Buddy Holly - The "Chirping" Crickets (1957)

Yesterday, my parents took me to see The Million Dollar Quartet for my birthday, which was cool because dudes got to yang around and pretend they were cool rockstars for a few hours. I can relate to this, since I played in a Slayer cover band. Anyway, this whole experience reminded me of a time that my parents took me to the same theater to see a play about Buddy Holly. It turned out that this play was actually performance art because it was just some dude dressed as Jackie Kennedy with lipstick smeared all over his face repeatedly throwing a model airplane into the ground. My dad was quite cross with the whole experience.

What I'm trying to say is that going to a play with my parents reminded me of Buddy Holly. Avid readers & fans may recall my post about Skip James, in which I discussed compositions based upon the twelve bar blues. Many of Holly's compositions follow in this tradition, even if they may vary from the exact chords of a standard twelve bar. Consider Oh Boy. The point of this song is the hugely catchy "All of my love, all of my kissin, you don't know what you've been missin!" which then continues through the twelve bar form. This phrase is offset with a view different bridges. These are techniques that make me excited to write songs. In conclusion, fuck blogs, write songs instead.

Download