Originally Posted By: Pat Marr
Well, this one is a little different than some of your more recent offerings! I needed to step back a few paces and really listen for a while to get my brain wrapped around a whole new kind of Merritts song!

I am particularly interested in the lyrics. The specific observations being made suggest you may have somebody in mind. If so, would you care to elaborate? (If you'd rather not, I certainly understand) On the other hand, if its more of a generic observation about a certain KIND of person you've encountered in life, I'd like to hear more about that too. Anyway, I thought the lyrics stole the show on this tune! I'm guessing Bud wrote them? If so, AWESOME job, my friend! I am so envious! I can't write good lyrics to save my soul!

Its interesting to me that this song comes on the heels of Floyd's suggestion that JosieC revamp her folk tune as a frisco folk rock tune ala Jefferson Airplane, because I get a very similar vibe from this song.

One of the things that gives it that vibe is the fact that more modern pop music relies heavily on hooks and signature riffs that have sorta become the benchmark of commercial music. In the 60s most acts were highly resistant to the idea of making music for commercial reasons, and therefore the guitar parts were more ethereal. Whether the lack of recurring riffs in those days was planned, or whether it was just because they were stoned, and couldn't remember what they played in the last verse in order to play it again... is a moot point now. But its worth noting that the lack of hooks is somewhat characteristic of that era.

Having said all that, I notice that Tommy seems to have purposefully passed up the opportunity to rubber stamp the same riffs throughout this song. Instead he plays from the heart at each passage, which has the end result of making the decorations more varied and interesting from start to finish. Good job, Tommy!

Normally, this is the part of the review where I would take the rest of the day to craft a succinct paragraph of meticulously chosen words that describe Janice's awesomeness to the best of my verbal ability. But, I'm starting to feel like such a suck-up that I'm a little bit embarrassed to do it in every single review! Really, I am. So, this time, in an effort to scale the praise back a notch so that future praise isn't quite as eye-rollingly predictable, I'll leave it at this:

Janice, you are awesome. If you ever stop singing, boy will I be mad. If singers were food, all the singer chicks on the radio would be dog food, but you'd be steak. I think Guitar Center should have one whole wall painted as a mural of you. The next presidential function should feature music by the Merritts. The next space mission should include a time capsule with your CD in it so whatever alien civilization finds it will know that earth included a musically superior race of Merritts.

There. (Did that work as a scaled back and almost totally muted observation?)

;-)

disclaimer: only radio singer chicks are dog food in comparison. The forum singer chicks are all awesome, and they will get their own individual praise-fest each time they post their ear candy!


Pat, when Janice and I decided to venture back into making music after nearly a decade off your comments on our early posts were and remain very meaningful to us. Since we were experimenting way out of our bluegrass comfort zone we didn't always get a lot of support from our old music friends. This forum and folks like you gave us the encouragement to forge on.

Father Time drew mixed comments from family and friends as it's more rock oriented than any previous efforts. We knew immediately that Tom's guitar was excellent and perfectly fit the song. However weren't completely sure if structurally, lyrically and melody wise we were on the "right" track for a roots rock tune. That's why responses like yours are such confidence builders and we always appreciate them.

You asked about the origin of the lyric. We all have seen many good caring people pass on way too early. And at the same time we see truly awful or even evil people live long lives. People without one whit of humanity. It seems that only Father Time brings them down. Yet it's hard to take solace in that as Father Time eventually takes us all. So I had no one person in mind - just a composite of a few personal encounters and characters from history and current news.

Thanks for your remarks and interest in the lyric. And Janice was just overwhelmed by your thoughts about her vocal.

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