Due date today. Determined to get something up. So submitting lyrics only for now. Wrecked my hip. Confined to bed. Quite painful to move. Will try and get a track up in the next few days, depending on my recovery time.
I wrote six stream-of-consciousness pieces for this week. The one I chose is based on a recurring memory. My parents split up, when I was seventeen. As one way of dealing with it, I used to take long, solitary drives into the country, at all hours of the day or night. Those drives soothed my soul, and I have loved driving ever since.
Two years earlier, at fifteen, I worked for a summer in an auto rebuild shop. It was difficult and dirty work - 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. five days a week, plus a half day on Saturday, for 50 cents an hour, twenty-five dollars a week.
In addition to odd jobs, my primary task was to strip down and clean the engines that came into the shop. We got everything, from 850cc Morris Minis to Oldsmobile overhead-valve straight eights. Mostly what came through the back door, though, were Chevy 6-cylinder L-heads and Ford flathead V-8's. I got to learn those engines inside-out.
My closest cousin, two years older than me, owned two Ford flatheads, a '51 and a '53, both black. The original Ford of that design, the first model to roll off the assembly line after WWII, was the 1949 Ford. This week's song is my tribute to that automobile. In particular, the 1949 Ford Club Coupe.
As in Brian Wilson's Little Deuce Coupe, there's a bit of terminology in the song that might be a bit esoteric for some. That didn't stop the Beach Boys tune, or Hot Rod Lincoln by Charlie Ryan, from becoming huge hits.
The song form isn't decided yet. I've included a potential Chorus and Bridge. That'll all get worked out when I record the scratch demo.
Hope you like this one.
49 Ford
She’s my forty-nine Ford, love to feel her move
When she starts to rumble, puts me right in the mood
She’s got a heart of steel, an’ she’s quick off the line
Don’t she look pretty, my Club Coupe forty-nine
Under the hood, she’s got a flathead vee-eight
With a four-barrel carb, she don’t make me wait
Bored to three-twenty cubes, with a Mercury crank
She’ll top a hundred and thirty, all the way to the bank
Chopped—dropped, long and low on the chassis
When I take her cruisin’ she looks real sassy
With her Detroit mags, and chrome-spinner grille
In her custom flame job, she’s the queen of the hill
She ain’t no hardtop
She ain’t no Fordor sedan
She ain’t no ragtop
She’s my Ford Club Coupe forty-nine
Catch her if you can
Catch her if you can
Catch her if you can
The girls all smile, as I drive by
Their boyfriends wanna punch out my headlights
I don't care, 'cause I love my steady girl
And she loves my Ford Club Coupe forty-nine
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