ohthreeindex

All about the songs of Ohthree

Get Out Now
A Fool Such as I
Survive
Dog Songs #’s 1. & 2.
Midnight Dreamer
That Song About the Midway
Don’t You Want a Love That’s Real?
Nightbird/The Drunken Hiccups
Taking the Long Way Home
Hobo’s Lullaby
Good Luck Charm
Good Girl
I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You
We Shall Meet Some Day

I decided back in 1998 to make my next album, whenever I made it, around Maurine's McLean’s song "Good Girl." That May I had lost my dear friend, Puppy, and as the year wore on it became clear to me that my mother was looking at her last days on Earth. I wasn't having any fun singing “Good Girl” in those days - mostly I just broke down. Sometimes I couldn't even finish it. Sometimes I still can't finish it, but those occasions are rare these days.

The theme of the album was to be: making a decision. As I look at the titles now, strangely enough, that theme held up pretty well. But it ended up being was fairly unconscious. After I got going I found myself choosing songs that people have requested most through the years and somehow they all worked together. One song that didn't get on this album was one called "Move to the City." (not the Guns & Roses cut!) I could never find the composer. Gary P. Nunn used to sing it. He told me he can't remember who wrote it. If you know, please tell me. I forgot about another song that I should have included, a song by Austin songwriter, producer and drummer Terri Lord called "Heart."

Maybe next time.

Get Out Now by Ilene Weiss
This song is one of many of the fine, fine songs of Ilene Weiss. I can't remember if she sang this back in our New York days or not. I have some of Ilene's albums with me to sell at gigs, if you want to look at them. They're great, not only with Ilene's great material and performing, but some of New York's (New York!!) finest musicians.

Ilene lives in New Jersey and works in the Tri-State Area as a therapeutic clown. I snapped this digital
at the Newark Street Starbucks in Hoboken.

Musicians: Louise Goldberg, keyboard; Elyse Angelo, drums: Darcie Deaville, Octo-Blaster: Mary Freeh, Christine Freeh, Joanne Trombley, Rosalind Cravens, Robert Erwin & Adrian Thompson, “get out now!” Mary C. Reynolds, guitar, bass & vocals.

A Fool Such as I by Bill Trader

I started learning this song back in 1989 or so. Country was interesting back in those days, and one of the stars brought it back - Baillie and the Boys? (Yes. A quick visit to ascap.com tells me that this tune has a sparkling history – in addition to the well-known versions by Hank Snow & Elvis Presley, it’s also been recorded by Eddy Arnold, Willie Nelson, Jim Reeves, Paul Anka, Jo Stafford and Bob Dylan.) Anyway, I knew it all except for the second verse: I was writing an arrangement for Rosalind Cravens to sing with the Sisters of Swing. That project was laid aside when I moved to Austin. Then about 1994 Emily Kaitz took me out to see Don Walser down on 6th Street, and when I heard him start this song, I said, "Gimme a napkin, quick!" and scribbled the words down. We started performing it on the same night that we first performed Seeds and Stems (Again.) It became a great favorite of Chip Dolan, and I fondly remember our friendship whenever I sing it.

I also think of Tommy Perkins, who asked me to record this song for him but I never got around to it. I was thrilled to have him play on this recording, but he never got to hear the final version.

Musicians: Louise Goldberg, keyboard; Tommy Perkins, drums; Greg Lowry, dobro; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar, bass & vocal.

Survive by M.C. Reynolds

I included this song at the behest of several fans. It was the first song I wrote that I kept. That was in 1977. There was a 45 back in 1980. I'll letcha hear it for a hunnerd bucks. Naw, just kidding. Fifty. I remember I sat on the floor of my room in my parents' house and my legs fell asleep before I finished it. Two verses and the chorus came all at once - another verse - I think the third - came about 2 weeks later.

There is a live solo version of “Survive” at efolkmusic.org – recorded in 1999 at Uncle Calvin’s. It’s free. Free.

The lyrics are mine to do with as I please, so I reprint them here for you.

My heart is like a still, soft pillow upon which no head is laid
A heart that would glad receive you if only that you had stayed
But my head is a cold hard mistress and the feeling is coming on
You won't be following after and I'd best be up and gone.

