BIGDUMBHICK – A Little Bit Weird – DETAILED SONG BY SONG

Track By Track

1. Unicycle 4:41
I wrote this song about my day job, actually every job I have ever had since the age of 11. It is a whimsical look at employment in ones Golden years.

The basic idea for this song came from an accident that took place 10 years or more ago. A friend of mine had lost his license due to a DUI and was riding a scooter, which we refer to as Liquor Bikes here in North Carolina. I rode my cousin’s dirt bike some when I was young and didn’t die. That should qualify me to ride this thing, so I asked him to let me take it for a spin. As I was riding away, He told some of the people there “Nothing good is going to come of this. He looks like one of those big-ass circus bears trying to ride a tiny, tiny little bicycle. He’s gonna kill hisself.“

I tried. A few minutes later I was face down in the middle of the road. I had wrecked the liqourbike, broken my arm, and given myself a concussion. But I got song out of it. It might have taken 10 years, but I got a song.

Most songs are created this way. One little piece here, a little piece there, another piece from somewhere else, and I just have to figure out how to put them all together
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Byerly - Resophonic Guitar
Tom Troyer - "Calliope" Keyboards


2. Checkout Time 4:17
Life on the road for a Traveling Musician. My wife and I had driven to Richmond VA to look at a used car and to visit with old friend Wes Freed. We had dinner together and on the way back home it started snowing, it was getting late, so my wife wanted us to stop somewhere and get a room. I stay in much nicer rooms when she is with me. The next morning, I’m stumbling around trying to gather up my stuff and she asks me:

“Jeff, What time is it?”
“It’s 10:30, baby.”
“When is Check-Out time?”
“Checkout time is at 11.”
“Okay”

just a few minutes later

“Honey, What time is it?”
“it’s 10:40, baby”
“What time is Checkout time?”
“Checkout time is at 11.”

Then again, just a few minutes later

“Honey, What time is it?”
“It’s 10:47”
“When is checkout time again?”

This song was finished by 11.



credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Byerly - Electric Guitar


3. First Cup of Coffee 4:55
This song is about the sudden realization that you are no longer a kid, but a 60 year old grown ass man, with responsibilities. It’s also reflection on the hole left by the passing of your father no matter how long ago that was.

I attended a songwriting workshop with Joe Newberry in Greensboro, NC a couple of years ago. One of the things we discussed was “Where do songs come from?” I don’t know. I struggle with that. Once I can figure out WHAT to write about, the rest is easy. He gave us an exercise where he had us write a page about something. Anything actually. It didn’t matter what it was about. Just write one page.

Then we went through each page and we pulled out phrases that stood out. Those phrases were written on sticky notes and attached to the dry erase board. “My First Cup Of Coffee”, “Jump start my day”, ”You Don’t Have to Like It”,”I Love my wife and my children”, “The adult in the room”. I looked at the board and could already see the song was there, I just needed to rearrange a few things.
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar

4. 1968 Lebanon TN 5:36
A nostalgic look at the carefree innocence of childhood and a desire to return to those days>

I grew up in Lebanon TN, a small town about 30 years east of Nashville. Like most people that I know, I have some lingering childhood issues. I was raised in a dysfunctional family by parents who were raised in a dysfunctional family, who were also raised by parents in a dysfunctional family, who were...you get it

I sincerely love my brothers, but we aren’t really tight. One has passed on and the other one and I have hard time being in the same room together without one of us wanting to beat the other’s ass. But I still love the little shithead. He’s my brother

One day several friends and myself were sitting around talking about bicycles. I was reminded of this sweet Metallic green 5 speed Schwinn Stingray that came with a T-Handle shifter, a banana seat, a sissy bar, and a wide slick back tire, that I had gotten for my 7th or 8th birthday. I was absolutely the coolest kid on Pennsylvania Ave. How could you not be with a bike like that?

This was originally supposed to be a song about that bicycle, instead it became a nostalgic look at my childhood.
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums

5. Every Bone in Her Body 2:31
A humorous cheating song, with a twist “I love every bone in her body, except for his”

The gist of the song is this. There is this guy who is best friends with his brother in law, the husband of his wife’s sister. His wife is having an affair with that best friend and they don’t know that he knows. It has broken his heart. Meanwhile, he is having an affair with the sister, his wife’s younger sister, the one who is the wife of that best friend and he doesn’t seem to have a problem with that, he can only see how they’ve done him wrong, not how he is doing them wrong as well.

I can’t believe that I have to explain this to you.

I once overheard someone say “I love every bone in her body” and this little voice in my head spoke up and added “except for his". Every time I heard that phrase, that voice would always append it with “except for his”. So I had to write it down. It became a song.

credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums


6. Three on the Tree 4:32
This is an older song of mine, a song about moving on, that is filled with out of date cultural references: Three-on-the-Tree”, “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee”, “High Ho Silver” and “always wear clean underwear in case you get into a wreck”,

I was trying to come up with an idea for a song and I started writing down every cliche, popular phrase, and cultural reference I could think of.

The thing that I didn’t think about at the time is that I am old and all of my cultural references are w-a-y out of date.

Young people are totally unfamiliar with these phrases, especially “Three on the Tree”.

What’s he talking about, three in a tree? Is this song about birds or fruit or something?

No, it’s about a manual transmission. Most members of the audiences I play will know what I am talkingabout beecause the too are OLD. But most folks under the age of 50 have never driven a manual transmission much less a 3-speed column shift one ,which is known as a Three-on-the tree.

Trivia Time- The last year a 3-on-the-tree was available on a new production automobile was 1979, the year I graduated High School.

I learned to drive a manual transmisson in Friday afternoon Nashville traffic. Shift or die son, shift or die.

credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Byerly - Electric Guitar

7. A Little Bit Weird 2:44
This is the first children's song I ever wrote that didn’t contain any profanity. It’s a song that celebrates being different.

There are two different stories behind this song

Story number one:
I played a songwriter in the round at this tiny coffee shop. There was supposed to be three of us playing but one guy still hadn’t arrived when the gig started. When he did get there, he started dragging in all of this PA equipment. A mic stand, a big fancy microphone, etc. Now this coffee shop was about the size of a one-car garage. We told him he didn’t need a PA, in fact there wasn't room for a PA. He told us he wasn’t planning on plugging it in, but he felt naked without it and needed it in order to be able to play.

Okay. Then during the gig, he would play his song and then while the next guy was playing, he would get up, walk in front of everybody, go outside and smoke a cigarette.

On the way home my wife and I were talking about the gig. “What did you think about the show?"
"I thought it went well"
"What about THAT guy?”
“I thought he was a good songwriter. He seemed like an alright guy. Kind of strange though. Really strange. I don’t think he’s dangerous or anything, he’s just a little bit weird.”

Story number two.
I had a friend named Mac who was an ex-felon, He was a really, really great guy. I was once told that he was young, he was a junkie who broke into banks or pharmacies or something. Turned out this was not something he was particularly skilled at. He got caught and picked up a bid in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, over on the civilian side. (Leavenworth is also a Military prison) He did his time, got out, and eventually got clean, turned his life around, and worked to help others get clean and turn their lives around.

He once claimed to have the perfect job. “I ride around all day in an air-conditioned pick-up truck, drinking coffee, listening to the radio. Every once in a while I have to stop the truck, get out, and shovel a flat dog off the road, and then I get back in my truck, drive around, drink some more coffee, and listen to the radio. I'm getting paid for this AND I'm getting government benefits. You just can’t beat a job like that”

WWMD? We miss you Mac.

credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Jack Gorham - Accordian


8. I Don’t Know Where I’m Going 5:49
Woody Guthrie meets Jack Kerouac. “
I usually come up with the lyrics and THEN I have to figure out a melody to put with them. Melodies aren't my strong suite, but I had hit upon this simple chord progression. Bm - G, Bm - G, A - G, A - G that just would not leave me alone. Every time I picked up a guitar, that chord pattern came out.

I don’t know where I’m going, But I’ll tell you where I’ve been “

I was talking with my wife about my first car, the family station wagon. A 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire Station Wagon with the wood paneling on the side, an in-dash 8-track tape player, and those flip up seats inn the very back for kids to ride in. You had no idea where you were going, but you could tell where you had been. Which kind of describes my life. I've never been much for making long term plans, I've just kind of always gone with the flow and let things happen.

“and one thing that I’ve found is you can’t go back again”

You can't stick your finger into the same river twice. By the time you try to stick your finger back into the river, that water that you originally stuck your finger into has already flowed past. This is an entirely different river that your finger enters the second time.

Returning home on leave while I was in the Navy really brought this home for me. The old Home Town just wasn't the same old Home Town anymore. New people had moved in, old friends had moved away. The people who were still there had shared life experiences that I was not a part of. I had new life experiences that they didn’t.

