Meyer & McGuire
Songwriter Notes
Song
of the Month #3 - “All They Say Is Progress”
(Track #3 on the Home
Town CD)
Lyrics: If your web browser does not support the Flash Player* included with the Lyrics,
or you are uncomfortable allowing/downloading the plug-in/add-on, you can still
listen to this song while you read. Just
go to our Downloads Page and click on the link, “Buy
Home Town Songs from Napster”.
Then, click on "All They Say Is Progress." You can
listen to it for free (not available outside the USA).
*Not being a
techie, I use the term “Flash Player” loosely.
Do
you enjoy picking out the many contradictions that appear when you are watching
TV? For Siobhan and me, this is
sometimes the best part of watching television.
Here are some of our favorites.
We love when the weather reporter tells you it is going to be sunny all
day with a few intermittent showers.
Another one we enjoy is the Rogaine commercial. This product helps you grow your hair back,
so you can look better. Unfortunately,
when you listen to the side effects, the cost for looking better can be
impotence. Singulair, a product designed
to help asthmatics, warns its customer that a respiratory infection may occur
from using the product. Ambien, a drug
to help you sleep better, cautions that the drug may cause drowsiness. Finally, one of the best ironies occurred
when we saw a commercial for a tanning salon juxtaposed with a commercial for
sun screen. These two conflicting
commercials generated the lines,
“I
hear they got these tanning booths that brown your skin real fast,
And
I hear the tan you get just could be your last.”
From
these two lines, I began to carve out “All They Say Is Progress.”
In
all honesty, the verses in the song came from news reports and
commercials. The common denominator
appearing in these reports and commercials conveyed the constant struggle we
confront when we attempt to move forward to improve our lives. Statistics will more than likely prove that
our lives are improving; however, we are paying a big price for this better
life. The imagery in “All They Say Is
Progress” illustrates some of the prices we have paid for our new
technology. For example, our new
technology has introduced us to such things as oil slicks, ozone depletion,
acid rain, contaminated water, and nuclear disasters.
After
filling my verses with the consequences that result from progress, I created a
chorus to show the narrator’s frustration with the contradictions that emerge
from moving forward. The narrator is
trapped. He must move forward even
though his environment seems to be falling apart around him. It is hoped that he and the listener will try
to move forward with a more sensitive feeling toward the world in which they
live.
I
dedicated this song to Steve Austin and Eric Cosman, two awesome science
teachers I worked with at Canandaigua Academy.
Steve, who has since passed away, taught ecology from the mid 1960’s
through the mid 1990’s. Eric, Steve’s
sidekick, came along in the mid 1980’s.
He took the ecology baton from Steve, and is still teaching ecology at
Canandaigua Academy. I loved watching
these guys enlighten kids about their environment and all its
complexities. They made kids understand
that, although progress is good, one needs to evaluate it carefully and make
wise, informed decisions when implementing it.
Although
this song was written in the late 1980’s, it has not lost its relevance. As a society, we still struggle with the
consequences that result from progress.
If you want proof of the song’s relevance, take a look at Al Gore’s Inconvenient
Truth.
I
recorded this song in 1992 at The Garage, a little studio in Rochester, New
York. The Garage, as I have told you before,
is owned and operated by John and Joe Dady, two quintessential musicians. When you record with them, you can always
count on great coffee, good stories, and an aching stomach from laughing.
Along
with backing up my country beat with bass and drums, John and Joe enhance the
theme of the song with an electric guitar and a fiddle. While John weaves the sound of the electric
guitar around the sound of my acoustic, Joe creates two conflicting sounds with
the fiddle. He blends a good old country
fiddle melody with a new wave, somewhat alternative-sounding one. The sound of their instruments subtly accents
the conflict going on for the narrator in the song. I like it, and I hope you do too.
I
highly recommend John and Joe if you are interested in recording. Also, The Dady Brothers, John and Joe’s
group, have many recordings of their own, and they tour the United States and
Ireland. Check them out on the web.
Well,
there you have it. I’ll have another
song of the month for you next month. If
you have any comments or suggestions, please pass them on to me. This is a work in progress, and I am always
looking for new ways to improve it.
(E-Mailed 6/18/07)
E-mail us at McRiley@Frontiernet.net