Music |
Dawes: “A Little Bit of Everything”
By
Published: Aug 04, 2013
Category:
Rock
In July, I fell in love with From a Window Seat, a song by Dawes.
New month, new obsession. Not far from the last one. It’s “A Little Bit of Everything,” also by Dawes.
Dawes is pure LA. Its fathers are Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon. Its most distinguished alumnus is Blake Mills. To me, that’s a royal lineage.
How good is this song?
A story: Dawes toured with Bob Dylan. Naturally they were desperate to meet him. But how? Knock on the door of his dressing room? And then say what? So they did nothing. After the last concert of the tour, the band was about to get on the bus. Lead singer and songwriter Taylor Goldsmith recalls what happened next: “Dylan walked right up to me and said, ‘It was really great to have you guys. What’s that last ballad that you played?’ I said, ‘A Little Bit of Everything.’ And he said, ‘That’s a great song.’ That was our whole conversation — he walked away, and that was it."
And that song is the whole of this edition of Head Butler. [To download “A Little Bit of Everything” from Amazon, click here. For “Nothing Is Wrong,” the CD it’s on, click here. For the MP3 download of “Nothing Is Wrong,” click here.]
With his back against the San Francisco traffic,
On the bridge’s side that faces towards the jail,
Setting out to join a demographic,
He hoists his first leg up over the rail.
A phone call is made,
Police cars show up quickly.
The sergeant slams his passenger door.
He says, “Hey son, why don’t you talk through this with me,
Just tell me what you’re doing it for.”
“Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,
It’s the mountains,
It’s the fog,
It’s the news at six o’clock,
It’s the death of my first dog,
It’s the angels up above me,
It’s the song that they don’t sing,
It’s a little bit of everything.”
An older man stands in a buffet line,
He is smiling and holding out his plate,
And the further he looks back into his timeline,
That hard road always led him to today,
And making up for when his bright future had left him,
Making up for the fact that his only son is gone,
And letting everything out once, his server asks him,
“Have you figured out yet, what it is you want?”
“I want a little bit of everything,
The biscuits and the beans,
Whatever helps me to forget about
The things that brought me to my knees,
So pile on those mashed potatoes,
And an extra chicken wing,
I’m having a little bit of everything.”
Somewhere a pretty girl is writing invitations,
To a wedding she has scheduled for the fall,
Her man says, “Baby, can I make an observation?
You don’t seem to be having any fun at all.”
She said, “You just worry about your groomsmen and your shirt size,
And rest assured that this is making me feel good,
I think that love is so much easier than you realize,
If you can give yourself to someone,
Then you should.
‘Cause it’s a little bit of everything,
The way you choke, the way you ache,
It is getting up before you,
So I can watch you as you wake.
So on that day in late September,
It’s not some stupid little ring,
I’m giving a little bit of everything.”
Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,
It’s the matador and the bull,
It’s the suggested daily dosage,
It’s the red moon when it’s full.
All these psychics and these doctors,
They’re all right and they’re all wrong,
It’s like trying to make out every word,
When they should simply hum along.
It’s not some message written in the dark,
Or some truth that no one’s seen,
It’s a little bit of everything.
