Rob’s Blog-like Liner Notes
The songs on “Musician” were created during a 6 year period in between my work with The Bears and psychodots, production work with other musicians, and the hundreds of commercial spots I composed or arranged in my work at Sound Images. Several were offered as demos to The Bears if I thought it appropriate, and if the songs didn’t fit that framework I finished them off in my music studio at Sound Images, and then added the finishing touches and musicians in our big Studio A, where the final mixes usually took place. In my studio I used Digital Performer software to sequence synths (using guitar & keyboards to interface) and samplers, and also to record audio. I used Kurzweil, EMU, and Roland samplers/synthesizers, and the MOTU MachFive software sampler. I used Shure SM44, Neumann U87 & KMi84, and AKG 414 mics, usually pre-amped through an AMEK 9098 and comped/limited with my old UREI 1178. An assortment of plug-ins were used, the cheap ones from Pluggo among my favorites. I still used my ancient SPX90 on occasion. Amps? I relied on my Fender Cyber Twin, Vox AC-30 re-issue - and near the end - the groovy new Wavelength amplifier Gordon Rankin created for me. Guitars used were my Godin Nylon Multi-Ac, Taylor 612CE, ’68 Martin 00-18, a “Nashville” strung Fender HMT Tele, the Wil Kimble Parlor Guitar #1, a ’72 P Bass, a ’65 Rickenbacker 625, a new DanElectro, a ’97 Les Paul TV Special re-issue, a Private Stock PRS Hollowbody II (nice gift!), and of course, my trusty early 90’s Strat Plus (that my inner child painted which appears on the back cover). Jay Petach loaned me his mandolin. When I transferred my work to Studio A, Matt H. did his best to repair my often spur-of-the-moment recordings into something he could deal with in ProTools HD. Let me just say that his in-bred ‘80’s punk ethic allows for sloppiness and distortion when it’s cool, and his formal training as a classical pianist and knowledge as a CCM grad make him quite facile at bringing things up to a high degree of fidelity when it serves a good purpose. Or a bad purpose.

Here are the lyrics pared down a bit to avoid repetition, and little trivia concerning them:

Clown

I used to wanna be a rock star, used to wanna be black

But I found my true calling when I slipped through the cracks-I’m a clown

I look pretty silly with my hair cut this way

But if I scare the little kids I laugh and say it’s O.K. ‘cause I’m a clown

My life’s tragedy you will never see

My sister is a dancer and my brother’s a pimp

They made a dirty movie starring Zippy the Chimp and a clown

My mother painted pictures of my daddy the jerk

Who became the family martyr so he wouldn’t have to work - I’m a clown

My life’s tragedy you will never see - I’m a clown

I dumb it down for the crowd, make a loud vulgar noise

It’s strikes the funny bone of all the girls and boys -I’m a clown

So if ya hang around with me you better watch where you sit

You come to my circus you’re gonna step in some shit- I’m a clown

-The working title for this song was “I’m a Queer” - until my friend (photographer) Michael Wilson loaned me a copy of “The Clown” by Heinrich Boll. Thanks to Bob Nyswonger for allowing the loan of his sad little monkey for this one.

Zero

Do your math, take the numbers, add them up and make no mistake. It all adds up to zero

Face the facts, get it straight, set your clock - you don’t wanna be late

For the big count down to zero

You can curse, you can pray. Do what you will it’s the same either way - It all amounts to zero

Maybe I should feel sorry for you but I can’t feel anything

We were connected but you let it disappear when you caved into your fear. Zero

You can quit, you can stay and count the cash at the end of the day and all you’ll have is zero

Trap your friends, collect your things, lock them up or throw them away

And what you’ll get is zero

You paint me in a corner, you figured it out

With God on your side you‘re never in doubt but it all amounts to zero

-This was written in about 8 minutes after a run-in with an unhappy accountant from Hell.

Life is hard.

