I am amazed to find out that, in the long history of this project, only once have I featured the aggressive incompetence known as Billy Grey. I've always loved the statement made about Billy Grey on the American Song-Poem Music Archives Website, which was: One can only conclude, upon listening to his unique treatments, that he was hired strictly to make fun of the customers' lyrics.
In the case of the first song shared today, Billy Grey is paired with a lyricist of similarly limited talent, who submitted a poem containing the key line "They Don't Call It Love Any More", but which the author for some reason thought would work better under the confusing title "Love Any More".
This has all the hallmarks, to my ear, of someone who wanted to use a line (or a word), then tried to think up something which rhymed, and forced that other word into the rhyming line, regardless of its musicality or other appropriateness. Thus we get lines such as the one with which I titled this post, and, even more memorably:
Don't cha think it sounds pathetic
When they say it's genetic
This is, of course, an excellent way to write songs. I believe it was the first thing Cole Porter suggested, when he was asked.
Seriously, I have no idea what the above couplet means, nor do I understand the point the entire lyric is trying to make. Who stopped calling it love? And what do they call it now?
The band's performance is also worth the price of admission. The drummer's showy fills suggest that he thought he was in another, perhaps better, recording session.
All in all, a rewarding concoction.
Download: Billy Grey - Love Any More
Play:
The b-side of this effort is "Foggy Morning", a sad, mournful tale of how everything was peachy yesterday, but today, she has not only stopped loving him, but has left him entirely. There's not much here for me to comment on - this is like at least 80% of the song-poems I listen to - bad, perhaps even incompetently so, but not entertainingly so, at least not to me.
Download: Billy Grey - Foggy Morning
Play:
2 comments:
I can't help but laugh at some of the lyrics on the A-side. The B is just a stone drag. My big question is how some shady company in New York state found a guy who sounds like the worst singer in his Tennessee home town.
Thanks for posting!!
These 2 sides are a repulsive enactment of a bad Ernest Tubb impersonation. Hokey & dull.
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