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Selected songs by Brandy Cinnamon Wages
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I Feel So Trashy
Can't Touch A Dream (But You Can Feel It)
Promise Me Another Short War
The Better Part of the Week
Don't Understand
Signing In The Seventies.
Brandy and Crystal ink their first record deal at Genuine Oak Records in Toronto. The first single: I Feel So Trashy.
"Oh, look at me signing that contract in that old picture! That young lady has got it all figured out, hasn't she?
"Genuine Oak had built on folk, and started into rock, and then country when they picked me up.
"
I Feel So Trashy was the song that started it all for me. I wrote it in a moment of exasperation, but somehow it came out as something everybody else hears as fun. It was like building a runaway train around myself by mistake. My big sister Crystal was the first one to hear it was worth something, because I certainly didn't think so. Next thing I know, she's playing the drums, and we're riding around everywhere playing this crazy silly song. I wish it was always that easy."
I Feel So Trashy
by Brandy Cinnamon Wages
I'm so tired of schemin' and dreamin' of you
Half of what you say is twice of what you do
I think you know what it takes to make me smile
And I wanna feel something I ain't felt in a while
It ain't no use in me sittin' here all alone
You gotta take it out if you're ever gonna take it home
I'm good 'n' ready gonna hit the town with a smash
I just need someone who knows how to take out the trash
I feel so trashy
Somebody oughta take me out
I might not come from much
But I can show you what life's about
I might be lonely but am I really that homely? oh no!
I don't like stoppin' when I'm feelin' so go go go
Know a little place, the floor makes dust when you dance
It'll hardly cost you nothin' to feel the real romance
I said it ain't no use in me sittin' here all alone
You gotta take it out if you're ever gonna take it home
I'm good 'n' ready gonna hit the town with a smash
I just need someone who knows how to take out the trash
I feel so trashy
Somebody oughta take me out
I might not come from much
But I can show you what life's about
You think your dreams
Are awful hot
But you don't know half
Of what I got
Your fantasies
Are overbooked
There's something real
You overlooked
I feel so trashy
Somebody oughta take me out
I might not come from much
But I can show you what life's about
(repeat chorus to fade)
"Can't Touch a Dream - that was my follow-up to Trashy. It didn't jump over to pop from country radio the same way Trashy did.
"Dream is a sensitive and moody hurtin' song, but parts of it seem judgmental and self-righteous to me now. Those parts are probably symptoms of attitudes that led me to the sad situation that inspired the song in the first place. These are the considerations that run through your mind, when a couple of songs that you wrote when you were 19 years old follow you down the decades for the rest of your life.
"Regret and grief, they're both physical presences, but they are different entities. This is regret, and it's strong, but the ripples of my own perpetual defensiveness are what stand out now in this song for me."
Can't Touch a Dream (But You Can Feel It)
by Brandy Cinnamon Wages
Has it really been that long
Since I watched you walk away
Is there anything that I can keep
Of us beyond that day
If I could take these empty arms
And make forever stay
I would hold you here for always dear
As time was held at bay
Can't touch a dream, but you can feel it
One can't buy love, but two can steal it
I'll always keep you in my heart and on my mind
'Cause love is something that we steal from time
I felt laughter you once brought
But now I never could
I can't release this picture now
Though I know I should
My heart will beat alone much longer
Than I wish it would
Without you here right by my side
No it just isn't good
Can't touch a dream, but you can feel it
One can't buy love, but two can steal it
I'll always keep you in my heart and on my mind
'Cause love is something that we steal from time
I let you go I turned away
I let it all go wrong
If I just hadn't hidden love
In the sweetness of a song
Can't touch a dream, but you can feel it
One can't buy love, but two can steal it
Sand spills down the glass and the clock unwinds
And love is all we really have to give in time
"Short War. Yeah, a song about me and my ex, mostly. It goes over well live. I can usually guess the women in the audience who are divorced. Not just the shouters -- sometimes it's just a look from someone in the front row.
"Yes, as it says in the lyrics, I used to go out and sleep in the kitchen when I was angry, instead of kicking him out of the bed. That was just how I felt, I guess. Who needs the tabloid press? Just read my lyrics. What a crazy way to make a living."