Chorus: Can't live with a heart that's broken,
Can't be with a love that ain't around
And never a word been spoken
To shatter that silent sound
I'm not saying that I don't love you
Or wouldn't come to your side
But babe, if I must forget you
I'll do it to survive

I got faith in the sunrise coming but I can see in the morning light
That faith in a distant lover ain't keeping me warm at night
So before I'll wasten for you, before I will live in pain
I'll be an old cowman's pony, no sense to come in out of the rain

Chorus

Your arms were a sweet pavilion and your breast was a soft warm home
But if I cannot be near you, I may as well be out on the road
And I know you won't come with me and I must go on alone
With a face like a loaded pistol and a heart like a sinking stone

Chorus

Musicians: Elyse Angelo, drums; Darcie Deaville, fiddle & Octo-Blaster; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar, bass & vocals.

The Dog Songs by M.C.Reynolds

I used to sing Puppy songs that I made up on the spot. Since I'm not a prolific writer I scraped the bottom of the barrel of my creativity and decided to offer these little ditties as fiddle tunes, with the capable help of my friend Darcie Deaville, an inspired interpreter of fiddle music. Did you know Darcie has several great works out? Why don't you go check them out right now?

Here are the lyrics: simple perhaps, but Puppy loved them.

Dog Song #1 pup & me, 1983 photo: elyse angelo

You are a very good dog,
You are a very good dog
You are a very good dog,
You are a very good dog
You are a very good dog,
You are a very good dog
You are a very good dog, today.

Dog Song #2

You're the best little dog I've got,
best little dog I've got
You're the best little dog I've got,
best little dog I've got
I can find your ticklish spot,
find your ticklish spot
I can find your ticklish spot,
find your ticklish spot

Oh, you're so good, Puppy you're a good dog
Oh, you're so good,
you're the best little dog I've got
Oh, you're so good, Puppy you're a good dog
Oh, you're so good,
you're the best little dog I've got

At the end of each song Puppy would give me a kiss. It was 3 years before I could sing them to any other dog. Don't ask me to sing them at gigs. I can play them if you want.

I made up a lot of words to popular tunes for her, too. Here are a few:

(tune: Mexican Hat Dance)
The pup, the pup, the pup
Your hair is all messed up. (repeated)

ya da da da da, da da da, hot dog (etc.)
ya da da da da, da da da, dog!

(tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic)
We are going to go to Auntie Mary's house (repeated)
To Auntie Mary’s house!

Auntie Mary, of course, is Mary Freeh of the Sisters of Swing, at whose home Pup was routinely spoiled.

Musicians: Darcie Deaville, mandolin & fiddle, Mary C. Reynolds, guitar.

Midnight Dreamer by Gail Lewis

Just after I left Austin my friend Gail Lewis asked me to help her get an album out. Although I knew it would mean a lot of travel and tsuris for me, there was something compelling about the project to me so I agreed. Turns out Gail made a beautiful album, "Where the Great Blue Flies," and it was way more than worth the trouble.

We really wanted to get this song "Great Blue" but we just ran out of time. I started singing it and audiences really responded to it, even though it's not my story. I'm not much for California, but I know what it's like to feel tears at the sight of dry grass. Gail let me alter the words for my version, mostly because I don't have hair that color.

Photo on my wall of Mount Diablo
That dry grass, color of your hair
Hike up, slide down, past the oak trees
To the top, overlooking it all
I walked there alone and later with you
In our hiking boots, under the moonlight
Oh, midnight caller in the morning
Same old same old, growing older
Oh, midnight dreamer in the morning
Same old same old, growing older

Your brother, your wife, they both tell me how you feel
When I ask you, you just laugh like it's all absurd
I know you're feeling something, you're not laughing at me
You're still out hiking in those hills, you just never were much one for words
You walked there alone and later with me
Through barbed wire, under the moonlight
Oh, midnight caller in the morning
Same old same old, growing older
Oh, midnight dreamer in the morning
Same old same old, growing older

Last week I took a plane home for free,
Four sunny days my mom pampered me
Stuffed me with food, bought me new clothes
The sight of that dry glass on the borderline brought tears to my eyes
I walked there alone and later with you
Holding hands, under the moonlight
Oh, midnight caller in the morning
Same old same old, growing older
Oh, midnight dreamer in the morning
Same old same old, growing older

Musicians: Darcie Deaville, mandolin; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocal.

That Song About the Midway by Joni Mitchell

I used to sing this in the old days in Norman, at Monday nights at the Library Bar. I worked up this arrangement in standard tuning so I wouldn’t have to retune – that makes me nervous on stage.

Musician: Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocal.

Don't You Want a Love That's Real? by Emily Kaitz

This was the first Emily Kaitz song I ever learned. I performed it with the Therapy Sisters at Emilyfest, a concert where many Austin musicians (and some came from out of town) performed Emily's songs. I haven't done it much since Austin days, but folks have asked me about it from time to time, so I thought it was time to get it recorded.

