The seventh song I wrote for Bait & Switch kind of happened with the title first. When I was a kid, our next-door neighbors had a sign in the kitchen that read, "I'm too lazy to work, and too nervous to steal". This sign hung at the Raymond's house for as long as I could remember. See the photo below. My brother and I practically grew up at the Raymond's house. I always loved this sign. I decided to write a song based on it. Apparently, I'm not the only person to come with this song title. It looks like Brent Burns came up with a similar idea back in 2015.
I think my version is better, although we came up with similar first person guitar slinger points of view completely seperately.
As usual, I laid down the rhythm section first, and let the music inspire the lyrics, timing, sensibilities, and content. The first thing was the tempo. I really cranked up the tempo to be very quick. I then ran the Danelectro through the amp, to get that 50's single coil tone. What came out was an 8 barre blues groove. I made sure I added plenty of bass riffs, so the rhythm had movement. And well, from there, I let the song naturally develop in its own format. The format, then drove the lyrics.
I wanted to give the audience a sense of what being in a band is kind of like. Playing gigs really comes down to two or three things.
We play for free, and get paid to load in and out
We sell a lot of drinks
Everyone gets paid before we do
So, this song is about wanting to get a big pink Cadillac down in Mobile, Alabama. Our hero is begging people to put money in his tip jar. He tells the audience the truth, as painfully honest and funny it is, he doesn't want to work for his money and he doesn't want to steal money. But, he'll entertain all night because it's fun.
Just to have a little more fun with the tune, I put sort of a Cajun feeling behind the vocals and howled like Wolfman Jack. To put a beach sound behind that, I put in some harmonies similar to the Beach Boys.
I didn't get the lyrics just right the first time through, and needed to make some adjustments along the way. That said, this colorful tune remains one of my favorites, because of its open feel.
If you want to hear this song, go to my website's store, locate the music player and listen to about 30 seconds of it for free. For best results, though, get your own copy of Bait & Switch.