She don’t read too many books

And she don’t wear too many clothes

She lives on Strawberry Street

I see her drinking at the Avenue B

She’s gettin’ freaky with the Wizard of Oz

Sippin’ and trippin’ on Alice’s tea

She sleeps in a velvety bag

Waitin’ for the day when she don’t have to wake up no more

It was around about seven o clock this girl had made me stop and it was getting late

This one she makes me wait all the time – but that’s all right – I don’t mind you gotta set ‘em free and if they come back to you well then I guess it was meant to be

It was about that time that we walked into the party everybody could see this girl had already started

From the look in her eye from the wave of her hair everybody starts to stare – like she’s really gonna care

Met her at the corner down at State and Main

And she took my heart away I said maybe I’m to blame

But she went up to the corner and tried to get a hit

I can’t be there with this …..

And she don’t read too many books

And she don’t wear too many clothes

She lives on Strawberry Street

I see her drinking at the Avenue B

She’s gettin’ freaky with the Wizard of Oz

Sippin’ and trippin’ on Alice’s tea

She sleeps in a velvety bag

Waitin’ for the day when she don’t have to wake up no more

I said hold up hold up right there cause she was walkin’ up to me

And I had this other girl sittin’ on my lap you see – it was a catastrophe

And I wasn’t sure what to do but she just laughed at me

Cause I was lookin’ a fool

She’s takin’ it easy watchin’ me takin’ rough

She’s gonna tease my but then I’m callin’ her bluff

Because I know that girl can’t stand to leave alone

She never takes me all the way, but she always takes me home

I interrupt just to get a cup of tea

By the end of the night that mouth was around me

I tried to pull it from her mouth but it wouldn’t come out

So I dropped that girl when I was allowed

And she don’t read too many books

And she don’t wear too many clothes

She lives on Strawberry Street

I see her drinking at the Avenue B

She’s gettin’ freaky with the Wizard of Oz

Sippin’ and trippin’ on Alice’s tea

She sleeps in a velvety bag

Waitin’ for the day when she don’t have to wake up no more

She sleeps in her room alone – picking up the pieces of her broken soul

She puts them in a paper bag – cause she knows it’s time she’s got to let it all go

As she’s watching the flames rise can you not see the tears that fill her eyes?

Not because she’s gonna die but because she don’t know why everybody has to lie and they won’t stop takin’ and breakin’ and takin’ and breakin’ and takin’ and breakin’ and takin’ and breakin’ and it down

And she don’t read too many books

And she don’t wear too many clothes

She lives on Strawberry Street

I see her drinking at the Avenue B

She’s gettin’ freaky with the Wizard of Oz

Sippin’ and trippin’ on Alice’s tea

She sleeps in a velvety bag

Waitin’ for the day when she don’t have to wake up no more

If you’ve ever been in a band with drummer Ben Gold (and I’ve been in a couple) then you know that as often as not, an original song starts off with Ben describing an idea in his head of a new song, and the rest of the band works with him to turn that idea into reality. This was one of those songs. Ben had an idea that was something like a fast rap part over this drum beat which would then turn into a half time ska beat and then we’d rock out this chorus. He set to playing the drums, and we came up with a simple four chord progression and we had a structure pretty quick. I know this was right about the time Jake joined the band, I honestly can’t say for sure if we started working on it before he joined or not. I know the first words that got written were the hook, and that Pat and I quite literally took turns making up lines, which leads me to believe we might have started it without Jake, but we hadn’t got far.

I’m not sure why it became a song about a girl, but somehow Pat and I seemed to have the same girl in mind right away. Not a particular person, but a personality type, a tragic one at that. She’s a beautiful disaster, for whatever reason she doesn’t like herself enough to take care of herself. She does heroin, or she drinks to much, whatever it takes to keep her from success, but she’s still having a good time and seems to be happy. I remember Pat came up with the line, “She sleeps in a velvety body bag” and I couldn’t make it all fit so it became “velvety bag”. Things like that are the real reason for this blog. The song started off named Million Dollar Girl, and the noise bringing the song in is a recording of Ms Wippit saying, “She’s a Million Dollar Girl” with a crapload of effects on it. You’re just hearing the syllables “Millio…” over and over.

So we had a hook and a song structure and now we needed some verses. I decided to be the guy who’s hopelessly in love with this girl, but I never get anywhere because these girls need to have at least one guy who’s just a friend, the one guy who would take care of her and treat her the best, gets kept and arms length. And so Jake became one of the “other” guys, and now we’ve got a complete song. I recently stumbled across an old basement recording of the song that was made at the same time as “Wake and Bake” and was part of a three song cd we passed around for a minute. On this version I clearly had absolutely no idea what my second verse was, but I think I like the solo better. This older version also has Pat going to town on the back up vocals. By the time we re-recorded this at Gremlen Studio Pat didn’t want to sing that bit on the chorus anymore, so Jake sang it and Pat did some subtle, more like talking vocals, and doused it in distortion. I think it’s awesome because it blends right into the guitars, if you listen you can hear him saying, “She’ll walk away with your heart today…..”. Since this was something like a hit for us, (it got some airplay on Ashland University’s station in Ohio when we were there supporting Scorefor) I decided to take all the live footage I have of us playing the song, and make a video with the studio recording. Shows were from ’04-’07.