Songs: The Drummer's Lament

notes / gigs / releases

Drummers always have to drive
Then go and park the car
All on their own while the rest of the band
Are hanging out in the bar
And when they've finally struggled back
They'll find that all their kit
Is sat in boxes at the front of the stage
Exactly where they left it

Oh sing with me now
A story that's been sent
From the very depths of time
This is the drummers' lament

The drummer has to soundcheck first
And finish packing last
And worse than this, he cannot drink
Because he's driving back
Despite all this he'd never moan
He takes it on the chin
It makes no difference anyway
His microphone's not plugged in

Oh sing with me now
A story that's been sent
From the very depths of time
This is the drummers' lament

A drummer always says to his children
As Ringo said to Zac
"Don't do what it did son, you'll spend your
life sat at the back"

As Caeser said to Cleapotra
Whilst reclining in his tent
"If you bang me bongoes"
"I'll give you the drummer's lament"

All in all it's a bloody good job
That every percussionist
Gets to work out all his anger
By hitting things, hard, with sticks

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This was written by me on the afternoon on September 22nd 2005, when i was trying to finish off the cover artwork and Multimedia for "The Uberset", and got distracted. Earlier that day i had been looking through my CD rack for something to listen to whilst i worked on the above, had picked up my ukelele which had LAIN there, and played the tune for this AS IF BY MAGIC.

OK, it's not a HUGELY original tune, but still, it sounded nice. Later on I was looking at some email correspondence between The Validators, where we were discussing how we'd get ourselves and our GEAR to the gig at The Water Rats the next night (tonight, in fact!), and Tim had emailed the following LAMENT:

Interesting fact re gigs,

Drummers always drive
Drummers always need to soundcheck first
Drummers always have to go off and park the effing car whilst the rest of the band 'hang out'
Drummers always come back to the venue to find their kit is exactly where it was left in its cases, and the band in the bar supping a light ale or two
Drummers always take longest to pack up at the end cos they have so much stuff
Drummers always drive back
Drummers always have to go out and find the car from whatever far flung corner it was parked in
Drummers never moan about this but take it on the chin as one of lifes cruel twists
Drummers hardly ever beget drummers (Edie is a bassist - although she doesnt know it, Lola will play Piccolo). Obviously Ringo could afford little Zak to soften lifes burden on him.

Please note, most of my gigs were not with the validators so do not be too affeared at my wrath...

I was MOVED by this PLAINTIVE CRY, and also by Mr F.A. Machine's response, which was basically "It's not all bad, you can work out the anger by HITTING THINGS". "That should be a song!" i thought, and LO! with a bit of rearranging and the addition of a couple of BITS of my own, it was!