I get stuck in never letting it go

Feels like I’m wasting time

I see the face of my position

Standing still is getting behind

How do I get to the place

Where I don’t need this…

How did I get to this place

I can beat this….

Foot’s in a pocket of hope

And I keep on pushing along

My foot’s in a pocket of hope

I keep on rolling down the road

My foot’s in a pocket of hope

I never know how far it goes but

My foot’s in a pocket of hope

And I’m never gonna give it up cause I know

When I get beat I wonder why

I get beat all by myself

I see the culprit coming from the inside

I ain’t well

I see the hopelessness

I’ve been surviving for so long

It’s time to live

All the things I waited for

Never gonna give it up

I’ve been giving it all along

And I’m comin’ home

Foot’s in a pocket of hope

And I keep on pushing along

My foot’s in a pocket of hope

I keep on rolling down the road

My foot’s in a pocket of hope

I never know how far it goes but

My foot’s in a pocket of hope

And I’m never gonna give it up cause I know

FFeels like your walkin

Just markin time

Feel like you been workin so hard

And you look back

At all of this time

Looks like you haven’t gone up down left right

Forward Back

Everything looks the same

How do I know

How do I know?

Cause I believe

And I can look

And I can see

The change

So I still got my feet on the ground

One night in 96 or 97 I set out to write a Janet Jackson/Paula Abdul song. At the time my friend Brian had the old 8 track analog to cassette set up in his kitchen, and he sat a few feet away in the living room watching tv, while I put the headphones on and got to work. As was often the case in those days the song started with making some beats on the Alesis drum machine. I made up the three different beats, and arranged them into a song structure, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown-chorus out. Next I put down a bass line, and that’s where I developed the chord progression. Next I put down the keys, trying to throw in some syncopated rhythms through out the verses, rockin organ on the hook, and bluesy piano during the breakdown. Finally the wah-wah guitar, cause it had to be funky. I had a complete song, and I don’t know that it sounded like Janet or Paula, but I was pretty happy with the results, and figured I’d save the words for another day.

The one phrase that I kept hearing in my head as I listened to the hook for this song was, “Foot’s in a pocket of hope”. I wrote some lyrics about getting out of being stuck and moving toward success, and just not giving up. I figured I had a bonafide hit on my hands. The one thing I wanted to record better from that first night was the bluesy piano. I tried to bring in a ringer, but I ended up redoing myself, and that’s what ended up on Dr Wippit’s 1st time out. I had a buddy mixing it down, and I noticed he pulled all the keys I had put down in the verses. “Oh that stuff just sounded like a bunch of fart noises.” And he was right. The back up vocals are a mix of me, me with effects, and a female.

For the reboot you hear above, the Anthology of Sorts version, I kept the drums, bass and guitar from that first night. I now had access to a semi-professional keyboardist who gave me a couple of organ sounds to choose from for the verses and choruses, as well as a regular piano and Rhodes piano to choose from for the breakdown. The results are outstanding. I redid the vocals as well, including the backups in falsetto, and I have to say this sounds like the song I was trying to write all those years ago in Brian’s kitchen.