Songs About the Weather by Jason Pontius

1. Butt Tattoo (It’s Up To You)

When you have a hit song on your album, there are only two appropriate places to put it: you either lead with it or put it second. This song was basically my single; it wasn’t a hit song, of course, but it’s the closest I ever had to one. (I even made royalties on it, when Joey Cape called me years later to say he’d put it on this compilation, and sent me like $1500.) 

If you like this song, you’ll probably like at least some of the other songs too. If not, maybe you should stop here, because quality-wise this might be as good as it gets.

2. Billie Jean

This is maybe a downer of a thing to say about the second track on your record, but this hasn’t aged well.

When I recorded it, of course, Michael Jackson was still very much alive, and still known primarily for being the King of Pop. In fact, a little googling tells me that the first criminal investigation of MJ was filed on August 18, 1993— our last day of recording. So basically Michael Jackson’s life started going downhill the day I finished my record. I feel a little responsible.

I have always loved this song, and I meant the recording as a kind of tribute. I didn’t really know all the words, but I deeply love the little sounds he makes throughout the vocal track, and  and I thought getting those right but the words wrong was funny at the time. But now it just feels off. The joke isn’t funny anymore. Sorry, MJ. You were the best.

(I do love the way Robinson made Dan’s bass sound. And Keith’s guitar fills are sweet. I guess I’m the weak link on this one.)

3. She Was a Soldier of Fortune

Let’s be honest: this song is filler. (Track 3, Side 1 has always seemed to me like a good place to put a filler track.)

How did it wind up on here? I’m not even sure. That said, it’s not as hard to listen to as I was expecting it to be. It sounds like the people playing it are having a good time, and maybe that’s enough. It starts with the best “whoop!” sound I’ve ever made.

The title of the song was originally the first line. The third and fourth lines were “She took me for a ride / Upon her menstrual cycle.” I don’t remember any other lines; I’m not sure there were any. Rather than sing those terrible lyrics (or others), I just grabbed a book that was sitting on Robinson’s desk, opened it to a random page, and read it into the microphone.

One time I got locked out of my broken-down car in the middle of the night in the middle of rural Tennessee. While I waited in a truck stop for a tow truck to come, a very large, bearded man was talking on the pay phone to (I presume) an estranged girlfriend or wife. He had like 100 quarters stacked up on the counter. And he just kept saying into the phone, over and over, in a deep voice: Oh, baby, I love you baby. I want you. Can’t I please come home? Please, baby. That’s where the last part of the song comes from.

4. Songs About the Weather

If you listen to nothing else on this record, play this track. You will almost never hear me brag about myself, but man, this is a great song. Other than some too-loud backing vocals at the beginning, there’s just one thing I would change, and in fact I did change it.

The second verse includes the delightful line “we fucked behind the bleachers.” At the time I was perfectly happy about this. Why shouldn’t we use the full bouquet of the English language in our poetics? (I was reading lots of Allen Ginsberg and Bukowski in 1993.) 

But now I have kids. And it occurred to me when putting this together— I mean, she’s no stranger to the occasional F-bomb, but I don’t think my nine-year-old daughter can hear me sing “we fucked behind the bleachers” until she’s what, maybe 16? 20? Maybe never?

So that changes things. I decided to edit the F-bomb out. (Thanks to Jim Briggs for helping with that.) The unedited track is available below if you just can’t live without hearing me sing “fucked.”

This song has five guitar solos, all by different people. (The third one— obviously the most high-end and professional— was by Rob Taylor, a friend of Keith and Robinson’s who I think just happened to be at Robinson’s place at the time.) The rule was that everyone had only a single take for their solo. If I tried to explain to you how Paul’s and Robinson’s solos were so hilarious, you wouldn’t get it. You had to be there. But our reactions remain in the finished track.

5. Go, She Said

This song is based on a poem I wrote in eighth grade. Here is the poem.

Go, she said.
And so I went.
I never thought we’d end this way
Six months passed by in just one day
Go, she said.
And so I went.

Here I am
The park’s so cold
Thermometer reads ninety-four
I’ve walked so far my feet are sore
Here I am.
The park’s damn cold. 

In a room
Slumped on the floor
Through bleary eyes I see the blade
Reflections of the price I’ve paid
I can’t live.
I mustn’t die. 

Here I am
I walk the streets
A victim of a deadly vice
My life intact, but at what price?
Go, she said.
And so I went.
And here I am.

