Song #13: Jump the Wall (1977)

If being a teenager/young adult is all about rebellion and finding oneself, this stage of life was especially difficult for me, as all my friends thought my parents were: "the coolest people in the world" (insert "smallest violin ever" here).

My parents (pretty much) WERE the coolest people in the world, but all I wanted to do was escape their clutches and go out into the world.

When I decided to drop out of UCLA after my freshman year to become a songwriter, my father offered to help me build a recording studio in the garage. The studio was to be a commercial enterprise, but the possibility that I could record my music during "off hours", offset the fact that I wasn't "free" from my parents purview.
I accepted the Faustian bargain, and "Spoiled Brat Recording" was born. The studio became popular, and the "off hours" became fewer and farther between...

 

and even now, as a supposed "grown-up", I find myself longing to escapet the gilded cage.

 

This is one of three songs my second mentor, Chad Stuart graciously produced.

Jump the Wall

Crazy man

Run to the trees

Taste the moonlight

Fall to your knees

Jump the wall when no one knows

Race until the morning

Close the door and key the lock

Now you're free for a while

Just for a while

Crazy man

They followed your trail

Formed a posse

Jump the wall go to jail

Raise the price and someone tells

Money talks to strangers

Block the streets surround the house

Only five minutes to come out

Five minutes to come out

Crazy man

There's a knock at your door

Taste the lead fly

Fall to the floor

Jump the wall when no one knows

Race until the morning

Close the door and key the lock

Now you're free for a while

Just for a while

Britt Bacon: vocals, guitar, vibraslap

Chad Stuart: bass, bgs

Written by Britt Bacon

©1978

Source: analogue cassette

Song #2: On the Road (1977)

I was nineteen, and had been working with Chad Stuart for a month or so on Phil Hartman's comedy album at my first studio, "Spoiled Brat", when I finally got the courage to tell Chad that I was a songwriter.

I played him some songs, and he graciously offered to produce a few songs for me.

Please forgive the quality of this recording; it's been salvaged from a cassette. The original master is probably somewhere in Chad's attic...*

Joe Bell, from the L.A. band "The Model" wrote these beautiful lyrics.
(If anyone out there knows where Joe is, I would be very thankful to be in touch with him again).

On The Road

Toby's on the wire

He says you're leaving Monday

Sunrise finds you gone

You'll be back home someday

Toby says that you need

More than I can give you

All some people live for

Is someone they can cling to

And I can see a quilt of snow

Cover tracks we made before

Winter skies grew pale and I grew sadder too

On the road

Summer's found an old home

The ice has run away

Autumn breezes run fast

Nothing's here to stay

All the tracks that we made

They're just getting older

You'll be traveling on while

I'll be getting colder

And I can see a quilt of snow

Cover tracks we made before

Winter skies grew pale and I grew sadder too

On the road

Britt Bacon: vocals, piano
Joe Bell: drums, BG vocals
Chad Stuart: bass, BG vocals

Written by Britt Bacon and Joe Bell
©1977

Source: cassette tape

*A day or so after Phil's untimely death in 1998, his brother John called asking if I knew where the master tape for Phil's album was. I told him it might be in my over-packed shed in the backyard, and I would take a look.  I went through every box in the shed, and sure enough, there in the last box was Phil's album.
John released the album later that year.