John Prine – "Dear Abby"

Dear Abby, dear Abby

Well, I never thought

That me and my girlfriend

Would ever get caught

The IT Crowd was a British comedy about a group of twenty-somethings who worked in a corporate IT department.

The star of the show was Irish comedian Chris O’Dowd.  He played an IT “help desk” staffer who answered every call from an employee who had a computer malfunction with the same question: “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?”  

That took care of the vast majority of the problems.  

In the few cases when turning the computer off and back on again didn’t work, O’Dowd’s character asked, “Is it definitely plugged in?”  He never had to go beyond those two questions.

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If I was a newspaper advice columnist, I would follow O’Dowd’s example and give the same answer to every reader who wrote me to ask advice: “HAVE YOU TRIED MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS?”  (If you are a regular reader of my wildly popular little blog, you know that “Mind your own business!” is the great and first commandment of The Church of 2 or 3 Lines.)

If that answer wasn’t satisfactory, I’d turn to this surefire backup response: “I agree – it was definitely the husband’s (or boyfriend’s, or father’s, or male boss’s) fault!”

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The Washington Post is full of advice columns, all of which are written by women.  (Just sayin’.)

Those women never respond to questions with “Have you tried minding your own business?”  Despite the fact that it’s almost always the right answer, it’s not the popular answer.  

Having said that, there’s some really entertaining stuff in newspaper advice columns – like the following Q-and-A from a recent “Ask Amy” column:

Dear Amy: 

I'm asking for advice for my younger sister, “Stella.”

Like a lot of people right now, Stella is using a social media account delivering “X-rated entertainment” to make extra income.

Our older cousin “Candace” is married to “Ted.”  They have three kids.  Ted is about 17 years older than Stella.

Stella found out that Ted has subscribed to her account.  She learned this because he sent her a bunch of messages saying he is always checking her out at family functions. He called her his “dirty little secret.”

We are both very disturbed by his behavior and aren't sure what she should do next.

Should Stella tell Candace?  Stella told our mom in hopes that she would have some advice and to potentially ward off any uncomfortable future family gatherings.

Our mom thinks it's possible that Candace will take Ted's side and it could make things worse. . . .

Stella blocked his account and let her friends on the website know so they can block him, too.  One friend did notice that he was paying for some of her content, but only the content that included Stella.

Should my sister keep this secret, or let our cousin know what her husband is doing?

Concerned Big Sis

Here is Amy’s response:

Dear Concerned Big Sis: 

“Ted” is a creep. . . . But your question partly concerns whether “Stella” should notify your cousin “Candace” because her husband Ted subscribes to Stella’s “X-rated entertainment” account.

If Stella is providing pornography behind a paywall, I would assume that many, if not most, of her customers are somebody’s husband/significant other.

I’ll draw an equivalence to a medium like Penthouse magazine.  If Stella is hired to pose for Penthouse, then should your cousin’s husband be “outed” because he bought it at a newsstand?  No.

Your mom knows about Stella’s groove, and so I would imagine that this acceptance would override any extreme family awkwardness.

Ted’s choice to harass Stella should not remain anyone’s “dirty little secret,” however.

Even though Ted might have thought he was engaging in some creative and sexy role play, having a relative inform her of her role in his fantasy life is . . . creepy!  

Stella should respond directly to Ted, shutting him down. And, depending on how he responds, to deny him the pleasure of having her as his “dirty little secret,” she should feel free to out him.

You should assume that Ted’s wife will side with him. 

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Man, there’s a lot to unpack in what “Concerned Big Sis” has to say.  Let’s review the bidding: 

Like a lot of people right now, Stella is using a social media account delivering “X-rated entertainment” to make extra income.

“Like a lot of people right now”?  Really?

I had no idea.  (Is it possible that some of my friends or neighbors might be doing this?)

Stella found out that Ted has subscribed to her account.  She learned this because he sent her a bunch of messages saying he is always checking her out at family functions. He called her his “dirty little secret.”

