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SIX POINT TWO
The front end of this song
was written in the grocery store parking lot.
When I got home it became an exercise in
constrained lyric creation. Dedicated to my wife
Laurie. Though she may have been approximately
6.2 miles from me when I was at the grocery
store, she is ever closer to my heart each day.
Jangle Pete - guitars, vocals
OUTSIDE AND SMILE
Oddly enough, another
grocery store theme. A nod to the inner
dialog that happens to every sane person.
We all assume that we are the ones that
are normal, and that everyone else is - well,
abnormal. The ego can be a wonderful
swimming pool...
Jangle Pete - guitars, bass, synth, vocals
CESSNA
DEVOTION
This
song was written in 1992. I was reading
the Erie newspaper and as soon as I
read about Randy Mock of Alberta Canada flying his Cessna 2 seater
into his ex-girlfriend's living room (and
surviving), I knew I had to write a song about
it. Most of the lyrics came straight from
eye-witness quotes from the newspaper article.
Yes, he fueled up the plane before dawn and
began buzzing the woman's neighborhood.
Yes, he really flicked a cigarette out of the
cockpit window.
Yes, he really radioed in
and mentioned that his fuel was low...
and yes,
he really did glide the plane right into her
living room.
Now that
is true devotion.
BAZOOKA JOE FUN FACT: No one was killed, but Randy
suffered some head injuries.
Jangle Pete - guitars, bass, keys, percussion, vocals
(back to top)
ANIMAL
CRACKER JACKPOT
It's a swell story about a girl born in North
Carolina who becomes a beauty pageant winner in
Wyoming, attends school at Brigham Young in
Utah, meets a man she becomes obsessed with,
stalks him, trails him to England, kidnaps him,
"rapes" him, is caught and arrested, jumps bail,
flees to Canada, returns to the U.S., is
arrested in Utah for stalking him again, jumps
bail again, moves on to Georgia and attempts to
burglarize a house to raise money so she can buy
a prosthetic leg for her three-legged horse,
becomes enamored with her pet pit bull "Booger"
and recently is discovered in South Korea after
having the scientists there clone five pups from
the deceased Booger's ear. I am
NOT
making this up...
BAZOOKA JOE FUN FACT:
A "Black Maria"
is a British police wagon. There is a
photo of her holding a hand-scrawled sign up to
the barred window of the police wagon
proclaiming that Kirk was a willing participant
in these shenanigans. Proof that not all
the cuckoo's are in the Black Forest...
Jangle Pete - guitars, percussion
Dave
Sturtevant - guitars, vocals
(back to top)
COLLAR BOMB
This is a popular local news story here in the
Erie area, but it also made national headlines.
The story is tragic, yet so unusual that I felt I should go ahead
and write a song about it. The question
that kept running through my head while I wrote
this song was "How could you ever convince
yourself (or others) that this is a good idea?"
It appears the attempted bank
robbery was the result of a conspiracy.
Basically, the conspirators placed a home made
explosive device around the neck of a pizza
delivery man (who is now believed to be an
accomplice as well) and forced him to walk into a bank
and rob it. Suffice it to say, the bank
job was unsuccessful and ended with the death of
the pizza delivery man. The names and
details in the song are taken from actual news
stories as the investigation unfolded.
Two folks are now in jail for the crime, and
"Miss Marjorie Diehl" is (I'm assuming)
still awaiting
the mothership to take her back to her home
planet.
Jangle
Pete - guitars, keyboard, percussion,
vocals, backing vocals
Mike
Miller - guitars
(back to top)
RAN DOWN THE
WRONG MAN
This song refers to a criminal case near Erie PA
in which one man (Kenneth Himrod) was accused of (and under
investigation for) child molestation. Another
man, Terry Sherlock (who was known to be an unemployed and
semi-professional drinker in his community) was
informed by his ex-gal that his adolescent son
may have been molested by the
aforementioned man.
After time passes, he ends
up going to the local police station letting
them know that he is: a) unhappy with the pace
of the molestation investigation against Kenneth
Himrod; b) planning to
take matters into his own hands and; c)
requesting help for his own mental instability
in regard to the whole affair. The police know
Terry Sherlock and can see that he is intoxicated, but
allow him to leave the police station anyway.
Within hours
the accused molester is gunned down in his
trailer home. Yes, the intoxicated Terry
Sherlock got
hold of a gun and took matters into his own
hands, as he said he would.
SO- who did the wrong
thing here?
Don't assume by the
lyrics that I'm referring to the police
releasing him from the station. The
lyrics fit equally well in reference to Mr. Sherlock
and HIS actions. Fair law never looked so
blurry...
BAZOOKA JOE FUN FACT:
He was arrested while wearing his "World's
Greatest Dad"
T-shirt.
Jangle
Pete - guitars, drums,percussion, vocals
Dave
Sturtevant - guitar, bass
Jay Hitt
- lead guitar, backing vocals
Mike
Miller - lead guitar
(back to top)
TRAVELING
JESUS
A company
that makes GPS tracking systems offered to place
tracking devices into nativity figurines during
the holidays to thwart would-be Jesus thieves.
The news story I read from Florida stated that a
figurine of the baby Jesus (valued at around
$1800) was stolen from an outdoor nativity
scene. The figurine was recovered using
the GPS device- it was
found lying face down on the carpet, in the
apartment of an 18 year old woman. Again I
ask: What the heck were you thinking?
Didn't your mother tell you that was wrong?
Shame shame shame...
BAZOOKA JOE FUN FACT:
The shout you hear at the very end was me
yelling into the guitar pickup.
Jangle
Pete - guitars, drums, synth, percussion
Jay Hitt
- guitar, bass, backing vocals
(back to top)
A LITTLE
PRAYER (gimmee that cash)
Not a news
story, but a true story. A friend of mine
had a job that paid cash for courier work.
The business that hired him had a fleet of cars
in various states of mechanical failure.
As my friend outlined his experiences with the
various cars, he noted that after each trip he
would return to the office, hand over the keys
and say "There's something wrong with this car".
They would simply have him drive another car for
his next deliveries and upon his return, he
would be forced to pass the keys over and
reiterate:
"There's
something wrong with this car".
Gimmee that
cash, let me make that stash...
Jangle
Pete - guitars, drums, bass, vocals
Eric
Brewer - rhythm guitar, lead guitar
(back to top)
Gypsy Reflection
I purchased
an inexpensive hollow body electric guitar on
Ebay. I unboxed it, created this open
tuning and started playing this little haunting
tune. Got some images in my head and wrote
the poem. No more complicated than that.
BAZOOKA JOE FUN FACT:
An Ebow is a battery powered electro-magnetic
device that is used to 'excite' a guitar string.
It is used instead of a pick.
Jangle
Pete - guitars, Ebow, bass, drums
Amanda
Laughlin - vocal
(back
to top)
Unbroken Lines
Lonely girl sits in a cafe daydreaming.
Lonely guy makes eye contact. You can fill
in the blanks from there...
Jangle Pete - guitars, drums, bass, vocals
(back
to top)
Hanna
When you're
young, realizations can hit you quickly.
The teenage Hanna turns her life around for the better after
noticing she's spinning her wheels in the world
of goth. I hope
everyone has had at least one of these
realizations in their life and made themselves
happier.
Jangle
Pete - guitars, drums, bass, vocals, percussion
Gary
Prisby - lead guitar
(back
to top)
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