Unless you slept through English class in high school, you probably know Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. As a songwriter who is probably best known for his original lyrics, you might wonder why I would write a song using someone else’s words. The answer is simple: this was a homework assignment. To explain that, I may need to give you a little backstory.
When I moved back to Louisville, I thought I might do an early childhood class that I did in New York City. It was very popular there. They had a six-month waiting list. It didn’t work out. In Louisville. So I started giving music lessons and producing records, which was more successful, but not enough to pay the bills, and the money was either barely-sated or famine. So I thought about teaching. I knew that I would need a Master's. I thought about getting a Master's in music, but without an undergraduate degree in music, that was not an option. I probably should have gotten an MAT, which is essential for teaching in the public schools, but that really didn’t interest me. So, I thought I would get a Master’s in Humanities. I figured that would prepare me to teach English and History in a private school. That was the theory, at least.
One of my classes was a seminar on the Renaissance. One of the assignments was to take a work of art and transpose it into a different medium, so I chose to take one of Shakespeare’s sonnets and turn it into a pop song. A Shakespearean sonnet has three verses followed by a couplet. It doesn’t exactly work as a pop song until you use the couplet as your chorus, which I’m pretty sure is how Shakespeare would have handled it. If the language is a bit confusing, your idea of what it means to “reek” probably is not the same as Shakespeare’s- here is a cheat sheet.
I was working at CB Sounds producing music for other artists, and I went in one day when we didn’t have much to do and played all the instruments. Colin Brown would have probably played drums, but he wasn’t feeling well, so I played the drums. I had sliced my finger making dinner the night before, so I only had three fingers to fret, so if my guitar-work sounds a bit more rudimentary than usual, you know why- same with the bass. I thought I was going to show everyone up when I played the recording at the seminar. Unfortunately, the CD kept skipping, and all that work went unappreciated.
It’s just as well, because I later added Woody’s harpsichord, which might be my favorite solo on the album. My daughter Penelope sang backups, which makes my day every time I hear them.