How clueless can one man be?  Ted is OUT OF HIS MIND to admit to Stella that he watches her porn website – doesn’t he get that he needs to be sneaky and furtive and KEEP HIS BIG MOUTH SHUT about what he’s up to!  (Talk about the little head telling the big head what to do . . . )

Our mom thinks it's possible that Candace will take Ted's side and it could make things worse.

Are you kidding me?  With all due respect, your mom is OUT OF HER MIND to think that Candace will take Ted’s side if he is outed.  (It’s more likely that she would geld him in his sleep than take his side.)  

Stella blocked his account and let her friends on the website know so they can block him, too.  One friend did notice that he was paying for some of her content, but only the content that included Stella.

On second thought, I probably should review Stella’s website carefully before offering any more advice.

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Here are my thoughts on Amy’s response to “Concerned Big Sis” – or, as I think of her, “Big Sis Who’s Not Minding Her Own Business”:

I’ll draw an equivalence to a medium like Penthouse magazine.  If Stella is hired to pose for Penthouse, then should your cousin’s husband be “outed” because he bought it at a newsstand?  No.

I think Amy is saying that looking at Stella’s hypothetical Penthouse photos is no different from watching Stella’s non-hypothetical online porn, and that neither behavior by a married guy like Ted deserves to be “outed” as long as Ted sticks to just looking at Stella, and doesn’t send her a lot of creepy text messages.  (I like the way you think, Amy!) 

If you don’t agree with Amy that it’s OK for Ted to check out Stella online, I’m guessing that you don’t approve of Stella’s decision to bare herself on an X-rated website either.  

But if her mother is cool with Stella being an online porn star – not to mention her “Concerned Big Sister” – shouldn’t you . . . (get ready for it) . . . MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS?

If Stella is providing pornography behind a paywall, I would assume that many, if not most, of her customers are somebody’s husband/significant other.

No sh*t, Sherlock.

Stella’s problem with Ted must not be that he’s married.  She likely has a lot of the married “clients” who she happily performs for – and whose credit cards she happily dings every month.

If Stella’s problem with Ted isn’t that her moral code forbids her from messing around with married guys – and it seems obvious that she doesn’t care about that as long as the do-re-mi is coming in – I can only see two possible explanations for Stella’s wanting nothing to do with Ted.

First, she may have a problem because Ted is not just any married guy, but the husband of a family member – albeit a very distant one.  (Is “cousin-in-law” a thing?)

Alternatively, Ted may be a loathsome and repulsive pig who grosses Stella out to the extreme, and who she doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole (even if it’s a virtual ten-foot pole) irrespective of whether he’s married to her cousin or not.   

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Like Stella’s mom, Amy thinks it is likely that Candace will take Ted’s side if Stella blows the whistle on him:

You should assume that Ted’s wife will side with him. 

Like Stella’s mom, Amy is OUT OF HER EVER-LOVING MIND to think that.  

I would bet that Candace doesn’t take Ted’s side when he forgets to put the toilet seat down, so there’s exactly ZERO chance she will take his side if he gets caught creeping around his young, hot cousin-in-law’s porn site – much less sending her suggestive texts.  (Unless Ted’s phone is password protected, I wouldn’t put it past Candace to be checking Ted’s phone for such texts whenever she gets the chance – which is sooooo unfair for a wife to do!)

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The most famous of all American newspaper advice columns was “Dear Abby,” which ran in over 1200 newspapers at the height of its popularity.  It was written by Pauline Phillips from 1956 until 2000, when her daughter Jeanne Phillips took over.  

The second most popular advice column of that era, “Ask Ann Landers,” was written from 1955 to 2002 by Esther “Eppie” Lederer – who was Pauline Phillips’s twin sister!

Twin sisters Pauline Esther Friedman
and Esther Pauline Friedman

Phillips was named Pauline Esther Friedman by her parents, while Lederer’s birth name was Esther Pauline Friedman.  (Did someone tell their parents that it cost extra to give twins different names?)

Click here to listen to a John Prine’s 1973 recording of today’s featured song.

Click below to buy that recording from Amazon:

Hank Williams – "Mind Your Own Business" (1949)

Mindin’ other people’s business

Seems to be high-toned

I got all that I can do just to mind my own

Welcome one and all to the Church of 2 or 3 Lines!  

