Wippit Logo

If You Could Read My Mind

Adrian Pountney • Aug 28, 2012

I don’t know how long ago it occurred to my that Gordon Lightfoot’s cheesy love ballad would make a great fast punk/pop song, but it’s been at least 15 years. I know I thought about it when I was in the band Stalemate, we were rocking up songs like Jack and Diane, Stuck In the Middle With You and Like a Rolling Stone. Even though it’s a four chord cheesy pop song, it’s a long one with a couple of changes that feel a little unnatural if you haven’t heard the song a bejillion times, so I don’t think I ever brought it up. Once it occurred to me I could never hear, “I never thought I could act this way and I have to say that I just don’t get it..” without thinking this really needs to be fast and he really needs to be yelling.


I can’t tell you exactly what finally made me decide to get it done, but once I started it was one of those things that just needed to get finished. I programmed the drums, recorded the guitar and when I went to put the bass down there was something wrong with the electronics in my bass (we’d had a flood and it took on a little water), so I recorded a bass line with the guitar and dropped it an octave with the studio software. Sounded good enough to put some vocals down so I went ahead and in one day I was done. I played it for family and friends and it sounded pretty good. Heck people make videos of covers all the time, I think I’ll make a video.


The video was also a one day affair, at least as far as getting the footage recorded. How could I not start with a guy trying to play it the original way and…something’s just not right. I went through two costumes each for guitar, bass and vocals. I didn’t have anything like a drumset left in the house since the flood, how do I do the drum guy? Got a Bodhran…


So in truth this is the moment that leads to the release of this Anthology. I was already using Reverb Nation to get my songs up on Facebook, and I had seen something about them having a way to get a song on iTunes. Can I sell Gordon Lightfoot’s song? How does that work. Some internet searching turned up a publisher that owns the rights to the song and I hooked it up. That’s right Gordon gets a few cents whenever somebody buys my version. Then I figured out it cost the same to release an “album” as a “song”. I need to get an album together. I started the process of gathering songs and making them sound as professional as I could. I even re-recorded the bass for this cut with an actual bass guitar. Can you tell the difference?

By Dr Wippit 21 Mar, 2024
So I have a new release featuring two heartfelt love ballads. The first track, "Never Again," is a song I wrote in the 90s, at the time I was shooting for a soulful R&B song with its raw emotion and smooth vocals. I'll be the first to admit that smooth vocals aren't my specialty.
By Dr Wippit 28 Jul, 2023
The new EP is out on all the streaming platforms. Details on the songs are below the links.
By Dr Wippit 04 Jan, 2023
I started writing the song For Everyone about ten years ago. Like most of the songs I write, it started with a chord progression followed by a vague idea of what the melody could be. One day I was driving and listening back to an acoustic strumming the chords, and the beginning of the chorus just came to me out of the blue: When do we get to the part where we stop hurting each other? How do we get to the place where we stop breaking each other down? It had been some time since I wrote a song with a "message" and this one seemed to be writing itself. Suddenly, I felt this one needed to be done in a hurry and rushed out. I already had a couple of new songs close to the finish line, Yup and Paying for Lessons. Now I felt like I was close to getting an EP worth of material , and I wanted to get it to the masses. It didn't take more than a couple of days to get the lyrics finished, now I had a song I could play on an acoustic, but I wasn't sure where it would go from here. I brought it to the studio where my stepsons worked on music and asked if they wouldn't mind learning it real quick and putting down bass and drums, I was still just strumming an acoustic. I think we wen't through the song all of three times and I brought home the acoustic, bass and drum tracks. In the big picture, I wanted this to have electric guitar instead, so I recorded a kind of funky electric riff over the drums and bass, put power chords over the chorus, and then another track of lead throughout the song. The final touch I figured it needed was female backups on the chorus. At the time I was in a cover band and I got the female vocalist from Tastes Like Chicken to sing a three part arrangement I put together, and I figured it was ready for prime time. Since this was the song with the message I made it the title track of my EP, and I rushed it out to CD Baby and all the streaming services. You can check out that version here:
By Dr Wippit 12 Nov, 2022
So after ten shows in ten weeks I said enough, I'll get to it when I get to it. I don't know that I put that much more than a week into prepping for this one, I just quit worrying about playing for a while. And then, I gotta put on a show. A weekend alone with the new puppie is perfect. What am I gonna play? I like to open with songs I have no business singing so here's Sarah McLachlan.
By Dr Wippit 12 Nov, 2022
At some point I had the idea to put Zeppelin's That's the Way together with Pearl Jam's Daughter. I think it was the first time I heard Pearl Jam's Daughter. Turns out the same custom tuning works for both, win win. The tuning break is a little long, but a 10,000 Maniacs song and then another brilliant twofer, Too Late and Too Late.
By Dr Wippit 20 Jun, 2022
Started with a terribly painful Tracy Chapman. I really do mean well. I'm learning a new show every week, what're you doing? Did you know it's Take a load off Fanny, not Take a load off Annie? The things you learn with an exercise like this one.
By Dr Wippit 20 Jun, 2022
The first Mother's Day of the panedemic calls for another Floyd start, amiright? Little Richard died so I had to lay into some of that. And 16 years after we played it at the Double Door on Mother's Day I played Mama Baby, I'll probably always play that on a Mother's Day gig.
By Dr Wippit 20 Jun, 2022
Opened with Nobody's Home from Pink Floyd and then into a request. I'll do what I wanna do but maybe what you want to? What you want? The trying to have a full new set list every week has me relying on lyrics and chords on the screen and I can see it. I pick songs that have just always been with me and see if I can. I should leave Zeppelin alone but I'm not gonna.
By Dr Wippit 11 Jun, 2022
April 26th, 2020 My first attempt to use the looper (Summer Breeze) is a terribly painful four starts, but it gets going eventually, and I need to practice this now. My snide comment about people requesting songs "I already played in other sets" goes to show how seriously I'm taking myself at this point, but really I'm just trying to play a whole new set every week to see if I can do it.
By Dr Wippit 30 Apr, 2022
April 19th, 2020  That's right I opened the show streaming to the wrong page, the Tastes Like Chicken page. So nobody saw it as it happened, but there it is. The Dr Wippit page stream starts with Margaritaville, a better lock down song to be sure. I got in an original that goes back to Stalemate and one I haven't played alone before (Eyes Wide Open). The switch to electric is the first time I notice a thing where suddenly my petal is way down in volume and I swear I didn't touch it. I think I have that figured out. With the solo at the end it looks like at least the weekly pay is bringing back some old guitar chops. Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms (Wrong Page) Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet All I've Got to Do - The Beatles Mr. BoJangles - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Eyes Wide Open - Stalemate Peace Train - Cat Stevens I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - Bobby Darin Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills and Nash Fall Down - Toad the Wet Sprocket Wake and Bake - The Kenilworth Project 867-5309 - Tommy Tutone Keep Your Hands to Yourself - Georgia Satellites
More Posts
Share by: