I'd say well over 90 percent of the time I'm entirely unaware of how much of a self satisfied, egotistical prick I am. I think if I knew it all the time I'd be crippled by the notion. Oh, and I am well aware that that's a deprecating limiting description intended to keep me from going on as I am that I regurgitate from having heard humans, trusted loved ones and or strangers describe each other that way. I know I'm not one, but for how I could be described as such, and only by me. That is to say, you can't call me that. You'd be wrong, but… I mean… we all know who we are dealing with here.
A cool thing about art is we get to distill things with it. An even cooler thing about art is that we are all artists doing art all the time. Regardless of how regimentedly you present yourself, at a fundamental level we are all winging it out here. Trying to be present and process all the stimulus is too much. It won't be tried. So we build ourselves an artsy little style of perception with limits and guidelines and processes from within ourselves as a result of how we have understood what we've been through so far. We dress and go out and maybe try to be normal with only a passing understanding of what that means and we paint it as we think it should be. It's an art. Everybody out here is different from everybody else out here and some of us are faking it that we’re not.
What does this have to do with ‘If I Leave’?
I have no recollection of putting it together, and it's well pulled off, I think.
It's a thing I did one time. I can hear the cigarettes and it feels both speedy and sloppy. I bet aderol and bourbon and weed and beer and cigarettes were all involved.
I had the good sense to press record, but it has a sort of accidental and stumbly quality that I find (found) charming about myself and that- all of it is so unselfconciously gloriously blues-prick which is a thing that was wrong with me, a thing I have stepped out of and now shake my head to look at…
But it's beautiful. Like finding a picture of some cute 80s rocker boy and not immediately realizing it is yourself. Narcissis snapping out of it.
If I leave I ain't never coming back t stay again. If I leave I ain’t never coming back to stay. cuzThere ain't enough whiskey to keep that woman off my mind. Ain't enough whiskey to keep that woman off my mind. So there ain't nothin left to do but go away my friends. Ain’t nothin left to do but go away. See the moon is a key to every woman's heart see that big old February moon up there in the day. You can hide from the moon in a pint of whiskey. You can hide from the moon in a pint of rye.if you run from the moon you hafta keep on running, and whistle a happy tune while your life goes by.
Cuz if I leave I ain'tna come back to stay again. If I leave I ain't never coming back to stay. Cuz there ain't enough women to keep that whiskey off my mind. Ain't enough women to keep that whiskey off my mind. Ain't nothing left to do but just go away my friends. There ain't nothin left to do but just go away. There ain't nothin left to do but just go away.
The first collecting of musical things I made after the band Shame Train had ceased to be a thing was Re-inventing the Wheel which is available exclusively on Bandcamp at the other end of this link.
https://samknutson.bandcamp.com/album/re-inventing-the-wheel
It is a nice collection of mostly me playing acoustic instruments with a few helpers and Circle Dance which is 100% the band Shame Train in the studio.
