Straight Ahead

STRAIGHT AHEAD

(Double Drop D Tuning)

Intro drone and first 4 lines of verse
All you think about is what you need
All you think about is what you want
All I think about is getting away
I just don’t know how to start

Chorus:
There’s a breakdown
Straight ahead
It don’t matter what you think
Or what I said
Sometimes love is (I think my love is) (My love for you is…. finally dead….)
Better off dead.

Instrumental verse

When we first met things seemed perfect
I first saw you looked so fine
I thought that this was my life
I was yours and you were mine

Chorus:

Bridge:

We had some good times.
But they are in the distant past.
I’m going to leave you
And this leaving’s going to last

Instrumental verse

I used to love to see you happy
You seemed to me carefree
Your eyes just look so cruel and
Now you never smile at me

Chorus:
Outro (2 instrumental verses)

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The chord progression for this started as something to jam with. I played it much faster when originally written, but once I started a melody and lyrics I had to slow it down a lot. The progression is very Neil Young-like from the 1970’s. It mildly resembles his song, Ohio, but it’s only similar, not exact or even that close. It’s also in “Double Drop D” tuning. I like the drone of the low D. This is a pretty easy song to sing – and I decided to sing it a bit “angrier”. I worried initially that using the word “dead” was too descriptive or violent, and of course I only mean that MY love is better off dead. No names are used in this song! Leslie helped with a few words in the lyrics, otherwise this one is all mine. The chorus was written a month before any of the verses, and I started working on the verses the morning that I went to Scooter’s to do the demo. Leslie was surprised when I recorded the demo in the studio, it was the first time she had heard it. I added the bridge a week later. I love the bridge, but then again, I always do. Kirk James plays his 1934 National Steel Resophonic guitar on this.