(I\u2019m pretending I haven\u2019t taken a month or two off. Roll with me here.)<\/p>\n
My songwriting career took a two-year break, along with everything else, circa 1987 as I gallivanted off to Scotland on a two-year proselytizing spree on behalf of the Mormons. The only song I composed between 1987 and 1989 was a parody of The Lonely Man theme from the Bill Bixbyized Incredible Hulk, which included the following lyrics to the familiar, heart-rending melody:<\/p>\n
He\u2019s ripped his jeans
\nHe\u2019s loud and mean
\nTo top it off
\nHis skin is green<\/p>\nHe\u2019s mad!
\nAnd when he\u2019s really mad,
\nHe\u2019s bad!<\/p>\nIncredible!
\nThat hulk\u2019s incredible!
\nHis greenness is incurable!
\nAnd that\u2019s why he\u2019s incredible-y
\nSad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nMy companion sent a letter home to his mother and told her to imagine listening to this theme while picturing Olive Oil breaking up with Charlie Brown. He had illustrations and everything. His mother wrote back and said she didn\u2019t get the joke. I\u2019m not sure I do, either, but it still makes me laugh.<\/p>\n
Mission life pounded out many of my creative instincts, but, ironically, it was the Church that restored them when, in 1990, I was called to serve as the Ward Roadshow Director. Mormon culture involves periodic production of seven-to-ten-minute skits performed for an appreciative audience. Most of them are really, really stupid, although I thought mine was a cut above really stupid and was just somewhat stupid.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Javelin Man was born \u2013 I wrote the song as part of a 1990 roadshow entitled \u201cI\u2019m Wild About Boys, Girls, and Javelins.\u201d I\u2019ve performed that song more than any other in my repertoire, and it was filmed for a video roadshow almost two decades later. I\u2019ve pimped out that song and video more than any other on this blog, and while I will once again provide a link for the uninitiated below\u2026<\/p>\n
[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G2gqBFmGtFw&w=480&h=385]<\/p>\n
\u2026 I also want to focus on another song that made its debut in that show and which had never been recorded until last Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
The song is called \u201cHis Hand In Mine,\u201d and it\u2019s the standard sort of goofy love song that you\u2019ve come to expect from Maureen McGovern or Peter Cetera or some other singing crapmeister. I hate songs like this one, but I quite like this specific ditty, because it\u2019s a sweet, gentle parody of such songs, at least in my own mind. I can only write legit sorts of songs like this if I have a character in mind \u2013 in this case, a goofy, lovestruck teenage girl. If I try to sit down and write a real love song, at least one from me, I simply can\u2019t take the sentiment seriously, so people start dying and heads start to explode. What I love about this song is that the ultimate expression of love is entirely chaste \u2013 she fantasizes she\u2019ll \u201chold his hand until the end of time.\u201d I don\u2019t know about the singer, but I\u2019m betting the guy she\u2019s dating is going to want to let go after a couple of eons.<\/p>\n
There are three verses in the original, but I\u2019ve incorporated this number into my latest roadshow, which will debut in October with only two verses and revised lyrics. That\u2019s the version you\u2019ll hear on this very rough demo, recorded via iPhone. I\u2019ve been waiting to update this blog until I recorded this song, and it\u2019s taken far too long to make it happen. So, without further ado, here\u2019s a truncated, poorly recorded version of \u201cHis Hand In Mine,\u201d with my co-director of the roadshow on lead vocals, and me on piano and doo-wops.<\/p>\n
Enjoy. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(I\u2019mpretending I haven\u2019t taken a month or two off. Roll with me here.)My songwriting career took a two-year break, along with everything else, circa 1987 as I gallivanted off to Scotland on a two-year proselytizing spree on behalf of the Mormons. The only song I composed between 1987 and 1989 was a parody of The ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}