Everybody stomp your feet to The Bourgeois Boogie
The JABBERWALRUS project is, first and foremost, an 19-track love song to The Beatles, as it was bound to be when guitarist Tom Briant and I began working songs, several of which are co-written with one another, for the project. After all, The Beatles was the first rock band whose music I fell in love with, at age six; and George Harrison guitar playing has more heavily influenced Tom’s sonic aesthetic than any other guitarist.
We knew that that upcoming album should include at least one “Lady Madonna” styled piano shuffle. And when I first wrote the song, that’s how the piano sounded: a very simple bass line walking up and down around some slightly bluesy chords shuffling their way about the treble clef. (Adam’s piano playing and Paul’s drumming ultimately gave it much more of a New Orleans street jazz skiffle sound, but that’s part of what sets it apart from its original point of departure.)
Once I began considering lyrics, I gave it the working title “Bourgeois Boogie” simply because it seemed ridiculous to be having so many suburban white boys working on a musical style that so clearly owed its original pedigree to a localized (elsewhere) fusion of African American and French Cajun sensibilities, thus poking fun at our own possibly misguided ambitions while also enjoying a little wordplay in the alliterative sounds of the title. But the working title managed to serve as a source of inspiration for the lyrics as well, and before you knew it, we had a pretty eviscerating diatribe against conspicuous consumerism.
LYRICS TO THE BOURGEOIS BOOGIE
Everybody stomp your feet to the bourgeois boogie
Extend your line of credit for the imitation gold-leaf Louis Quatorze chair
Pony up your mortgage for some new wheels; it’s your duty
Just disregard the future: Throw your hands up in the air
Like you don’t care
You’re not all there, but you got your share
Brother, I got mine, but you don’t look so fine
But I ain’t gonna mind; I’ll pretend (not to know)
For whom the bell tolls while I’m rolling in my rolls
I can’t imagine a day when this could ever end
You’re not all there, but you got your share
And you don’t care where it comes from
Everybody stomp your feet to the bourgeois boogie
Adopt an unexamined moral stance that you can blindly impose
On everybody else to obtain your bag of booty
And never have to wonder if your grubbing paws are crushing some toes
Like you don’t care
You’re not all there, but you got your share
And you don’t care where it comes from
Here’s the church & here’s the steeple, A wolf to tend the flocks of sheep all
Busy baah-baah-buying up new things to possess
Every shiny object is to amass and collect
Don’t you worry that the wolf’s got your address
You’re not all there, but you got your share
And you don’t care where it comes from
Everybody stomp your feet to the bourgeois boogie
Don’t let your lack of contribution interfere with all your rampant consumption
Embrace the mediocre and the mundane, it’s your duty
To justify your avarice and intellectual vacuum
Like you don’t care
You’re not all there, but you got your share
And you don’t care where it will end
LINKS TO STREAM THE BOURGEOIS BOOGIE
The Random Hubiak Band: The Bourgeois Boogie
The Beatles: Get Back
Little Richard: Tutti Frutti
Jerry Lee Lewis: Great Balls of Fire
Dave Edmunds: Bail You Out
Mott the Hoople: All The Way to Memphis
Guided By Voices: Cheyenne
Cold Weather Company: Fellow in the North
Kirsty MacColl: I’m Going out with an Eighty Year Old Millionaire
Little Richard: Great Gosh A’mighty
Joni Mitchell: You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care)
The Beatles: Back isn’t he USSR
RINGO Starr: It Don’t Come Easy
Matt Cook: Compassion for the Common Man
Little Richard: Good Golly Miss Molly
Elton John: Hercules
Nick Lowe: Shake and Pop
Suzy Quatro: I’ve Never Been in Love
Dave Edmunds: I Knew the Bride
Mott the Hoople: Roll Away the Stone
Elton John: Honky Cat
Billy Joel: Stiletto
Bee Gees: Boogie Child
RINGO Starr: A Dose of Rock and Roll
Bob Seger: Old Time Rock and Roll
Joan Jett: Bad Reputation
Suzy Quatro: She’s in Love With You
Jerry Lee Lewis: Whole Lotta Shakin’
Little Richard: Long Tall Sally
Elton John: Crocodile Rock
Ben Folds Five: Jackson Cannery
Joni Mitchell: The Arrangement
Mott the Hoople: The Golden Age of Rock and Roll
Kim Carnes: The Arrangement
Emmitt Rhodes: With My Face on the Floor
The Clash: All the Young Punks (New Boots and Contracts)
Elton John: Stinker
World Party: Thank You World
The Pretty Things: Cries from the Midnight Circus
Nick Lowe: Cracking Up
Dave Edmunds: Sweet Little Rock & Roller
Marc Cohn: 29 Ways
Easybeats: She’s so Fine
The Pretty Things: Baron Saturday
Suzy Quatro: Mama’s Boy
Harry Nilsson: One
The Beatles: Lady Madonna