“I don’t know where I’m going, But I’ll tell you where I’ve been / and one thing that I’ve found is you can’t go back again”

That was supposed to be the chorus of the song. the song was originally supposed to be about change, but sometimes songs don’t want to be what you want them to be, sometimes they have different ideas and go off in a completely different direction. I guess songs have wanderlust too.

credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Byerly - Pedal Steel Guitar


9. Ain’t Nobody In Here listening To Me aka The Brewery Song 4:38
I play a lot of restaurants and breweries. These are the kind of soul sucking gigs that are most musicians bread and butter, mine included, and I'm grateful to get to play them. I call them soul-sucking because there is no exchange of energy between you and the audience, You are doing all the giving, usually because no one is actively listening to you. There is no need to tell any stories. Just shut up and play monkey-boy,Your job is to be there to provide pleasant background noise and ambiance.

I wrote this song as a bellwether just to see if anyone was actually actively listening while I was playing. If I play it and I get no reaction by the end of the 2nd verse, then I know that no one is paying attention and I can start playing whatever the hell I want.
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Byerly - Pedal Steel Guitar


10. Help Me Mama, I Can’t Breathe 3:04
Have you ever stopped to take a look at the history of being Black in America?

People were treated the same, or worse, than livestock. Once slavery was abolished, the abuse and hatred didn't stop. It became a part of White culture for us to look down upon Black People. We want to think we are somehow better than them. We created monuments to remind them of this. We claimed to have outlawed slavery, but we really just changed its name to Jim Crow. Sundown Laws, Miscegenation Laws, Lynchings are not ancient history,

White people as a whole should be ashamed of ourselves. While you and I may not have directly participated in any of this racist bullshit, we have damn sure benefited from it. The Black people I know are not asking for their mule and 40 acres. They want nothing more than a level playing field. They want the same things as any other American wants: Opportunity, a safe place to raise their children, and some common respect.

If the roles were reversed, how would you feel? How would you respond? How would you handle being Black in America? I wouldn’t have made it very long. I would have tried to burn this motherfucker to the ground. I think that’s the one thing that scares White people the most. They are gonna start treating us the way we have been treating them for the last 400 years.

Why do we want to turn a blind eye to the numerous contributions that people of color have made to America? We want to ignore the fact that most forms of American Music – Jazz, Country, Rock, Bluegrass, Blues, all trace their origins back to people of color. The Black Fashion of today will be White Fashion of tomorrow. And NASCAR and Hockey are the last two sports to not be totally dominated by people of color...and that’s changing too. Lots of things are changing. Samuel L Jackson is the highest paid actor in Hollywood, and if Halle Berry is in a movie, I want to see it.

Things are changing, but not enough, and not fast enough

The death of George Floyd sickened and enraged me. I don't care if he was ex-felon. I know lots of ex-felons who are upstanding members of society. I don't care that he was a junkie. I know a lot of ex-junkies as well. Regardless of his sins, real or imagined, he was still a human being. He was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's friend. Somebody somewhere loved him and mourned his death.

And it was the police who did this. The people who are supposed to protect us from murderers are not supposed be our murderers. There are a lot of really good people out there wearing a badge. Thank You for all that you do.

Please clean up your community.

This is a very difficult song for me to play live as it drains me emotionally
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Tom Troyer - Electric Guitar


11. I Ain’t Afraid of Dying 3:01
This is my COVID song. We’ve been married 30 years. What are we going to do if/when the other one dies?

I'm not afraid of dying. I'm not in a hurry, but when I'm dead, I'm not going to know that I am dead. It's not dying that frightens me, it's the being dead part.

The money stops when I die. Who is gonna buy the groceries? Who is going to pay the mortgage? What about the light bill? The Amazon bills? How is she going to function when I am gone? Who is going to do the things I did for her? Who’s gonna get on her last nerve? Who’s gonna be there for her when she gets the worries?

That's what keeps me up at night.

credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums


12. What We Ain’t Got 3:26
Simply a love song for Old Time Country Stores & Ace Hardware. If we ain’t got it, then you don’t need it.

credits

Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin (but not any of the good parts)
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Dillon - Banjo, Mandolin (just the good parts)
Caleb Baer - Fiddle
Christian Mack - Fiddle


13. Choices 6:14
Male in his early 20’s gets his girlfriend pregnant, gets scared and overwhelmed and runs away. “Every choice we make comes with a price, some you pay right now, others take the rest of our lives.”

Yes this story is true, every bit of it and I’m not proud of it, but I can’t change the truth. What I did wasn't right and I'm sorry.

‘Every choice we make, it comes with a price, some you pay right now, others take the rest of our life”
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals & Acoustic Guitar