(Don't be afraid to sit in the front pew, ladies and gentlemen – no need to sit so far back!)

I have delivered many wildly popular sermons to you from this virtual pulpit since founding my church eleven-odd years ago – or, if you prefer, eleven odd years ago.  (The two expressions don’t have the same meaning, but both are accurate apropos of 2 or 3 lines.)

Today’s sermon may not be my most wildly popular one, but I don’t think I’ve ever delivered a truer one.

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I’d like to begin my sermon by quoting Mark 12:28-31, a very well-known New Testament passage that you’re probably familiar with:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that [Jesus] answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  

Jesus answered, “The most important is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater than these.”

(You’ve got to admit it: Jesus really knocked it out of the park that day.)

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With apologies to the author of the gospel of Mark – did you know that it was likely the first of the gospels to be written, and was the primary source used by the authors of Matthew and Luke? – here’s my paraphrase of the above passage:

And one of his Facebook friends signed on her account and asked 2 or 3 lines, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  

2 or 3 lines answered, “The most important is you shall mind your own business – not that of your parents nor that of your children nor that of your neighbors nor that of your co-workers, and especially not that of your husband and/or boyfriend!  The second is this: you shall shut the f*ck up!  There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The next several 2 or 3 lines posts will provide an exegesis of those commandments.  Some of you will quibble with that statement, arguing that what I have written is eisegetical rather than exegetical.

My grandmother would have responded thusly to that argument: Call me eisegetical, or call me exegetical – just don’t call me late for dinner!

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I’m about twice as old as Jesus was when he was crucified – older usually means wiser, so my commandments should be closer to the mark than his.

Of course, Jesus had God telling him what to say, which was a huge advantage – so I’m not going to claim that my commandments are superior to his.  

But I think they are pretty, pretty, pretty good.  

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I’m in a commandment-delivering mood today, so let me give you a few more of them.

Actually, these aren’t exactly “commandments.”  So I’m going to change my terminology from that of the Bible to that of the Declaration of Independence.

2 or 3 lines holds these truths to be self-evident:

– Any significant event from your past took place longer ago (usually, much longer ago) than you think it did.

– One sentence is usually all you need for a good paragraph.

– Less is usually more, and more is usually less.

– Retirement didn’t solve all of my problems, but none of those problems would be solved by my going to work every day.

– This too shall pass.

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2 or 3 lines is first and foremost a music blog, so here are some self-evident truths about music:

– The music of Bruce Springsteen mostly sucks.

– The music of the Grateful Dead mostly sucks.

– The music of Elvis Presley (not to mention the music of Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, and virtually every other fifties pop star except for Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis)  almost always sucks.

– The music of the Beatles doesn’t suck, but it is overrated – especially in comparison to the music of the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.

– Sgt. Pepper is overrated.  (Listen to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “She’s Leaving Home,” and especially “When I’m Sixty-Four” and tell me I’m wrong.)

– Their Satanic Majesties Request, which was recorded about the same time as Sgt. Pepper, is underrated.  (Listen to “Citadel,” “The Lantern,” “2000 Light Years from Home,” and “She’s a Rainbow” and tell me I’m wrong.)

– Nothing compares to Pet Sounds.

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I could do this kind of thing all day, but I’m going to stop there and give all of you time to splutter and fulminate and write nasty comments on my Facebook page.  

You’ll just be wasting your time if you do that, of course – to paraphrase Omar Khayyam,

2 or 3 lines writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

(Put that in your pipe and smoke it!)

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My knowledge of country-western music is far from comprehensive, but I know that Hank Williams is the ne plus ultra of country-western singer-songwriters.  (In  other words, he’s most definitely not overrated.)

So if you won’t listen to me when I tell you to mind your own business, maybe you’ll listen to him.  (But probably not.)

“Mind Your Own Business” was a 1949 hit for Williams, who also wrote the song.  It’s lyrics are as apropos now as they were 70-plus years ago.  If 2 or 3 lines had an official theme song, “Mind Your Own Business” might be it.