Life is hard. It ain’t fair. People suffer everywhere

And when it’s over… then you die

And your friends all stand around, scratch their heads and wonder why

Man can’t even make a worm but he makes gods by the dozen to make you squirm

You’re doin’ it wrong! Better do it right! -
Or you wind up in the place where it’s always night
Life is hard

Drones in monochrome sort bones and play a game:

Daddy takes the credit, The Kid takes all the blame

So take my hand darling. We’re halfway home

I won’t let go little sister -
you don’t have to walk through this alone

I’m gonna keep it simple baby -This much I know is true:

Love is as close to God as I’m ever gonna get and baby I love you

-Randy Newman meets Abbey Road. The line about gods and worms was
inspired by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne – a 16^th century essayist. That’s Belinda from Midnight Star joining in at the end. I got a blood blister from doing the double-tracked guitar solo on this one. It sounds like slide guitar but it’s all bending.

I like girls

I like girls who don’t run away when I look ‘em in the eyes and they hear me say, “I like you.”

I like you girl when your mood gets rotten so I tickle you little ‘til the pain’s forgotten.

I like girls when they come in pairs laughing so hard they fall out of their chairs like you do. I’d like two of you.

Girls girls girls girls girls girls girls girls.

It’s a rotten little world and life ain’t simple but it gets pretty easy when

I kiss your dimples. It’s true. I like you.

So give me a kiss goodnight and kill me in my sleep and in the afterlife

It’s a memory that I’ll keep of you. And I’ll still like you

- I dreamed that I was in Burbank and heard this on the radio performed by The Simpletons. I woke up, and lurched downstairs to find my old Martin 00-18 and scribbled down some words and figured out the simple guitar figure. I wanted to give it to those guys, but they broke up! The chorus is a ghost of an old Raisins song: “Girls”.

Tell the Truth

Tell the truth. Don’t tell lies. Why am I so afraid of hearing “Goodbye”?

I liked you but you used me.

Why am I so afraid of being free?

I’m talking to you,

watch my eyes following you to where you hide

To a dark place filled with self-righteousness

Take the time to load your gun,

take a deep breath fill up your lungs

And howl out at the cold black sun -

you won’t confess

Tell the truth. Don’t tell lies

Don’t run away. Don’t pretend.

Why can’t you realize the facts won’t bend?

All your gain from my pain.

Why do I still believe that you might change?

- Bob N. played bass on an early version of this song. I accidentally deleted the only multi-track file I had, so I painstakingly learned his part and recorded it myself. It’s almost as good as what he did. The solo was an improvised first take: 40 seconds. The double track of said solo took 2 hours. That’s a (legal) sampled drum loop of Clyde Stubblefield at the end.

Malcolm and Margerie

Gin. Tequila. Gin. Tequila. Gin. Tequila - Margerie

This was our garden. Everything’s dead. Now we’ve been evicted - Margerie

And there was nothing you could do about the faith I trampled through

Look me in the eye and tell the truth.

If there’s a God - show me the proof – Margerie

Gin. Tequila. Gin. Tequila. Gin. Tequila – Margerie

I love hell. I can’t wait to go back

And that’s why I’m running – Margerie

Gin. Tequila. Gin. Tequila. Gin. Tequila – Margerie

- Mr. And Mrs. Malcolm Lowry. Yet another Fetters song referencing the life of one of my favorite authors and his masterpiece, “Under The Volcano”. The chorus melody is 28 years old – from a Raisin song called “Romantic Skids”, and then almost becoming part of a Bears song called “Kiss It Goodbye”. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is in the house on this one with the tender work of violinist Paul Patterson, possibly the finest musician I know.

Musician / No / Dinner

A] She’s a philosopher. She founded my religion.

She makes the soul connection ‘cause she’s a musician

And she sits at her piano and catapults through space

And channels the enlightened ones –
you see it on her face

She’s a musician and my only ambition
is to be part of her life

B] She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer
so I lied and I said “yes”

I was her slave and she was my master.
I couldn’t get no rest.

Our family was young and so beautiful –
on the outside at least

With faces like angels and souls like The Beast

They traded me in for a Methodist Priest.

C] Yo, man – check this out. Ooh, babe.
The dope shit! So good.

“Shut up, little man. Nobody asked you to say anything.

I got a decent dinner ready.
Nothing happened with the dinner,

Because you crucified it. God damn you.”