These are the correct lyrics, reprinted by permission from Emily Kaitz

I’ve been doing some thinking, cause I’ve had some time
One main advantage of a broken affair
Wondering what has led to this rift in our lives,
Could it be that you just didn’t care?
But I know that’s not the answer, so I look for a clue
Your lack of explanation might conceal

Chorus: What’s the matter baby?
Don’t you want a love that’s real?

Now you’re dreaming about some fantasy girl
She’s so easy to have around
You can pick her up any time you like
She don’t complain when you put her down
And although I might prefer you choosin’ me over her
I think I understand the way that you feel

Chorus

Bridge: You think that love is so fine, but love is too pure
To let the dregs of day to day reality obscure
You need it so bad, but you keep holding back
Unwilling to give up that sweet loneliness you have

Don’t brag to me of lovers cause I’ve had my share
But I always seem to let them go
Don’t know what it is, somehow they just can’t compare
With some fella that I don’t even know
And I catch myself appraising my face in the mirror
Might be something that these eyes can reveal
Afraid you’ll undermine that sweet loneliness you have

Chorus

Copyright 1980 Emily Kaitz

Emily is kind enough to allow me some freedom when singing her songs, and this is what I actually sang:

On the second bridge: instead of “unwilling to give up” – it’s “afraid to undermine that sweet loneliness you have.

In the last verse, I sing “body” instead of “fella.” And instead of “catch myself appraising” I sing “I find myself appealing to the face in the mirror.” Maurine McLean really liked that change.

Musicians: Louise Goldberg, keyboard & middle vocal; Elyse Angelo, drums; Greg Lowry, dobro; Kristall Bright, high vocal; Nancy Nesser, low vocal; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar, bass & vocal.

Nightbird by M.C.Reynolds

We put down the basic tracks of this song on Saturday, April 19th, 2003: the night before Easter Sunday. So I recorded all afternoon and then I had to go sing, as I usually do, at Saint Paul's. I said: “Just go ahead and record. Whatever you get, I'll like.” That's real different for me. Usually I micromanage everything. When I came back they'd gotten not only the fiddle solo but this delightful little coda where Darcie plays and sings a little bit of "The Drunken Hiccups" which is a variant of "The Cuckoo Song" which has myriad versions and melodies that branch out all over folk music. It was the perfect ending, since "Nightbird" is also based on "The Cuckoo Song." On the tape, Darcie's performance crowded the beginning of "Taking the Long Way Home," where I was counting off the song for reference. We left all that technical stuff on the album for transparency.

Later we hooked up my Taylor 712R to an empty channel and let it react to the vocal as a kind of six-string reverb. How do you like the effect? We didn't get everything we wanted out of it, but it was fun.

Here are the award-winning lyrics. (not.)

oh the nightbird she’s a pretty bird
and she whistles as she flies
but she never hollers cuckoo
when the sun is in the sky
I went out to the edge of town
to weep and watch the sun go down
and in the quiet pines so dark and tall
I thought I heard the nightbird call (me)

now the nightbird is a rare thing
and few have ever seen
but I swear that night I saw her
close enough to see the moonlight
gleaming in her eyes as she flew by
I know I can’t touch her but I try
and then the wind falls close and still
wild dogs howling on the very next hill

like a dream you can’t remember
when you open up your eyes
forms and shadows get new meaning
when the sun is on the rise
sometimes coming clear
sometimes disappear
like the morning star of a summer dawn
first to appear and then be gone
well I don’t go to the woods at night
I stay in town where the lights are bright
and I’ll tune my fiddle and I’ll rosin my bow
I’ll wear out my welcome wherever I go
(alternate: and I’ll raise up a ruckus wherever I go)

Copyright m.c. reynolds 1998

Musicians: Elyse Angelo, drums; Darcie Deaville, fiddle, Octo-blaster, vocal & concept on “The Drunken Hiccups,” Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocal.

Taking the Long Way Home by Ilene Weiss
In a perfect world, you’d be hearing this on your commercial radio station. Female songwriters are so often compared to Joni Mitchell, but I’d put Ilene up with Carole King. It’s a great thing to be a wordsmith, but it’s another step to be accessible – to write something that a lot of people can relate to. Ilene is all that.

Musician: Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocal.