Just about everyone I know fails to obey my “mind your own business” commandment.  In the next several 2 or 3 lines posts, I will call out a number of newspaper advice columnists, who are among the worst sinners when it comes to breaking that commandment.

Click here to listen to “Mind Your Own Business” (which sounds a lot like Hank’s best song, “Move It On Over”).

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Beatles – "From Me to You" (1963)

Da da da da da dum dum da

Da da da da da dum dum da

Imagine you’re a 20-year-old whose band has become the biggest pop-culture phenomenon in the entire world.

Your popularity is such that when you perform live – which is virtually every night – the screams of the early-stage adolescent girls who flock to your sold-out shows are so loud that you can’t hear your own voices or instruments.

You spend most of your days traveling to your next live gig, or doing radio and TV appearances.  Occasionally you take a day off to go into the studio in order to satisfy the unprecedented demand for your records.

Paul McCartney at age 20

You cover a lot of songs that were originally released by other artists, but  you also record original songs that you wrote with your friend and fellow band member.  Some of those songs date back to when the two of you were teenaged schoolboys, while others were cranked out in hotel rooms or on your tour bus.

Literally every record you release sells like hotcakes.  As quick as you get one out the door, your management is rushing you to get back into the studio to record the next one as quickly as you can.

Did I mention that you’re 20 years old?

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Given all that, it comes as no surprise that you cut a few corners when it comes to the songs that you and your mate write.  

The two of you have more song ideas than you know what to do with.  But what you don’t have is the time or the inclination to develop those ideas into fully-grown songs.

One of your hit songs has only one verse, which you repeat no fewer than four times.  But no matter: that record makes it to #1 anyway.  

Another of your early song-writing efforts isn’t good enough to be released as a single – both you and your partner acknowledge that fact – so you make it the B-side of a much better song.  And a funny thing happens: that B-side ends up in the top 40 on its own right.

Is it any surprise that you just keep cranking out one little “songlet” after another rather than slowing down and taking the time to create fully-realized songs with deeper and broader lyrical content?

No, that comes as no surprise at all.  I would have handled things in exactly the same way that Paul McCartney handled them if I had been in his place when I was 20 years old – which is to say that I would have sat down with John Lennon and written the best song we could write in half an hour’s time, taken a break to count my money, and then retired for the evening with as many young lovelies as I could fit into my hotel room.

(Hell, forget “when I was 20” – that’s exactly how I would handle things today.)

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John Lennon and Paul McCartney began writing “From Me to You” on February 28, 1963, while they were on a tour bus heading to Shrewsbury to open for 16-year-old headliner Helen Shapiro.  (Ever hear of Helen Shapiro before?  Neither had I.)

The song’s title was inspired by “From You to Us,” which was the letters section of the New Musical Express.  (As McCartney once noted, the Beatles’ early songs tended to include the words “I,” “me,” or “you” in them as a way of making them “very direct and personal” to the band's fans.)

More about “From Me to You” from John Lennon:

The night Paul and I wrote “From Me To You,” we were on the Helen Shapiro tour, on the coach, traveling from York to Shrewsbury.  We weren’t taking ourselves seriously – just fooling around on the guitar – when we began to get a good melody line, and we really started to work at it.  Before that journey was over, we’d completed the lyric, everything.  I think the first line was mine and we took it from there.  

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Roger Greenaway of the Kestrels – another one of the groups who were part of that Helen Shapiro tour – later told this story to an interviewer:

John and Paul were sitting at the back of the coach and Kenny Lynch, who at this time fancied himself as a songwriter, sauntered up to the back of the coach and . . . decided he would help them write a song.  After a period of about half an hour had elapsed and nothing seemed to be coming from the back, Kenny rushed to the front and shouted, “Well, that’s it.  I am not going to write any more of that bloody rubbish with those idiots.  They don't know music from their backsides.  That’s it!  No more help from me!”

You’ve probably never heard of Kenny Lynch, but he was a very successful singer/songwriter.  Two of his 1963 releases made it to the top ten in the UK, and he also wrote hit songs for Cilia Black and the Small Faces.  But he is best remembered as the first artist other than the Beatles themselves to record a Lennon-McCartney song.  That song was “Misery,” which John and Paul had written in the hope that Helen Shapiro would record it. 