Promise Me Another Short War
by Brandy Cinnamon Wages
You got that look in your eye
Like this time you're right
C'mon baby
We got all night
Tell me that again
About your point of view
How I don't understand myself
Half as well as you do
You might as well
Promise me another short war
I'll go get the sleeping bag
Cause I'll be sleepin' on the kitchen floor
Promise me another short war
We will be done by Christmas
If we still know what we're fightin' for
Promise me another short war, baby
Let's fight
Uh huh no no yeah
You said I said yes no
But it feels so hollow
We shout and scream
But I can't follow
Let's lose control
And wake the baby too
Let's scare the neighbours
If we've got a point to prove
You might as well
Promise me another short war
I'll go get the sleeping bag
Cause I'll be sleepin' on the kitchen floor
Promise me another short war
We will be done by Christmas
If we still know what we're fightin' for
Promise me another short war, baby
Let's fight
Uh huh no no yeah
(zoom image in new tab)
"The Better Part of the Week -- that was my '80s comeback song, after a really bad stretch in my life. It was a 45 single on a little Canadian label called Snappy Tramp. I had high hopes for that label, but oh well, so did a lot of people, I guess. This is a song from my countrified-Springsteen-as-a-chick
phase. I have never been a number one, but at least I charted again, in Canada anyway, and I was able to scrape along on that for a while.
"Even though Trashy is considered my signature, I have been sick of it and loved it, on and off, over the years.
"But I always get a kick out of Better Part, and enjoy playing through the crescendo with Crystal's big drum rolls, and then the drop and pick-up near the end where I shout 'Sing it!'
"Better Part is a song I can always stand by. I feel like it respects my audience. It sounds down-to-earth, but it's really a fantasy. It is my fantasy of having some sort of normal life. It's a dream of being somebody who can stay put in a community and make a lasting romantic relationship with another person, of some gender or another that is not specified in the song. Just to have a true love in all of life's frustrations."
The Better Part of the Week
by Brandy Cinnamon Wages
I got a target to hit and some overtime
I don't know how I don't just loose my mind
Boss told me now it's time to step up the pace
Don't know why I don't just leave this place
Ready to let go
I'm gonna jump up and scream
Am I really here or is it just a crazy dream?
Sweat on my brow
And and a tear on my cheek
Cause this is how I spend...
The better part of the week
Better part of the week, yeah
The better part of the week
Another day begins, it makes me want to shout
Work keeps coming in, and I keep putting it out
The numbers come down and it's not looking right
To put food on the plate gotta work to the night
Ready to let go
I'm gonna jump up and scream
Am I really here or is it just a crazy dream?
Sweat on my brow
And and a tear on my cheek
Cause this is how I spend...
The better part of the week
Better part of the week, yeah
The better part of the week
(solos)
When the week is done and I'm with you at last
And we cut loose together and we kick up a blast
Gonna dance then give thanks with the people I love
On my knees praying hard for some strength from above
Ready to let go
I'm gonna jump up and scream
Am I really here or is it just a crazy dream?
Sweat on my brow
And and a tear on my cheek
Cause this is how I spend...
The better part of the week
Better part of the week, yeah
The better part of the week
Come on baby this is our chance, get up and dance
La la la la la sing it
Yeah at last we are here
And things don't look so bleak
Cause this how we spend...
The better part of the week
Better part of the week, oh darling
The better part of the week
Brandy Getting Ink From Lefty (zoom in new tab)
"Don't Understand is just a little poemy song. It's hypnotic to sing, with an unusual structure, but still has a twang. I made this song in my forties, after I grew the wings. So it was written and recorded for Nonondol Records.
"It's a song about my faith, and the way that it magnifies my questions instead of answering them.
Crystal doesn't mind playing it, even though she hasn't got much time for the topic. I think she hears other meanings in songs like this, which I am fine with. Well, she will play drinking songs too, and she doesn't drink anymore either. She gets more irritated with me if I sing something where she feels I am being dishonest, or if I exaggerate stories in my stage patter.
"I wrote this song trying my best to articulate a feeling that I find restorative.
"After the initial freak-out wore off from growing the wings and being able to fly and whatnot, I thought for a while that maybe I was going to understand things better, and the way that life can unfold might start to make sense to me. But that didn't happen. A lot of things still don't make sense to me, like the way a faith that has brought me comfort in times of torment and indecision has also been used to do so much harm, or the way people in general treat each other as they scramble up their ladders of condescension, or how a completely innocent person could die from a horrible disease the way my daughter did. Why do these things happen? Growing wings has explained nothing. It's still the same. I don't understand."
Don't Understand
by Brandy Cinnamon Wages
When I don't understand
I feel your hand
What can not be shown
I have ever known
Dreamed I knelt in armour
Just to speak to you
When I crawl or I soar
It's to seek to you
When I don't understand
I feel your hand
What can not be shown
I have ever known
Dreamed I knelt in armour
Just to speak to you
When I crawl or I soar
It's to seek to you
When I don't understand
I feel your hand
What can not be shown
I have ever known
What can not be shown
I have ever known
What can not be shown
I have ever known
I have ever known
I have ever known
I have ever known
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