Hobo's Lullaby Lyrics by Goebel Reeves, Melody by M.C. Reynolds

This song was Woody Guthrie’s favorite song (at least part of his life) and is traditionally sung at Woody Guthrie events. The version I recorded is not the original melody. So let me explain myself.

I was first asked to sing “Hobo’s Lullaby” for the Woody Guthrie Tribute at the Blue Door in July of 1996. It was a terrible time for me personally. I had just moved into a house with a terrible landlady (in one of those incomparable Austin summers) when I got a call from my mother.

“Your grandmother is in the hospital. You better make some plans.”

I told her, I’ll make a reservation. That night my grandmother, Amanda Young Dooley, died, and I spent the next week with my mother, trying to hold her up while she dealt with losing a parent when she herself was an old woman. In the meantime I was listening to Sarah Elizabeth Campbell’s version of “Hobo’s Lullaby” from the Pastures of Plenty” collection and doing my best to remember all the words. At the Tribute I was so overcome by emotion that I just had to sing whatever came out, and this was the melody that came out. Then I just kept singing it that way, and it worked for the arrangement, and I forgot about the real melody until somebody reminded me.

As it turns out, according to the Old Town School of Folk Music, that melody wasn’t composed by Reeves anyway, but was borrowed from a Civil War song, “Just Before the Battle, Mother.”

When you listen to this song, I hope you give thanks for all the blessings in your life, for the roof over your head, for every day you’ve passed without hunger, enjoyed with friends and family, hoped for the future.

Musicians: Louise Goldberg, keyboard; Greg Lowry, dobro; Kristall Bright & Nancy Nesser, vocals; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocal.

Good Luck Charm by A. Shroeder & W. Gold

I almost put this song on “Patience” but I just wasn’t ready. I’m glad I waited, because although Phil Bass and Elyse Angelo are excellent drummers, I was able to get the incomparable Tommy Perkins on this one.

Musicians: Louise Goldberg, keyboard & vocal; Tommy Perkins, drums; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocals.

Good Girl by Maurine McLean

It got pretty crowded recording this number: we had to break the singers into two groups and record them separately. The six percussionists are all Elyse Angelo. You can find more of the music of Maurine McLean and her musical and life-long partner, Lisa Rogers, at TherapyWebCentral. Also, Maurine wrote a song I recorded on Patience, “Castles in Spain.”

Louise Goldberg, keyboard; Elyse Angelo, maracas, guiro, cowbell, congas, timbales, claves, cymbal, bass drum; Christine Freeh, Kristall Bright, Rosalind Cravens & Mary Reynolds, sopranos; Joanne Trombley, Mary Freeh & Nancy Nesser, altos; Don Lusk & Robert Erwin, tenors; Phil Carlton & Doug Rogez, baritones; Mary C. Reynolds, handclaps, guitar, bass & vocal.

I Can't Help Falling in Love with You by George Weiss, Hugo Peretti & Luigi Creatore

I didn’t intend to make this album some kind of Elvis Tribute. Really. It just turned that a lot of Elvis songs ended up on Ohthree, in part because people have requested songs that they like from my live shows, and Elvis covers are high on that list. This is an arrangement I came up with when I had just moved to Austin (1993) but hadn’t found work yet. I was also learning material for the Woody Guthrie Tribute at La Zona Rosa (in Austin) that year. So I was spending a lot of time on the porch swing, working out different things, especially on Pat Metheny’s tune “James.” That tune has many of the same chord changes, so I ended up working on “Can’t Help Falling.” I try to completely eliminate triplets from this tune especially, and I’m biased against triplets in general.

Nancy Nesser deserves a lot of credit for getting this track out. Because of the limitations of all audio reproduction as opposed to the human ear, recordings have to be compressed somewhat. We knew it would be compressed in the mastering process, but Nancy turned off the compression in the studio and rode the fader to keep the take from peaking out. True dedication.

Musicians: Louise Goldberg, keyboard; Mary C. Reynolds, guitar & vocal.

We Shall Meet Someday by Tillit Sidney Teddlie

This tune is was composed by a unique and rare individual – a hymn composer from the Church of Christ, which while producing fine singers from the tradition of a capella singing, has given the world few composers of note. Mr. Tillit Sidney Teddlie also wrote another favorite of mine, “Precious Feast.” ("When We Meet in Sweet Communion.") I heard “We Shall Meet Some Day” sung in my growing-up years in the Church of Christ, but I thank Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin for showing me how beautiful a piece it really is on their album, “Stay Awhile.”

Musicians: Kristall Bright & Nancy Nesser, vocals; Mary C. Reynolds, guitars, bass & vocal.