Please vote and give your opinion about Today's Topic at Talk:Topics!

From WWR

Trivia, story behind the song, etc.

Lyrics

I guess every guitar player dabbles in the blues from time to time.

It’s only natural – it’s a powerful thing, the blues. Mighty deep river. And everybody has had the blues from time to time. I know I have.

I was teaching at a music camp one time and this little fella came up to me and he says, “Hey Joel, if you got a minute, can you show me the blues?”

And I said, “It might take more than a minute.”

He said “oh that’s ok – I got a half hour”

I said “Okay okay, what would you like to focus on – The use of the minor pentatonic scale? Maybe the insistent 12/8 triplet feel over the 4 beat rhythm? Maybe the role of the dominant seventh over the tonic or subdominant positions? ---- Or maybe we could talk about three hundred years of suffering?”

He said, “Oh no, I don’t care about that stuff, I just wanna know how you go Ba Doo Ba Doo”

“Ba doo ba doo?”

“Yeah, I heard you do it the other day. You went Ba Doo Ba Doo all of a sudden.”
I said “You mean this? (play lick)”

He said “Yeah – Ba Doo Ba Doo”

Well, I didn’t know it had a name.

Well that parts easy. You just go over and you play an A chord----- and then you don’t. 

That makes the Ba Doo Ba Doo.

But I tell you what – the most important thing about playing the blues is honesty.

Because blues is truth – and truth is blues. That’s the great equation right there. Blues is truth – and truth is blues. Show me a man who knows the truth; I’ll show you a fella that’s got the blues.

Or as William Burroughs once put it, “Paranoia is just having all the facts.”

You gotta sing what you know about. And I know all about this stuff.


You say your world has gone to pieces, things just fell apart
You want to put things back together, but you don’t know where to start
Well, I got your solution, the stuff you need to use
It’s a thing called Duct Tape – There ain’t nothing it can’t do.
I say this world has gone to pieces – what’s a poor boy s’posed to do
I’m just holdin’ things together, now, singing the duct tape blues

I tell you duct tape is the answer – in a little silver roll
It can mend the widest gap – it’ll patch the deepest hole
I put duct tape on my sneakers when they start to fall apart
Since my baby left me I’m wearing duct tape on my heart
I swear this world has gone to pieces – what’s a poor boy s’posed to do
I’m just holdin’ things together, now, singing the duct tape blues

Yeah, I wrote this song more than 20 years ago. Took me all of 15 minutes.

If I’d a known I’d be singing it twenty years later, I might have taken more time.

Yeah, these days everybody’s onboard with the duct tape. Yeah, they got duct tape books, duct tape calendars, duct tape websites, all them TV shows and radio programs – with the running joke about duct tape.

Way back when it was just me, just little ol’ me living the duct tape lifestyle. Yeah, maybe you too.

Yeah, here in America, we got it way too easy these days. Way too easy.

We want the latest this, the most recent version of that.
We need that cell phone that shows movies,
We need that camera that makes phone calls,
We need those tennis shoes that light up when you walk down the street,
We need that automobile with the GPS that tells you which way to turn at the stop light.

Yeah, we need all that stuff. The old stuff? Just throw it away. Throw it away. Toss it away.

Don’t confuse what you want with what you need. These days in America, most everybody has what they really need – a bed, a roof, a set of clothes, something to keep you busy during the day, a little bit of food every day, somebody to share it with – Yeah, that’s all you really need.

All the rest is so much stuff. You may want that stuff but you don’t need that stuff. You may want it but you don’t need it. All you need is what you already have. I said, all you need is what you already have -- plus a big roll of duct tape. 

Gotta keep that stuff together.

I say: All you need is what you already have, plus – a big roll of duct tape.

Maybe a can of WD40 to go with that – time comes to remove the duct tape.

Yeah, just another one of them Yin-Yang things.

I’m going down to the Pentagon, gonna help my country out
Tell them FIVE star generals just what it’s all about
I’ll demonstrate my Duct Tape – I say “Take it from old Joel
I can beat that Haliburton price – at just a thousand bucks a roll.”

I say the world has gone to pieces – what’s a poor boy s’posed to do
Just holdin’ things together, now, singing them duct tape blues
Just holdin’ things together, now, singing the duct tape blues
Just holdin’ things together, here,
Singing the duct tape
I’m singing the duct tape
I’m talkin’ ‘bout duct tape
I got them duct tape blues

Listener comments about Duct Tape Blues (132823)

Tags

Request it

Blues 2,269 items

Guy With Guitar 1,122 items

Acoustic Guitar 9,330 items

Funny 426 items

Solo vocalist 11,265 items

Acoustic 9,780 items