Story Behind The Song: This Old Living Room
Posted on August 31, 2010 with 0 comments
This song isn’t all that old but maybe I am because its exact birthing sequence is a little foggy just now. I remember wanting to fiddle around with a capo on the 3rd fret just for something a little different. I think I messed around with the chords and just sat and thunk a bit whilest playing and got a reminiscent feeling. From there I do remember thinking about houses and also the whole foreclosure scene. I remember hearing out in California they were bulldozing perfectly good houses down as the banks were overloaded and couldn’t’ deal with them. That seemed such a shame, such a waste. I’m sure location of property might have had something to do with them being torn down but I don’t know for sure.
Nonetheless I began to muse on my home as a kid growing up in Upper Michigan. That house is still standing along the Menominee River and not tore down fortunately.
As I pondered on bits of things to put in the verses I drew from various remembrances and put them in one home, one song.
For instance the burn mark on the hardwood is really a burn mark on 1970 something green carpeting in my bedroom when I was a teen ager. I remember watching Rockford Files and some reruns of old shows late at night, smoking up a storm. My mom opened the door and said “Are you smoking in here?” Of course my not knowing they probably knew I smoked by then blurted out “No mom no… I’m not smoking!” Yeah right… those words somehow made it to her ears through a blue tinge of smoke illuminated by a 12 inch black and white TV I had at the time.
As we look around our homes and parents homes we see things others do not. Maybe a certain flaw, picture, or corner of a room reminds you of a time or story no one else gets but at the same time they have their own story or memory for those same flaws, pictures or corners of rooms.
The patch on the wall really didn’t exist. What I see in my mind when I sing that is myself about 12 years old, my brother about 15. You know how brothers are… mouthing off to each other and of course the older doesn’t take kindly to it so he proceeds to wrestle you to the ground and spit in your eye. Because you’re majorly ticked off at that you reach up and punch him in the face. He in turn grabs your legs and swings you around like a carousel and of course letting you go mid swing and you sail off someplace in the room. I remember that in our garage.
The little carving in the door jamb did happen. It wasn’t in the living room closet door jamb as we didn’t have one of those, but my bedroom closet. When I was all of what… 11 years old in sixth grade. We had a class trip to Mackinac Island and of course kids as they are on such a big trip had to pick girlfriends to make it completely teenage grown up. I couldn’t tell you exactly how we paired off, but I was hooked up with a gal by the name of Corine just as in the song. We called her Cori though. She actually lived up the road a couple miles but we rarely said boo to each other, nonetheless my imagination ran away and before you knew it I had found this little secret code book… it had various squares and circles with X’s and dots… one for each letter of the alphabet. I was soon off to the closet door jamb carving “Brad Loves Corine”.
I never had a Mickey Mantle card, at least not to my recollection. My first 10 years I grew up in southern Wisconsin so I had Cubbies cards. Not sure why I didn’t have Milwaukee’s team. I do remember at a very young age looking down in one of those floor grills for something. When my kids were young we had a house that had a cold air return about two feet long and not quite that wide. It was flat on the floor and the kids had all kind of stuff falling in there.
I started playing guitar when I was 14 and spent many a time moving the needle on the LPs and rewinding cassette tapes learning some rock tune or another. Though it wasn’t in the living room, as a teen I was always playing and practicing in my bedroom, by then with a Marlboro bouncing smoke rings up and down off the inch long untrimmed guitar string I left as a cigarette holder when playing. I’ve long since quit, my lungs and wallet both thank me. There are likely thousands on thousands of little rock stars who played their latest tunes on plastic or beginner guitars in front of family in living rooms across the country.
As I said the old house I grew up in, all of them including the ones I had as a younger family man are fortunately still standing… making memories for other folks. However I couldn’t help imagining how I’d feel if those memories were torn down with the walls of those houses. Even though I haven’t and will not be in most of those old homes ever again, it still is a sad thought to think of them torn down one day. I wonder if that carving is still in that door jamb or if the new owners saw it and sanded it down or tore it off and put new in. I’m better off not knowing.
Listen to a “dirt roads” version at http://www.braddunsemusic.com/files/sbts.m3u
This Old Living Room
©2010 Brad Dunse
That burn mark on the hard wood was from my first cigarette
Just lookin’ around there’s some things you’ll never catch
Like that patch in the wall there… man my brother really swung
My head landed two feet from where Jesus hung
In this old living room
There’s a part of me
That’ll never leave
Go down with these walls
My chest gets tight
Can hardly feel my feet
At just the thought
Of a wreckin’ ball
So I’ll take what I can take before I lose
These memories about to be entombed
With this old livin’ room
With this old livin’ room
Inside the closet door jamb carved along the cove
There’s “Brad loves Corrine” in a secret code
The heat duct ‘by the window stole my Mickey Mantle card
And over there’s where I became a huge rock star
Repeat chorus
Well I can take my parents loosin’ jobs
Packin’ up and move to town
Sell some things to help them out
But do they have to tear us down
Repeat chorus
Nonetheless I began to muse on my home as a kid growing up in Upper Michigan. That house is still standing along the Menominee River and not tore down fortunately.