Here I am: 48 years old, writing about a song I wrote at 23 based on a poem I wrote when I was 13. Sweet. Congratulations on your Very Serious Music, dude.

With lyrics like these this song should be unlistenable, but it’s not, thanks to Paul Ramirez. Paul was my best friend for years and years, and now he’s not anymore. If you knew Paul, then maybe he’s not your friend anymore either. If he still is, I would love to know that he’s still alive.

The two guitar tracks Paul put on this song are amazing. I’m still genuinely not sure how you get a guitar to make noises like that; he used this rack mounted digital delay thing that I had bought off Keith at some point, but I have no idea what he actually did. All I know is that the wall of sound he mad, at the exact time when the lyrics are the most overwrought and screamy, saves the song. Otherwise it’s a poem written by an eighth grader.

What does it say about me that I still know the words to that poem?

6. Alone in Rome

After graduating I worked as a temp at an engineering firm in Goleta, in the purchasing office. I worked next to a super nice guy named Kelly Allin— a little older than me, definitely more grown-up. When I started to make this record, I remembered him mentioning at some point that he played saxophone. I asked if he’d be interested in playing on a couple of songs, he said yes. I wasn’t expecting anything in particular, and holy shit, he turned out to be super good! I don’t think he did more than one take for either song he played on, and both are just amazing.

I’ve never thought of myself as a sax person, but man, Kelly’s work just elevates this song so much. I didn’t know him that well at the time, and I haven’t been in touch with him since leaving Santa Barbara in 1993; maybe that’ll change now.

This song also has an F-bomb: not as egregious as the previous one, but we edited it out nonetheless. (Thanks again, Jim.)

My friend Bruce Geryk once told me, in a bar on the near south side of Chicago in the late 1990s, that “Alone in Rome” was one of the best songs ever written. That’s obviously not true. But to hear someone say that about one of your songs— even just to know that somebody heard your song and thought that— feels amazing, still, even now.

7. Julia (Song for the Bride)

All the things I like best about this record are other people’s contributions. My own stuff— songs, singing, guitar — is fine, but I’m a harsh critic of my work. I can appreciate the stuff that’s good, but I can’t overlook the blemishes. 

But to hear the other people who contributed to this record is revelatory and amazing. With the passage of time I’m more able to hear the technique and care that my friends put into playing these songs. It’s so great. Thanks, you guys.

This is an OK song. Tells a coherent story, a little too sentimental, etc. But the sound of Bonnie playing on it, especially all these years later, makes me feel… proud. That I was able to make a thing that gave her space to do that. When she starts her violin solo, I still get goosebumps. (Aside: human bodies are so amazing. Sounds can make your skin change! I mean, that’s weird, right?)

Also Os and Reneé sound like angels.

8. Los Alamos

This song was in fact written in a little motel on a hill in Los Alamos, California. It’s now known as the Skyview Los Alamos, apparently:

Charlie and I were staying there as part of this trip we took to a variety of small towns in Santa Barbara County. I guess maybe Charlie was going to write an article for the Daily Nexus? I’m quite sure it didn’t cost $174. I don’t think anyone wrote an article.

We wrote this song together up to the “little red pill” line; I finished it a few months later, transforming it from an interesting self-aware meditation on mortality into yet another song about the breakup of a relationship culminating in a soaring romantic crescendo, which I guess was basically my thing back then.

9. Mashed Potatoes

This is one of my favorite Scott Bell songs. Scott is another one of those people that I used to be really close to, and cared about a great deal, and now it’s been at least a decade since we spoke. (There are too many of those people; it’s cropping up as a persistent theme here.)

I hear Scott is in Seattle, and I hope he’s doing well. He seems to be invisible to the internet.

Update: Here he is playing cello in the background of a video of a dance performance a few years ago. He looks great. It’s good to see him.

I love the solo Kelly plays on this song. It’s so beautiful. I had never known that the saxophone could express this kind of… tenderness.

Also, I’m happy to say that I can play a B flat chord now; apparently in 1993 I couldn’t.

10. Badges

I wish this song didn’t sound quite so much like a Neil Young parody. It just seemed like that was the right way to sing it. But the Neil-ness of it kind of overwhelms the song itself, which if nothing else is actually about something other than breaking up with a girl.

Anyway, to my knowledge Neil never ended any of his albums with the line “A baby pulled out screaming from the womb.”  So I’ve got that at least.