and we probably won’t), the response is appreciated.

Alas, I do believe that you left two words out of your response. the word “bad” should appear before the words “business decision”, and the word “free” should appear before the word “version”.

Sincerely,
Scott Crawford”

I just spent a little while re-reading my old WE FUCKIN’ DARE YOU! community on LiveJournal, and got wistful for the days when I stirred up more shit than I do now. Granted, I have been stirring the shit a bit more lately, by rejoining Get Precious, ambushing Drew Carey on Twitter for not actually signing my “signed” photo of him (anyone who sends him an @ reply asking why he didn’t sign @scottcrawford’s picture gets a cookie), getting all up in FeedDemon’s areas, and even getting Mariel Hemingway to say hi to Steve Guttenberg for me while they were filming in Turkey. For the record, I don’t know Steve, but shit, man, he was Carey Mahoney! Had to represent! He’ll know me now, too. If I ever meet him, I can be like “remember that time when Mariel Hemingway told you that some dude said hi on Twitter, while you were filming in Turkey? I AM THAT GUY”, at which point he’ll either file a restraining order against me or plant a big, wet, sloppy one on me.

I guess the point is that I haven’t been getting into enough trouble in recent years. I think I might start again. I could use a good mid-life crisis in the middle of my mid-life crisis. I feel kinda like Bugs Bunny in “Rebel Rabbit” right now.

“South America, take it away!”

So, who should I go after first?

In this morning’s new version of the NetNewsWire beta, from the release notes:

“Ads — not showing at all until there’s a way to remove them. They will come back, but not before then.”

This means it’s still gonna be nagware, but they’re giving us a reprieve while we’re beta-testing.

I’m wondering whether or not my email made a difference. The ads shouldn’t come back at all, but the fact that they at least gave them a time out is slightly encouraging.

Haven’t gotten a personal reply from Greg yet, and I’m guessing that mine wasn’t the only complaint letter that he got, so I might not, but the fact that they did this gives me some hope that they’ll do the right thing here.

Some stats from the music department. (Edited 8/11/09 because apparently, I was smoking crack when I did the math on 8/1/09)

July:

zenova: 549
sybil: 382
sybil inst: 366
wolftab: 326
something in my drink: 258
tonight: 224
untitled: 224
sybil vers: 200
love life and sign: 196
puppet: 170
chord: 152
new song: 139
ecstacy: 134
the scott crawford show: 93

total:

zenova: 829
sybil: 801
sybil inst: 727
wolftab: 543
sybil vers: 515
untitled: 449
puppet: 439
tonight: 431
something in my drink: 430
ecstacy: 421
chord: 340
new song: 224
love life and sign: 196
the scott crawford show: 93

Man, them Chineses on Baidu really like my music! Someday, I’m gonna go over there and, right before I get arrested for being a dissident, a bunch of screaming Chinese girls are going to run toward me singing “Tonight”. It’s also interesting to me that “Zenova”, which is the creepiest fucking thing I’ve ever recorded, is the most popular thing I’ve ever recorded. Bodes well for the Get Precious barbecue later today. July was a great month for traffic, which is good because it gave me something to look at while I was sitting at home, broke off my ass. People, don’t ever go to New York. It’s crazy expensive. Seriously.

There’ll be another song sometime this week, “Something True”, which is the last of my stuff before I actually have to do re-records of any kind, and there’ll be some Get Precious music up on teh Facebook, though it’ll just be streaming for now. Stay tuned, and thanks for your support.