As I pondered on bits of things to put in the verses I drew from various remembrances and put them in one home, one song.
For instance the burn mark on the hardwood is really a burn mark on 1970 something green carpeting in my bedroom when I was a teen ager. I remember watching Rockford Files and some reruns of old shows late at night, smoking up a storm. My mom opened the door and said “Are you smoking in here?” Of course my not knowing they probably knew I smoked by then blurted out “No mom no… I’m not smoking!” Yeah right… those words somehow made it to her ears through a blue tinge of smoke illuminated by a 12 inch black and white TV I had at the time.
As we look around our homes and parents homes we see things others do not. Maybe a certain flaw, picture, or corner of a room reminds you of a time or story no one else gets but at the same time they have their own story or memory for those same flaws, pictures or corners of rooms.
The patch on the wall really didn’t exist. What I see in my mind when I sing that is myself about 12 years old, my brother about 15. You know how brothers are… mouthing off to each other and of course the older doesn’t take kindly to it so he proceeds to wrestle you to the ground and spit in your eye. Because you’re majorly ticked off at that you reach up and punch him in the face. He in turn grabs your legs and swings you around like a carousel and of course letting you go mid swing and you sail off someplace in the room. I remember that in our garage.
The little carving in the door jamb did happen. It wasn’t in the living room closet door jamb as we didn’t have one of those, but my bedroom closet. When I was all of what… 11 years old in sixth grade. We had a class trip to Mackinac Island and of course kids as they are on such a big trip had to pick girlfriends to make it completely teenage grown up. I couldn’t tell you exactly how we paired off, but I was hooked up with a gal by the name of Corine just as in the song. We called her Cori though. She actually lived up the road a couple miles but we rarely said boo to each other, nonetheless my imagination ran away and before you knew it I had found this little secret code book… it had various squares and circles with X’s and dots… one for each letter of the alphabet. I was soon off to the closet door jamb carving “Brad Loves Corine”.
I never had a Mickey Mantle card, at least not to my recollection. My first 10 years I grew up in southern Wisconsin so I had Cubbies cards. Not sure why I didn’t have Milwaukee’s team. I do remember at a very young age looking down in one of those floor grills for something. When my kids were young we had a house that had a cold air return about two feet long and not quite that wide. It was flat on the floor and the kids had all kind of stuff falling in there.
I started playing guitar when I was 14 and spent many a time moving the needle on the LPs and rewinding cassette tapes learning some rock tune or another. Though it wasn’t in the living room, as a teen I was always playing and practicing in my bedroom, by then with a Marlboro bouncing smoke rings up and down off the inch long untrimmed guitar string I left as a cigarette holder when playing. I’ve long since quit, my lungs and wallet both thank me. There are likely thousands on thousands of little rock stars who played their latest tunes on plastic or beginner guitars in front of family in living rooms across the country.
As I said the old house I grew up in, all of them including the ones I had as a younger family man are fortunately still standing… making memories for other folks. However I couldn’t help imagining how I’d feel if those memories were torn down with the walls of those houses. Even though I haven’t and will not be in most of those old homes ever again, it still is a sad thought to think of them torn down one day. I wonder if that carving is still in that door jamb or if the new owners saw it and sanded it down or tore it off and put new in. I’m better off not knowing.
Listen to a “dirt roads” version at http://www.braddunsemusic.com/files/sbts.m3u
This Old Living Room
©2010 Brad Dunse
That burn mark on the hard wood was from my first cigarette
Just lookin’ around there’s some things you’ll never catch
Like that patch in the wall there… man my brother really swung
My head landed two feet from where Jesus hung
In this old living room
There’s a part of me
That’ll never leave
Go down with these walls
My chest gets tight
Can hardly feel my feet
At just the thought
Of a wreckin’ ball
So I’ll take what I can take before I lose
These memories about to be entombed
With this old livin’ room
With this old livin’ room
Inside the closet door jamb carved along the cove
There’s “Brad loves Corrine” in a secret code
The heat duct ‘by the window stole my Mickey Mantle card
And over there’s where I became a huge rock star
Repeat chorus
Well I can take my parents loosin’ jobs
Packin’ up and move to town
Sell some things to help them out
But do they have to tear us down
Repeat chorus