"I'd Rather Look Away" early demo

If you should see her when we're out in town
please, don't let me know.
I'd get so shaky and fall off the bone
if I had to say hello.
I'd never try to make you take a side.
I know you're still friends.
I'd rather look away.
I'd rather look away.
I'd rather look away than to see her then.
If you had heard the things we said in love
you would understand
why I could never catch my breath to kiss
her cheek or shake her hand.
I'd never try to make you take a side.
I know you're still friends.
I'd rather look away.
I'd rather look away.
I'd rather look away than to see her then.
I'd never try to make you take a side.
I know you're still friends.
I'd rather look away.
I'd rather look away.
I'd rather look away than to see her then.

Joe Pernice Bony Gap Music (BMI), admin by BUG/BMG Publishing

Friends,

Hope this finds you all relatively well. It was a rough week or so this way. I will not go into too much detail right here, but as some of you may know, Bruce Tull, our friend for nearly 40 years and guitarist/ founding member of the Scud Mountain Boys left this world last week. He was a person of rare kindness and smarts. He was a singular guitarist with a style all his own. I shared some of the most meaningful experiences of my life with him. We had a shit ton of fun making music together. I’ll have a lot more to say about Bruce, but right now it’s all a bit jumbled and the time doesn’t feel right. I’m headed to Massachusetts this week for a couple days to hang with Stephen and Tom from the Scuds. It will be great to see them.

*****

Anyway, in the spirit of driving on with trying to add positive stuff into the world, I’m doing just that.

I have very little recollection of writing this song…except the lyrics I’d get so shaky and fall off the bone. I stole that from my own novel, so I guess it’s not stealing. I remember thinking—not in a whiny way—Nobody read that book, and only a few more than that will hear this song. Fuck it.
I think I stick too closely to a 1990s indie cred code that probably didn’t even exist back then.

Of course, all this—my song and the idea of indie cred—reminds me of my great friend Warren Zanes. (My hunch is every single person subscribed to this substack knows who Warren is. If not, look him up.)

I’ve know Warren for about 25 years now. When he was a teenager he was (and still is!) in the Boston band Del Fuegos. I’m a couple years younger than Warren, and I remember them all over the local radio. We were all excited that a local band had an LP on a major label. They were on their way to fame and fortune. The fact that they did not ascend to superstardom has a bunch of reasons I’ll let Warren parcel out in the book should he write it. But to the music fan, their downfall was that they sold out. How, you might ask? Well, they were in a super minimal, almost arty TV ad for Miller Beer. I’ll never forget, one of the band members had a line like, Rock and roll is just folk music. It’s music for folks.

I literally had friends tell me the Del Fuegos sold out. It was like the Flintstones episode where Fred becomes an unlikely pop star. Fearing his success will take him away, Wilma starts the rumour that Fred is a square. And just like that, all wind left the sail.

I remind Warren of the first time we met. It was a morning in Brooklyn. I had been watching Sportscenter prior to our meet-up. An ad for Burger King came on. It featured a popular boy band of the day, but I honestly don’t know which band. They were dressed up in Burger King uniforms, complete with drive-thru headsets. Each boy held a Whopper and sang a love song’s hook to his respective Whopper while dancing in unison.

They probably got paid millions and sold a couple million more records because of it.

Indie cred, my ass.

Now let me bring all full circle. I had asked Warren to help me choose which song to put on Sunny, I Was Wrong. I probably rolled 30 songs by him. And great friend he is, he did real work listening and advising. I just didn’t have the head for it. Besides an outlier or two all of my songs pretty much mean the same to me. And in the case of this particular crop of tunes, I had almost zero useful perspective.

One day, right near the end of choosing the songs, I came across this demo of I’d Rather Look Away and sent it to Warren. I hadn’t previously sent it to him because I stole the aforementioned lyric from my own novel. Called me immediately and said I had to record that song. The rest is history.

The demo included today was record live to my iPhone. Sounds like my nylon string guitar tuned down a whole step. I used my Shure MV88 condenser mic for iPhone.

As always, thanks for listening and subscribing. If you enjoy these posts, maybe you’ll consider becoming a paying subscriber at the rate of $5.00 USD per month.

Take care of yourselves and those around you,

JP

You May Purchase Sunny, I Was Wrong Here