Light This Fuse
I’m up in the morning
After a half-night’s sleep
Got in kind of late
Been getting in way too deep
I think it’s time to light this fuse
Cause I’m tired of paying someone else’s dues.
I threw down all my money
At thirty-five to one
I was planning how to spend it
The bookie said, “son, you’re done”.
I think it’s time to light this fuse
Because I’m tired of paying someone else’s dues
I told the shark I’d pay him
When I got my next check.
But I can’t hardly breathe
With his boot on my neck
I think it’s time to light this fuse
Cause I’m tired of paying someone else’s dues
My baby she tells me
I need to take it slow
Stop messing around so much
Maybe go with the flow
Then I had to share my news
That I’m tired of paying someone else’s dues.
I had been working on a 12-bar blues progression, just playing around because they are fun to play and rock out on. I had written one verse and then set it aside. Leslie heard me play it one afternoon and loved how it rocked. I told her stories of me and my friend Brian, back in the 1970’s, and how we would make up blues songs spontaneously. The standard 12-bar blues lyrics are you make a statement, repeat the statement, and then give a response. The first verse I wrote for this song didn’t have that form. There is no true chorus in this song. My intention was to write a blues song that didn’t have the word “blues” in it, but had rhymes that could or should have the word blues in them. I gave Leslie some examples on the spot, just making up a story. Leslie started riffing on what I’d started. Somehow this became a song about gambling. The couplet, “I think it’s time to light this fuse, because I’m tired of paying someone else’s dues” was in the original verse. I see it as about a person who blames everyone else for their actions and mistakes. When I decided to record this song for the new album my intention was to have the band do a round of solos. I always like to have a song like this on my albums because the players that work with me are so good. And they really rocked this one. I told Fred that perhaps we should make this a shuffle, which is how we recorded it. The intro and outro I added after the song was recorded. I’d had the riff in my head for weeks. I called it the “na na na na boo boo” riff. When it came time to record the intro in the studio my hands froze up with arthritis and I had a devil of a time playing this simple riff. Scott pieced it together to make it sound better, and Fred laid several tracks on top of mine, including a harmony part. I’d heard it as kind of an Allman Brothers type intro with twin lead guitars. The first solo on this song is Alissa Wolf playing her fiddle through an effects pedal. Could you tell it was a fiddle?
