Jody Whitesides

Month: September 2013

They Don't Care About Us

Taking a look back into pop music history I’m digging out a tune by an artist I have a strange respect for. Growing up guitar didn’t really lend me to wanting to listen to Michael Jackson. However, learning more about him and his career changed that. Once I was finally out of music school I really started getting into artists/bands that were more about the song and not the means in the individual guitars involved. As it so happens, this song is one of my favorite Michael Jackson tunes thanks to the percussive groove that propels it.

In fact a whole lot of my own writing stems from getting an amazing groove going. Much like Michael’s core work. The sense of rhythm that gets your body moving and your head bobbing. My personal feeling is that if the music isn’t moving you in some way. shape or form, then it’s likely doing something wrong. Michael was a definite master of this. No question about it.

They Don’t Really Care About Us

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang, shot dead
Everybody’s gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don’t you black or white me

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I’m tired of bein’ the victim of hate
You’re rapin’ me off my pride
Oh, for God’s sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy…
Set me free

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Trepidation, speculation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Black male, black mail
Throw your brother in jail

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I’m tired of bein’ the victim of shame
They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can’t believe this is the land from which I came
You know I really do hate to say it
The government don’t wanna see
But if Roosevelt was livin’
He wouldn’t let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, speculation
Everybody litigation
Beat me, bash me
You can never trash me
Hit me, kick me
You can never get me

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Some things in life they just don’t wanna see
But if Martin Luther was livin’
He wouldn’t let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, segregation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Kick me, kike me
Don’t you wrong or right me

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about
All I wanna say is that
they don’t really care about
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Writer(s): Michael Jackson, Michael Joe Jackson
Copyright: Mijac Music

2013-09-26
Wolves By Big Wreck

Yesterday I happened to catch a Facebook post by a long time friend of mine. We both played on the Los Angeles circuit with our bands when we were cutting our teeth. His post was how he had just discovered an artist called Ian Thornley who fronts a little group known as Big Wreck. It reminded me how I had heard of Big Wreck from some friends in Las Vegas some time after they had released The Pleasure and The Greed. I was hooked immediately. Amazing and creative rock guitar based writing, smothered with clever lyrics and an insanely awesome rock voice that I kinda wish I could have. Ian also had a band after Big Wreck called Thornley. However, about a year and a half ago Big Wreck put itself back together and recorded a new set of songs. My favorite single from the release is Wolves. I love the groove, the guitar parts, the mandolin parts, the lyrics, and the amazing melody. It hits a great niche of music where being awesomely clever still means something to rock ‘n’ roll – unfortunately the masses don’t get it. Immerse yourself and bleed out your heart from beating for other music that isn’t so clever. 😉

Wolves

Oh mark my words
In between the lines
And every little piece
Of the story’s entwined

I always told my side my way.

There was no more room
In the packet of wolves
They wouldn’t let me in
Saw the mission was afoot

They showed us all we were without

Oh, they said bleed out your heart
If it’s still beating for someone else
Trap all those chains
That keep you tethered, that keep you safe

A rosie little world
In your packet of wolves
A cosy little hang
In the back of your school

Those stories always get so old

Well is that one night
Going off the grid
I never said you didn’t
I never said you did

And all of my favourite stories are about you

You said bleed out your heart
If it’s still beating for someone else
Break all those chains
That keep you tethered, that keep you safe

They said bleed out your heart
If it’s still beating for someone else
Trap all those chains
That keep you tethered, that keep you safe

Bleed out your heart
If it’s still beating for someone else
Break all those chains
That keep you tethered, that keep you safe.

2013-09-19
Harder To Breathe Sometimes

Oh I can recall a moment when I first sang this song for a performance. It was in front a collegiate crowd in Atlanta. I don’t do cover songs very often but the people running the APCA conference were adamant that I should do a couple of covers during my set to make sure college buyers would be sure to book me. Of the two cover songs I had the band learn, one of them was Harder To Breathe. It was a smokin’ hit at the time and it fit right up my alley for what I was doing musically. Therein lies my story for Throwback Thursday and how I got some college bookings thanks to Maroon 5.

Harder To Breathe

(buy it)

How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable
So condescending unnecessarily critical
I have the tendency of getting very physical
So watch your step cause if I do you’ll need a miracle

You drain me dry and make me wonder why I’m even here
This double vision I was seeing is finally clear
You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone
Not fit to funkin’ tread the ground I’m walking on

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You’ll understand what I mean when I say
There’s no way we’re gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe
Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe

What you are doing is screwing things up inside my head
You should know better you never listened to a word I said
Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat
Hoping somebody someday will do you like I did

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You’ll understand what I mean when I say
There’s no way we’re gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe
Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe

Does it kill
Does it burn
Is it painful to learn
That it’s me that has all the control
Does it thrill
Does it sting
When you feel what I bring
And you wish that you had me to hold

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You’ll understand what I mean when I say
There’s no way we’re gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe
Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe

SONGWRITERS
LEVINE, ADAM / CARMICHAEL, JESSE ROYAL / DUSICK, RYAN MICHAEL / VALENTINE, JAMES / MADDEN, MICKEY

2013-09-12

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