- Musician was 3 minutes of questionably sweet guitar pop, so I edited the heck out of it and made it into a medley marriage between heaven and hell. Thanks to Biff Blumfumgagne for turning me onto “Shut Up, Little Man!” Biff is also the composer of “Love Letters to Rob Fetters”. Obscurity squared.

External Link: “Shut Up, Little Man!”

I didn’t know

She didn’t mean to hurt you when she had an affair

With a bored businessman who didn’t really care

But he marriage was over so he ran out on his wife

And he messed around with yours and it fucked up your life. Oh, no.

Smart women act stupid when they love the wrong man

They know the guy’s a loser. They know it going in

But they give the guy everything a woman can give

And when he sneaks out the door and strands her with the kid she cries

I didn’t know what I was doing. It didn’t feel like it was wrong

Who would have thought that I was being selfish?

I loved my life but now it’s gone

It made you wanna murder, take drugs and take drink

Take the easy way out so you won’t have to think

And you wind up in a room with a rope and a chair

Where there’s no turning back ‘cause you’re dangling in the air thinking

I didn’t know what I was doing. It didn’t feel like it was wrong.

- “Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically – to those who hardly think about us in return.”

- T.H. White

Slave

The black sun is my Mother

The red sky – that’s My Old Man

They are the best friends I’ll never have

I am your slave

You give me nothing but pain

My future tied to an iron chain

But death will be my catapult to freedom

I am your slave

I went down to the water sand burning my feet

Salt stinging my wounds floating on the Dead Sea

You don’t know what I’m thinking

All you can hear is my breathing

You know I cannot go under

Floating on the Dead Sea

The black sun. The red sky..

- the ghost of an old Raisin song called “Leopards” stalks through this one.

Heaven

I’ve got a long way to go

I don’t really wanna take it slow

I wanna gaze down at the earth below - heaven

I’m trying hard to stay detached

But I keep wondering when my eggs will hatch

I’m looking for a perfect match – heaven

I’d like my childhood back

I need God to cut me some slack

So I can make these gray skies crack – heaven

There’s so much hurt you can’t erase

Frozen to this time and space

If it would disappear without a trace – heaven

I wish I had a magic box

I’d take your pain and keep it locked up

And run away to a place that time forgot

I want my childhood back

I need God to cut me some slack

I’m tryin’ to make this night sky crack – heaven

My friends are waiting there

I’m late but they don’t care

I’ve got a long way to go…

- The trouble with heaven on earth is that it never holds still long enough for me to chain myself to it. I wrote this at the last minute before the disc went to press….

Trailerpark Bob

Sooner or later you’ll run out of money, and right after that you’ll run out of friends

And when your retirement portfolio tanks you’ll have only yourself to thank but

Bob has a good life in the trailer park. He loves his kids more than he digs his job

And when he makes love to his wife: well, she’s as pretty as a TV star

If he weren’t (sic) so humble he’d think he was a God

And Bob wouldn’t trade his life for anyone, anywhere

Maybe he’s poor white trash but if he is - he doesn’t care

Bob wouldn’t trade his life for anyone, anywhere, anyone, anywhere.

One of these days your wife will want plastic surgery so you will buy her two big breasts

But eventually your flag will sag ‘cause deep inside she’s the same old bag

And you’ll learn the worst things in life are free…

The morning sun shines down on an Airstream in Yuma

And Bob stands at the door with a library card in his hand

Gonna check out some Dr. Seuss for the kids and some Herman Melville for his baby

And download an MP3 by the MC5 and kick out the jams

!srekcufrehtoM

-This is the first song I wrote for this record, and is my humble offering as an ode to everyman.

One more thing - The cover illustration is a colorization of an old woodcut that popped up a few times when I was cruising websites with info about medieval life. I couldn’t trace the original artist – I found a clue that it might be the work of a 19^th century French astronomer named Flammarion – but I can’t verify it. My bad old friend, artist Daryl (“Doc”) Kalmus was kind and talented enough to do the color version. I suggested the red sky and black sun, and my wife insisted on red shoes….