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“Please Please Me” was the Beatles’ first #1 single in the UK, and “From Me to You” was their second.

Capitol Records – which had the rights to release those records in the U.S. – declined to do so.  Both records were released on lesser labels in 1963, but neither one charted.

Vee-Jay Records reissued “Please Please Me” in January 1964, just before the Fab Four appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.  It eventually peaked at the #3 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100” – trailing only “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You.”  

“From Me to You” was re-released as the B-side for “Please Please Me.”  It made it to #41 on the “Hot 100.”  

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Paul McCartney thought “From Me to You” was a songwriting milestone for John and him.  He was especially pleased with the song’s bridge, or “middle eight”:

The thing I liked about “From Me to You” was it had a very complete middle.  It went to a surprising place.  The opening chord of the middle section of that song heralded a new batch for me.  That was a pivotal song.  Our songwriting lifted a little with that song. . . . This was our real start.

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“From Me to You” is really a 50-second-long “songlet.”  That’s how long it takes for the Beatles to get through the first and second verses and the bridge.

After that, it’s all repetition.  First, the Beatles repeat both those verses and the bridge.  (The only real difference the second time through is that they turn the first half of the second verse into a four-bar harmonica solo.)

That only gets them to 1:30.  So they repeat the first verse yet again, tack on a quick outro, and call it a day a few seconds short of the two-minute mark.

One final note: “From Me To You” was the first Beatles single to feature a falsetto “Woooo,” but far from the last.  In fact, their very next single – “She Loves You” – also included this Beatles trademark.

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I could go on deconstructing early Lennon-McCartney songs for months, but I won’t.

2 or 3 lines will have more to say about the Beatles in the very near future – I think some of you have missed the point of this year’s 28 POSTS IN 28 DAYS!, and I’m going to try one more time to clear things up.

But I need to take a break and mull things over for a week or two first.  So my next few posts will be about something completely different.

Click here to listen to “From Me to You.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Beatles – "Thank You Girl" (1964)

I could tell the world

A thing or two about our love

I know, little girl,

Only a fool would doubt our love

Just because 28 POSTS IN 28 DAYS! is over doesn’t mean that my unrelenting vendetta against the Beatles is over!

If you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with beating a dead horse to death – and that’s exactly what I intend to do for the next two or three 2 or 3 lines posts.

(See what I did there?)

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This year’s 28 POSTS IN 28 DAYS! was critical of a number of the early Lennon-McCartney songs – most of which were really “songlets” rather than fully-developed songs, and which were nothing special when it came to lyrics.

That’s not surprising given how busy the Beatles were in 1963 (the year they became UK superstars) and 1964 (when they exploded in popularity in the US).

According to Goldmine magazine, the Beatles released four singles, three EPs, and two albums in the UK in 1963.  In addition, they appeared on radio 49 times and on television 35 times, and made an astonishing 287 additional live appearances. 

In February of that year, for example, they played a total of 27 gigs in 25 different venues.  (They did three shows that month at the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool.  Otherwise it was all one-night stands.) 

The Fab Four played ten shows between February 1 and February 9.  After taking February 10 off, they went to London and recorded ten songs for the Please Please Me album in a little less than ten hours.  (Mark Lewisohn’s 1988 book, The Beatles Recording Sessions, states that the actual recording time was 585 minutes.)

The bill for that day’s recording session was only £400.  (By contrast, it took 14 years and cost over $13 million to produce Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy album.)

The next day, the Beatles did not one, but two live shows – the first in Sheffield, the second about an hour’s drive away in a Manchester suburb.  

That kicked off a stretch of 20 gigs in 21 days – which might have been 21 gigs in 21 days but for the fact that they took March 5 off to record “Thank You Girl” (today’s featured song) and “From Me to You” (which will be the subject of the next 2 or 3 lines).

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Lennon and McCartney rhyme “about” and “doubt” in the second verse of today’s featured song – but that rhyme is what we English majors called a “middle rhyme” rather than the more common “end rhyme.”  (In an end rhyme, the rhyming words are at the end of the line – in a middle rhyme, they aren’t.)

