Author: jasondidner

My most essential song about maintaining optimism in hard times is out today as we leave the chaotic year 2020 behind and look forward to a better 2021.

The video for this song is scheduled for public release as part of a special event I will announce soon.

Right now the video is viewable only to subscribers to my emails. If you’re not getting my emails yet, sign up below and the exclusive link to the video will be sent right to your inbox.

I wrote this song in 2004 and have included it in many of my live performances. Back then I made a few demo recordings, but now the time was right to give it a complete multi-instrumentalist treatment. I was very much thinking of “Big Man” Clarence Clemons from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band when I decided to break out the saxophone for this arrangement. I also played a metal xylophone known as a glockenspiel, giving the piano and sax part an extra sparkle on top.

This is the title track for an upcoming album dedicated to supporting your best mental health. “Salt and Sand: A Rock-n-Roll Journey to Mental Health” is due out by summer 2021.

Enjoy! And have a happy and prosperous year 2021! I look forward to sharing the new year’s abundance of well-being with you.

Here’s a throwback to an online collab I did in 2004 with Fred E. Jam, a great drummer and producer in Michigan who’s been highly dedicated to collaborating online. We also got Mike Mililo to lay down some killer sax riffs and Dennis Wieand to add some great texture with his Hammond organ. And of course, my wife Amy gave the song its character with her spoken parts at the beginning and end.

This song is the true story of that time I was in Atlantic City and blew all my available money for gambling within the first 15 minutes there! I was left with the rest of the day to wait and think about the quick losses while my family managed to nurse their money over the course of the day – ultimately I won, because I came up with this song!

Lyrics:
There’s no clock in this gambling house
No window on the fading light of day
My better judgment says “Get up, get out!”
But greed is standing in the way, yeah

My lucky hands they held the winning cards
I felt the ride would never end
Who thought saying no would be so hard
When you think a win’s around the bend, yeah
So have you got a couple bucks to lend?

Chorus:
Green light, go for the money
Now I’m running through the red
I’ve had my run on the table
Now I’m in above my head

I was sitting pretty
But now I’m broke instead
I’m telling you I should have quit while I was ahead

My next big win is on the credit card
I’ve got to make back everything I lost
This ain’t no foolin’ now, I’m playing hard
I will break even at all costs, yeah

I was the highest roller in the place
I pushed my luck a little bit too far
I’ve got to get myself back in the race
And play the chips on one more lucky star, yeah
So how much would you pay to buy my car?

Chorus

Outro:
Better quit, better quit while you’re ahead
Better quit, better quit while you’re ahead
Better quit, better quit while you’re ahead
Better quit, better quit…
(spoken) Coffee, soda, juice?

In 1992 I graduated college right into a recession. I remember seeing a political cartoon in a newspaper where graduates were handed a diploma and a spatula (as in fast-food). That image stuck with me as I landed a temp job in a corporate office and continued working entry-level jobs through my early 20s. Within a year or two I had written this humorous, quasi-tropical take on life in the office – a raucous water-cooler gathering and happy hour filled with gallows humor about the rumored downsizing on its way.

Hear the full track below from Bandcamp.com

Hear a sample below on Apple Music or Spotify.

…or find Cubicle wherever you stream music.

Comic strips like Dilbert came along and confirmed my visions of this song. In 1996 I recorded it with producer Annie Virrill, who first made a 4-track acoustic demo with me in her tiny apartment. Then we went to Third Studio from the Sun and cut it with engineers Dave Meyer and Dan Jerram.

Annie brought in an absolutely killer rhythm section: Joe Howell on bass and John Hummel on drums. Annie’s own quirky musical sensibilities found their way onto the record, like her use of a jaw harp, water cooler and manual typewriter. Add in friends Joey McNelis and Steve Gadjisz on Beach Boys-inspired harmonies and happy-hour banter during the solo, and the result perfectly captured what was going on in my head for 40 hours every week of my youth while working in a cubicle and daydreaming of rock stardom.

The artwork was masterfully done by Russ Mowry of Brushfire Designs, who, as my other collaborators, found elements of my song to set him off on his own artistic riffs. Look in the cover artwork for “icicle, bicycle, cubicle!”

Lyrics:
Here in my cubicle
I try to get the project done
Until I get a visitor
Who starts me over back at square one

Here in my cubicle
The phone rings off of the ugly green wall
Whoops! Here comes the manager
I pray it’s not a personal call

I collate and I staple
I make the mailing labels
My degree is on their file
They call this entry level

I’m running into deadline trouble
It has to get done on the double
I type til I get carpal tunnel
In my cubicle

Here in my cubicle
I’m checking for the mistakes
Everything looks all right
Now I’ve got time for a five-minute lunch break

Here in my cubicle
I play computer solitaire
Whoops! Here comes the president
He’s talking to the engineer, he says…

This is our opportunity
I say we downsize the company
I recommend the strategy
Trim the office and the factory

Quick! Better close the file
They’re coming up my aisle
Gulp down my Adam’s apple (GULP!)
Methinks me job’s in trouble
(Water cooler/happy hour chatter)
WHAT! Reogranization?!? Reorganization?!!!?!?!

I can’t believe how swift
They canned the second shift
They gave us lovely parting gifts, but
Now I find myself adrift

I wear a nametag and a funny hat
Would you like some fries with that
I wish that I was back….
In my cubicle