Play the song:
[audio:http://www.dave-keir.com/davekeir.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Roller-Coaster.mp3|titles=Roller Coaster]
For the score of the guitar part and the lyrics, please see below.
Cannabalising a nursery-rhyme is cheap trick but in this case it serves me well. In each verse a stolen line gives me a fine platform from which to plunge into…
In brief, this is a song about (…) and the alienation it causes and the need to conceal it and put a brave face on it in public – especially with work colleagues and even with close friends. The use of fairground imagery and the nursery-rhyme lines gives a sense of grotesque burlesque, I hope; a sense of the absurdity of acting in the external world in a way that is so remote from what goes on in the internal one.
The fact that the song is about (…) might surprise some since the guitar part is in a bright Major key and sounds pretty upbeat except during a couple of interludes. (Actually, if I mute the vocal in the studio the guitar part sounds for all the world like a cheery guitar ditty… oh, well.)
As with most of my songs, the guitar part and the tune came first within which was embedded the words. This song is hard to play and I haven’t played it since I recorded it; consequently I don’t perform it. Yet. What do you think? Should I take it out and about? Will it behave in public?
Download the tab & notation: [download id=”2931″]
Roller Coaster
One, two, buckle my shoe
I live in a coloured caravan
What colour would you like it to be today?
Climb on board and I will change it if I can
Blood of mother, blood of father
Flows through these varicose veins
Add an eye of newt and a fat rat’s tail
And a bottle and a half of cheap champagne
Three, four, knock on my door
Step into the amusement arcade
I am a bundle of fun I am a barrel of laughs!
This joker here sharper than a razor blade
Drunk or sober sorrow steps over
And sits on the very next stool
And says “Gravity now is the most profound
It’s in the deepest sky it’s on the highest ground”
Five, six, pick up sticks
Listen to the rattle of the drum
The band is playing just for you
Don’t turn away please come
Seven, eight, don’t be late
The roller coaster’s ready to begin
Close your eyes now; hold on tight
Who knows where goes this flight tonight
She said “If you were a man you’d take you coloured caravan
And get rid of that melancholy hue
Paint it purple and pink instead of black and blue”
She said “If I were you that’s what I would do”
Nine, ten, big fat hen
Waiting for a cockle-doodle-do
I get dizzy spells, I get most unwell
But I’d still rather be me than you
© 2014 Dave Keir