As soon as I heard “Thank You Girl,” I was reminded of T.I.’s 2006 hit, “What You Know,” which is one of my favorite rap songs of all time.

T.I. salutes 2 or 3 lines

“What You Know” also features an “about”/“doubt” middle rhyme – and then rhymes “out” for good measure:

Don’t talk about me, dawg

And if you doubt me, dawg

You’d better out me, dawg

(“What You Know” is such a good song, albeit a really despicable song – it glorifies drug abuse, gun violence, misogynism, and wasting energy, among other things.  Click here to listen to it.)

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Here’s the first verse of “Thank You Girl”:

You’ve been good to me

You made me glad when I was blue

And eternally 

I”ll always be in love with you

The first two lines are sooooo generic – which is true of so many of the Lennon-McCartney lyrics of this era.  (I actually think that the lyrics are the least important element of a pop song, so that’s not a fatal flaw as far as I’m concerned.  But the lyrics of most good sixties songs give you a lot more to work with than “Thank You Girl” and most of the other Lennon-McCartney songs of the Beatlemania era.)

John and Paul must have been thrilled to come up with the word “eternally” for the third line – because it had four syllables, it could do the work of four one-syllable words.  (Note how few words in this song have more than one syllable – other than “eternally,” the only multisyllabic words in the whole song are “always,” “about,” “only,” and “loving.”)

“Eternally” is redundant, of course – the next line is “I’ll always be in love with you,” and “always” and “eternally” are pretty much the same word.  (To quote the immortal David Byrne, “Say something once, why say it again?”)

But as I noted above, “eternally” does the work of four words here – so no way they’re getting rid of it.  After all, it might take two or three minutes to come up with words to replace it.  

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Several of this year’s 28 POSTS IN 28 DAYS! have quoted Matt Blick’s Beatles Songwriting Academy blog, which is an absolutely essential resource for those who want to understand what makes Beatles songs what they are.

Matt is a big Beatles fan – he describes himself as “sitting reverently at the feet of Lennon and McCartney” – but he’s not afraid to call a spade a spade.

Matt Blick

He says that “Thank You Girl” is one of only two Lennon and McCartney songs “that don’t really hold any interest for songwriters.” (“Misery” is the other.)

“It’s hard to believe that a ‘paint by numbers’ effort like ‘Thank You Girl’ was ever in the running to be a single,” Blick adds.  

But it was.  “Thank You Girl” was originally intended to be the Beatles’ third single (after “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me”), until they came up with “From Me To You.”

So “Thank You Girl” became the B-side for “From Me to You” when it was released in the UK in 1963.

The next year, “Thank You Girl” was released in the U.S. as the B-side of “Do You Want to Know a Secret?”  Even though it was a B-side, the American obsession with the Beatles was at such a fever pitch in the spring of 1964 that “Thank You Girl” became a top-forty hit in its own right. 

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More on “Thank You Girl” from The Beatles Bible (another essential Beatles resource):

Originally titled ‘Thank You, Little Girl,” the song was intended as a message of gratitude for the support from the group’s fans.  As McCartney explained, “We knew that if we wrote a song called ‘Thank You Girl’ that a lot of the girls who wrote us fan letters would take it as a genuine thank you. So a lot of our songs were directly addressed to the fans.”

In many of their early songs, such as “Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me,” and “P.S. I Love You,” the two songwriters used the trick of including “I,” “me,” or “you” in the title to make it seem more personal.

If you were Lennon and McCartney, writing song lyrics wasn’t rocket science, boys and girls.

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Paul McCartney rarely has anything bad to say about one of his songs.  But he was honest about “Thank You Girl”:

These early songs were wonderful to learn by and were good album fillers. [“Thank You Girl” was a] bit of a hack song really, but all good practice.

He got no argument from Lennon, who had this to say about “Thank You Girl” in 1980:  

“Thank You Girl” was one of our efforts at writing a single that didn’t work. So it became a B-side.

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Click here to listen to “Thank You Girl.”  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: