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My first song was either the music for the bizarre psychedelic-punk "It Don't Work", with lyrics by Matt Featherstone or the bleak smash-your-head-against-a-wall "Who Do We Blame?" (answer: ouselves), lyrics and music by yours truly. Both sets of lyrics were written in the back of our year 11 maths class in 1979.... I'm not sure which came first. I had just joined my first band that was game enough to play their own material, The Dogmatics, and I'd co-opted Matt, the school's whackiest eccentric, to sing, as the rest of us sounded like someone being run over very slowly by a steamroller. Matt had to leave after we graduated (major bummer).... The band went on to recruit a female singer and become way poppier and a lot less edgy... but no more successful... (sigh)

I'm going to try and record these for posterity, or posterior, whichever is more appropriate, as part of my "Noise in the Garage" project....

To justify the "bizarre" tag, here are Matt's lyrics for "It Don't Work" (they are indelibly etched into my memory):

Lying in a back-street boulevard
Squeezing one of those trees
Hand follows flushing skin
From lips to nobbled knees

(Chorus)
And so it keeps on going:
Something up above
Something down below
Nothing of enough
Your body don't work
Mind caving in
Blasting soul-pulpit
Wallowing in our sin

Suddenly your realise she's a witch
You realise she's just age
Don't worry, my son
Turn another page
===============================
And now, for a dash of pessimism:

"Who Do We Blame"

Traffic slows on the long approach
Time walks away from my wrist
I try to protest, but I can't raise a fist

Seek my future in the classifieds
Stereo-type paradise
If it's someone's heaven then someone pays the price

Who do we blame when the sky turns grey?
Who do we blame through the years?
Who do we blame for these hardships we suffer?
Who do we blame for our fears?

Flashing screen tells me how to live
I laugh and think again
I try to see reason but all I see is pain

Take a chance on the black and white
'Cause nothing lies between
There's no compromises - none that can be seen

Who do we blame when the sky turns grey?
Who do we blame through the years?
Who do we blame for these hardships we suffer?
Who do we blame for our fears?

Isn't it true - all your frustration rebounds on you and
Isn't it known - the answers you seek will never be shown and
Ain't it a fact - there's no substitute for the courage we lack and
Isn't it right - the closer the goal the harder the fight and
Who do we blame?

Note: the last line is repeated ad nauseum as the song reaches a frenzied crescendo

Well, if you've read this far, thanks for allowing me to waste 5 minutes of your valuable time!

scotty wrote:Bring me Sugar

Oddly my sister still asks me to play this and she always has a tear.

Aye, I can just about hear the pipes, laddie.

Scotty, that song got me going too and I haven't even heard it

Evan, it sounds exciting. I'd like to hear those songs

Thanks for sharing, one and all. This thread has gone a little deeper so now I'm going to restore an old composition for you which I consider my first serious composition. Back soon

Scotty and Evan, I want to hear your songs too! Those are some great lyrics--especially for first songs!

Scotty,

Great lyric, hope to hear the tune when you can get it down on disc!

And thanks for the kind words Mel and Kira! I've got to plan wisely to get time to start recording again. Hopefully soon!

The first song I ever wrote by myself was the second song I ever had a hand in writing. The first one I just wrote a bit of the music for, in collaboration with two other folks, so I don't really count that one. The first song I wrote all by myself was a song called "Camera Lies". This was 1982, I was two years out of high school, and I was looking through some photographs of school friends, old girlfriends, etc., and found it frustrating that you could see them, clear as day, but they weren't really there. And there's that first guitar you bought, but you traded it for something else - and yet, here you could see it, tantalizingly, but couldn't get it back, etc.

So out came the lyrics for Camera Lies, which on the first pass were too specific, so I ran them through the Obfuscation Filter to make them more obscure and (in my opinion) more interesting. Here they are, followed by a link to my 2004 recording of the song, which is a very faithful version of the arrangement played by my band in college in the mid-late 80's. This recording appeared on my CD "Meet The Stevos" which is on iTunes:

CAMERA LIES
Words and Music by Steve Dockery, 1982

I have a book in my room, it's just like you
And it tells me things that aren't true
Light and shadow on paper pretend to be your face
And I hide inside my camera case

Chorus:
Camera Lies, it's just like you
If I can't see it, it doesn't exist
So the opposite must be true
The opposite must be true

Rows of dots on a video screen sparkle and pass
But motion and emotion stop at the surface of the glass

Chrorus

Bridge:
People who died still live in a way
And missing things aren't lost, they're given away
An instant frozen forever in a magic portal
Why, even my thumb in the corner becomes immortal

Reasonable facsimile in a dawn gray mat
In color or black and white, it all falls flat

Chorus

http://www.stevedockery.com/Camera_Lies_2004.mp3

Cool song, Steve... I like it!

Oh boy..........tokenhippie54 (a fellow from Vancouver I found out) posted the very first song that I wrote on youtube. So I guess the cat is out of the bag so to speak. This song has Rickenbacker content btw.

Here it is: It's called "Fantasy World"

Great song Brian! I'll be humming that chorus hook all day!

Thanks Evan..............but for me all I can say is that I look back on that song 43 years later and shudder at my first attempt to write a hit single.

You are far too kind in your assessment my friend.