BIBJ Playlist of the 2000s entry #93: Fort Hood by Mike Doughty

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Mike Doughty wrote about the meaning behind the song "Fort Hood," released in 2008.  He further elaborated on Stereogum:

I wouldn't call this an anti-war song, because I'm not gonna rail about who lied about what. Too late for that. I'm concerned about lost innocence, and damaged young bodies and minds. I think I say it most directly in the bridge: "You should be getting stoned with a prom dress girl...You should blast Young Jeezy with your friends in a parking lot." 

Not to mention my own guilt at being able to live a normal life while that nightmare is going on over there.
The USO invited me to Walter Reed a couple years back; I met a bunch of guys who had lost their limbs. Young guys. But I know that you don't have to be wounded to be scarred by war.

My Dad was in the Army, and I grew up in the 70s on Army bases; he, and basically all the adult men around, had been in Vietnam. There was a lot of weird, angry behavior that was baffling to me as a kid, but now I recognize as post-traumatic stress disorder. That's what I wonder about when I see guys in uniform coming back from the war, sitting around an airport; what's in this guy's head? What has he witnessed? What kind of terrible images is he burdened with?

It's oddball in indie-rock-land to steal a chorus and repurpose it; I grew up with house and hiphop music, so sampling seems very natural to me, the only difference is that I'm actually singing it. Actually, I downloaded (OK, stole) an MP3 of the Japanese cast of Hair. The verses were hilarious and strange, of course, but when the chorus came in, it suddenly switched to English: let the sunshine in, let the sunshine in. I was listening to it on the D train over the Manhattan bridge and suddenly I found myself tearing up, extremely moved.

While this song might now become inadvertently infamous, it'll pale in comparison to the overall eeriness and timing that marked Ryan Adams' "New York, New York."   But sometimes on occasions like Thursday, even the hackneyed cheesy refrain from Hair can seem oddly life-affirming. Sometimes that's the best you can hope for.

BIBJ Playlist of the 2000s entry #55: The Only Answer by Mike Doughty

Full Details of the BIBJ Millennial Playlist Hullabaloo are available here. Today's entry is #55: The Only Answer by Mike Doughty (2000)


William Faulkner said that, "Memory believes before knowing remembers." I'm certain that I heard Mike Doughty perform "The Only Answer" the same night he rocked my socks with "True Dreams of Wichita" and "The Gambler." However, the bare-bones verse-chorus-verse may just be floating in the ether of wishful thinking. Regardless, "The Only Answer" is and remains a true piece of beauty.

It's four chords and a capo barely clocking two minutes. Hell, the first song I ever learned on guitar - some disembodied, authorless campfire song - was the same exact chords. So, in essence, I could have hammered out this gem when I was fifteen years old. Sort of.

Therein lies the beauty. Every kid with a guitar thinks they can not just play but write and rewrite this song. Imitation abounds. Case in point:



It's just not the same. Neither is this:



I'm not merely poking fun. Most of you imitators are earnest. Sure you've taught your fingers to play an F without that annoying fret buzz. Sure you think that you could easily tell some festering dalliance that, "Five years in the wrong I am assured/my name to you is just another word." But you can't. And that frustration better turn into appreciation or you'll be the guy at the party with the guitar.

The version on Skittish is further embellished with some double-tracked vocals and glowing organ, but the genius again is in the simplicity and execution.

Learning chords and lyrics do not a poet make.