Raining On The Dark Side
That’s one I wrote with Adam; it’s more of that Gulf Coast loser kind of stuff, which I
definitely relate to. It’s kind of about the has-been musician; you know a lot of these guys
talk about their glory days, so the guy in the song’s talking about how he used to play like
Magic Sam, who was this old Chicago blues guy. And he says he used to “gin ’em up,”
which is a term that my father-in-law used to use. He was a musician, too. It just means to
rile the crowd up, get ’em going. We were going for a Tom Petty band kind of feel on that
one, and it came together real quick. In fact, Adam was still writing it by the time I’d
finished recording it. I got home and Adam was sending me tweaks on the lyrics, and I
just sent him my version and said, “Here’s my version, I’ve already done it!” He liked it,
though.
She ran me dry drinkin’ doubles
Then she walked out on me
Couldn’t afford to catch a cab back home
I walked on down the shoreline
Where my pals all used to be
Raining on the dark side.....of the street
She said you’re nothin’ but a broke musician
You’ll probably wind up in the can
Fly-by-night was all I could ever be
But I used to gin ‘em up
I could play like Magic Sam, it’s
Raining on the dark side.....of the street
Drenched to the bone
And my luck’s turned muddy
Who will remember me
If my tears fall down like a tramp in the gutter
And wash into the sea
Beneath the lights of the Balinese
Everybody’s drinking wine
This old box is all I’ve ever known
I’ll play one more song on my Stella
Before I use her to row back home, it’s
Raining on the dark side.....of the street
She said you’re nothin’ but a broke musician
You’ll probably wind up in the can
Fly-by-night was all I could ever be
But I used to gin ‘em up, boy
I could play like Magic Sam, it’s
Raining on the dark side....of the street
© Michael S. O’Connor & Adam Carroll
Devil Stole the Moon
I used to play with these guys in Corpus Christi who played a lot of Spanish songs,
cumbias and stuff like that. I wanted to write a cumbia, but I don’t write Mexican music,
so I did kind of a Tom Waits blues thing. Rick did his drums on that in one take. We got it
down real quick the same day as “Raining on the Dark Side.” I wrote it kind of at the last
minute, too; the beat came first and then the story. It’s about a saxophone player in a band
who’s in love with the singer, and she’s not returning his love, so it ends bad — he
strangles her. That all comes from the Larry Brown books and murder ballads I like.
Drown the flame with a fifth of gin
Thoughts burned of her as it crossed his lips
How she’d slung it around and pawned his ring
The sad old way that she would sing
But now this broke down band won’t play in tune
The devil stole the moon
Devil stole the moon
The devil stole the moon
Devil stole the moon
The devil stole the moon
Blow your horn like death is in the room
The devil stole the moon
A torn jacket on a barbed-wire fence
Scratched her tattooed name from beneath his skin
How his jilted tears did turn to mud
With the courage for the blade but not for the blood
Her lilly neck between his fingertips
He gave her Valentine’s heart and Sullivan’s fist
Devil stole the moon
The devil stole the moon
Devil stole the moon
The devil stole the moon
Dress on the floorboard torn and strewn
The devil stole the moon
The devil stole the moon
Devil stole the moon
Devil stole the moon
The devil stole the moon
Blow your horn like death is in the room
The devil stole the moon
© Michael S. O’Connor
Time
That’s a song I wrote the day my father-in-law passed away. The same guy who used to
say “gin ’em up.” He knew he was dying and the pleasure was running out of it, and I
think he kind of made up his mind that he was dying and he died pretty soon after that. So
it was just a song about somebody realizing that was their life, they made the best of it,
and now it’s over. Time’s a motherfucker, you know? But he used to tell stories and stuff
about hunting in West Virginia when he was a kid, so I put that in the last verse, because I
like to hope that when you die, maybe spiritually or in your head you go back to some
place you loved when you were a kid.
A rusted pail spills water down the stairs
There’s water in the whiskey too
And I’m singing in the choir even though I’m drunk
Time’s turned it’s back on me
She cuts and she steals, she begs and she bleeds
She always drags you down
And even the devil is too good for her
Time’s turned it’s back on me
Time’s given up on me
All that’s dust, all the glitter
All the secrets caged in bone
All the prayers and all the poison
Won’t hold me when I’m gone
Let me find my way back where the rhododendron blooms
Where the fox is chased by the hound
Let the blues and the greens lay heavy on my tongue
Time’s turned it’s back on me
Time’s given up on me
Time’s turned it’s back on me
Time’s given up on me
© Michael S. O’Connor
Rough Side
That’s another one that came out of Adam and I working on Hard Times. It’s kind of
about my dad in a way. Or at least he was like the guy in the song — he was a
construction worker, and he would always party his money away, drink his pay in a night,
and end up in jail a lot. I wasn’t raised by my dad, but I’ll never forget going to see
Charley Pride at the Astrodome on one of the days I spent hanging out with him as a kid.
So I had that chorus part first, and just tried to remember those kind of country songs
from that time and that image of men drinking and listening to Charley Pride.
Gonna get my news from a bottle
Spill it on a concrete floor
Should be old enough to know better
I beat a path to the jailhouse door
When I spied Lucky Pete
Slipping out with Ruby Jane
Left me leaning hard into the night
Bloodied my knuckles where I carved her name
I used to be an able bodied man
Whistlin’ to Charley Pride
While my pay slid through my hands
Cuttin’ time on the old rough side
Makin’ time on the old rough side
Never played that straight and narrow
I never laid that party down
Burned it up like a flaming arrow
Buyin’ every other round
Now the voices and the laughter
In my ears I can hear them ring
With my head laid out on the courthouse lawn
Not a penny to my name
I used to be an able bodied man
Whistlin’ to Charley Pride
While my pay slid through my hands
Cuttin’ time on the old rough side
Makin’ time on the old rough side
Repeat
© Michael S. O’Connor & Adam Carroll
Above
“Above” is a made-up thing, another kind of loser tune. I’ve known some musicians who
would have been out on the street if they didn’t have their girlfriend; I was never quite
like that, but I did live in my car and out of hotels for awhile. So it’s just about someone
who always makes bad choices. There’s kind of a Bukowski thing there, too, because he
would always write about betting on the horses and stuff. Those guys in Corpus that don’t
have jobs, they can wait around and sometimes they can get a day’s work or a morning’s
work just loading or unloading ships. And there’s a motel there called the Sea Ranch that
I picked as a place where someone down and out might spend $100 to stay for a night or
two. My mom actually ended up living there later on in life, too; she was kind of like my
dad in that she didn’t always have her shit together.
The cathedral chimes, it’s three a.m.
I whisper a prayer you won’t find where I’ve been
So low down and shiftless, I cheated your love
Now I’m out on the street and you’re ten flights above
With a cardboard sign, with a roll on my back
With my legs on the loading dock when there’s ships to unpack
Then to the Sea Ranch Motel, for a few nights I’ll stay
Till my belly’s full of beans, till I burn through my pay
Oh I never try, when push comes to shove
Now I’m out here and you’re ten flights above
Oh I’m down and you’re ten flights above
I ride all night to keep out of the rain
Till I spy my reflections in the bus window pane
With a babe on your hip, it was a family we made
But for the booze and the horses, I foolishly trade
Oh I never try, when push comes to shove
Now I’m out here and you’re ten flights above
Oh I’m down and you’re ten flights above
Oh I’m stranded and you’re ten flights above
© Michael S. O’Connor
New Years Eve
Adam and I recorded that song for Hard Times, but he sang it on that record and I wanted
to do my take on it. We kind of gave it the Let It Bleed treatment — the guitar’s kind of
jagged and fucked up on it, and I dig that about it. There’s a line in there about the guy
being born in a room above the Party Doll on New Year’s Eve. My mom had to leave the
man she was married to when I was born because I wasn’t his son, and she got a job as a
waitress at this place called the Party Doll and we actually did live upstairs. I wasn’t born
there, but that’s pretty much where I came home to from the hospital — a room above the
Party Doll.
Thumb tacks on the hammer down
Playing in a moonshine band
As long as the old flame’s burning blue
You gonna do the best you can
Fireworks in an angel’s eye
Caused him to believe
In a room above the Party Doll
He was born on New Years Eve
Born on New Years Eve
In a black Barracuda down Telephone Road
He gave it all he had
He took it on down to New Orleans
When he got to feeling bad
All the girls on Rampart Street
They all knew his game
Pushin’ and pullin’ till he comes back around
To him it’s all the same
He treats them all the same
Thumb tacks on the hammer down
Playing in a moonshine band
As long as the old flame’s burning blue
You gonna do the best you can
Turning water into wine in Tupelo
With nothing up his sleeve
Gypsy hands on the old black keys
Born on New Years Eve
Born on New Years Eve
© Michael S. O’Connor & Adam Carroll
Lora
Writing with [Lubbock songwriter] Cary Swinney is a big deal, man, because he’s a
peculiar dude and doesn’t really write with a lot of people. But he sent me a CD with
about 30 songs on it, just all bits and pieces, and told me to pick one. I loved this one but
he didn’t have a last verse on it yet, so I wrote one and kind of changed the music a little
bit and sent it back to him, and he liked it. It’s about his Uncle John, who I guess really
did have polio and rode in the rodeo and sold Chevrolet’s and all that stuff. I loved Cary’s
chorus, but the verses and the chorus were completely different, so I tried to make the last
verse fit the chorus. That part about the old folks’ home, I was thinking about my
grandmother, who had dementia at the end of her life but seemed happy just being lost in
her own mind. So that’s kind of where I put Uncle John — he’s back riding in the rodeo
and stuff instead of where he’s really at.
Uncle John rode in the rodeo, he was pretty good they say
Uncle John had polio, he limped around till his dyin’ day
Uncle John was a cowpoke, but gave it in to sell Chevrolet’s
Uncle John was a hero, every ragged child in town knew his name
Lora come to the rodeo, I ride this afternoon
Lora come to the rodeo, I’ll be on that white stud they call Blue
Uncle John never cared too much for the Lord
Couldn't take stake in a dead man
But he was always givin’ what he had to the poor
And as for himself? Well..
By 1960, Uncle John had given away more than he could afford
Nobody noticed when he was tapped dry
Dry like the dust in some old West Texas store
You try to spit, you get dirt in your eye
Lora come to the rodeo, I ride this afternoon
Lora come to the rodeo, I’ll be on that white stud they call Blue
Now the room smells like death and the lights grow dim
Screams heard down the hall
Uncle John rots in an old wheelchair
As the bugs crawl across the wall
And the days go by without a kind word one
Waitin’ on a long distance call
With the faces and the places of long ago
Rollin’ around inside his skull
Lora come to the rodeo, I ride this afternoon
Lora come to the rodeo, I’ll be on that white stud they call Blue
© Cary Swinney & Michael S. O’Connor
Poor Eddie
“Poor Eddie” is just fiction — it’s a Bukowski kind of poem, about a guy who marries
some girl when she gets out of prison, and has a street preacher do the ceremony. It all
came out of that guitar part I had. When we cut that song, we just set one microphone up
in the room and did it Robert Johnson style. You’re kind of stuck with what you get when
you do it that way, but I think it worked for us with that one song. I might try doing some
more songs that way one day.
The preacher played a mean guitar
A twisted cross of rusted string
With a bed and a bible and two kneelin’ bones
A red switchblade and a Silvertone
A skeleton girl in a Memphis motel
Where the shoes hang off the power line
Eddie paid for her cigarettes and he paid for the room
While the sun chased around the moon
It’s a long hard fall from the prison floor
They give you forty-four dollars and a change of clothes
With his tin foil ring, with his puppet mouth
He swore that they’d marry when she got out
Now poor Eddie, poor Eddie, he pours her a drink
The Ford’s burned in the parking lot, she smells like gasoline
© Michael S. O’Connor