Happy Friday everyone! I am proud to unveil this week’s installment of my Song-A-Week project, “Small Town Incorporated”! It’s a song about something we may have all noticed creeping across our lands, the corporatization of our towns and even our neighborhoods as they transform into company towns and tourist traps masquerading as organic small towns with that mass-manufactured “country charm” we’re starting to see everywhere. Luckily, this type of stuff was foreseen by great thinkers like G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and they had some great — and ancient — well-vetted solutions for a situation like ours (if you follow my YouTube channel, you’ve seen me sharing readings from their work).
If you’ve seen your hamlet bought up by developers; your village turned into a tourist trap; your neighborhood turned into a company town; your commons turned into a Big Name energy farm; or your neighbors moving because they can’t afford to stay due to all this and more (here on Martha’s Vineyard — all of the above!), this song is for you. Yes, a little more political than my usual, but what can I say, I contain multitudes.
The song features Western Mass’s finest, Mr. Eric Lee on the fiddle and mandolin, rounding out my musical vision for this song as drum-machine-Americana (I’m in a phase) meets 70’s progressive Irish folk a la Andy Irvine and Paul Brady.
Enjoy “Small Town Incorporated”! Btw let me know if you catch the “Simpsons” reference.
Lyrics:
Tired of this rigmarole runaround! Herding cats in this dead end town, working for a man who lives far from me & owns all the land and wind and the seas. Well, all was well ‘til the great gold rush. We used to own our houses and a neighborhood trust. But the big money man said we can’t say no to all the places he said he’s here to take us to go. So move over farmer, move over Mr. Fisherman — here come the heroes with a hot new industry! Here’s your new job, you gotta help us operate it: welcome to Small Town Incorporated! Well, my neighbor Ned said he just signed his name on a digital document, the thousandth page. Says he gonna be set for life, they’ll even still let him live in the house with his wife. Trading on the family land legacy to get set up with that policy? Sign it all over while it’s hot and make it snappy — you won’t own nothing, but you’ll sure be “happy”. It’s safe to say I think we the lost plot. Time to take a page from G.K. & Belloc! Long past due for a Jubilee — but maybe folks these days don’t know what that means. So move over farmer, move over Mr. Fisherman — here come the heroes with a hot new industry! Here’s your new job, you gotta help us operate it: welcome to Small Town Incorporated! Yea move over mamas, and papas, and grandparents — we’re rolling out a whole damn generational class conflict! Think you like it now? Wait ‘til we upgrade it! Welcome to Small Town Incorporated!
We had a grand ole’ time. I think we had around 600 heads in Boston, and 150 in Portsmouth. Not bad for the little Island band that could! I think the biggest venue on the Island holds 200. Lol. It’s always wild playing off-Island. We played the hits, we did some covers. We made up a lot of songs about me — no better way to get the audience to remember your name than to literally make them sing it 2-4 times a show — made up some other songs too, like “Live Free or Die” (coming soon to social media near you), and kicked out some serious jams. At one point in Portsmouth I thought I was gonna faint onstage (thanks Lyme) — but I didn’t! So all in all, a smashing success! Thank you to everyone who came out as well as all you who spread the word! Enjoy our little photo album.
Oh yea, P.S. I saw Sting too.
Oh yea and here’s Sting:
