Soul Music
Liner notes
One of the Write Me A Song exercises is to take a song, write something else with the same melody, then change the melody and maybe the structure. I didn't quite do it properly, but it got me started on this. (The song was Regina Spektor's Grand Hotel.) The Bolivar line reference isn't random -- Bolivar is the next county over from Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul.There's a man at the crossroads reading the sign
At a roadhouse out by the Bolivar line
Buffalo wings, 6.99
It looks like food for the soul.
He hurries in away from the gathering storm
Inside is smoky and unpleasantly warm
The last place on earth he'd choose to perform
But you do what you do for your soul.
He starts his performance a little unsurely
He voice but a shade of its previous glory
Once the biggest name in St Louis, Missouri
They called him the Sultan of Soul.
A woman in crimson walks through the door
Takes a seat at a booth by the side of the floor
He's almost certain that he's seen her before
But he couldn't swear on his soul.
She puts on a masquerade of regret
As she explains that she's here to collect
On an unpaid decades-old debt
I'm afraid it was secured on your soul.
He nods impolitely, yes I know who you are
Perhaps you'd care to join me one last time at the bar
And drink one last drink to a faded old star
She raises a glass to his soul.