"I Wanna Be Rich"

Current listening: Jobriath, Creatures of the Street

Jobriath is someone I didn’t discover until about a year ago. Much too late. He died of AIDS in 1983. Klaus Nomi. Keith Haring. Arthur Russell. All great talents lost too soon. They all left a mark though. I am not afraid of death – just of death coming before I’m ready for it. I haven’t left my mark yet. That’s one of the reasons for this blog: a transparent and desperate attempt to leave my name on the wall while I still have the chance. A little bit of digital graffiti.

This is a song I wrote during my fertile early Boston period. I didn’t get around to recording it until Making a Mess. Lately, most of my musical efforts have been devoted to practicing the euphonium. Talk about no commercial potential!

“I Wanna Be Rich”on YouTube

I Wanna Be Rich

© 1985 Brian Hutzell

I wanna be rich

I wanna be rich

Ain't no point in living if I can't get everything I want

I can't get everything I want if I don't have money

I wanna be rich

I wanna be wealthy

Ain't no point in living if I can't have the best

I can't afford to have the best if I don't have money

I gotta have lots and lots of money

So I can live in luxury

The royal life for me

No mediocrity

Gonna travel overseas

Visit the other kings

Sipping a cup of tea

Next to England's Queen

I wanna be rich

I wanna be richer

I wanna be richest

I wanna be rich

I wanna be richer

I wanna be richest

"Proud Feet"

Brian Hutzell

"I Hate My Apartment"

I wrote this while living in my tiny efficiency studio in Boston’s South End. It was actually a very nice (if small) apartment in a great neighborhood. I couldn’t afford anything around there now. The only bad part was the shared bathroom, and even that could be tolerated at the time. I was young, and I had my very first solo apartment! It was an exciting time. This apartment figures in a lot of my dreams. Usually, I’m trying to get back in to see it. This, the Medford place, and my boyhood home on 40^th Street in Des Moines are all locations that pop up in a lot of dreams. Those are all places where I know I made some mistakes that I’d love to go back and correct.

I wrote a lot of my first complete songs – words and music – there on Pembroke Street, sitting at my Rhodes piano, looking out on the Hancock building, enjoying the lights of the city. I would go for long walks around the neighborhood, jotting down ideas in a notebook. When I got back home, I’d flesh out my ideas while starting to define a style I could call my own. I recorded this one for Making a Mess.

“I Hate My Apartment” on YouTube

I Hate My Apartment

© 1985 Brian Hutzell

Bare walls

Dirty floor

One room

Nothing more

I hate my apartment

I've seen bigger glove compartments

I hate my apartment

I'd rather live in a rat-infested basement

Thin walls

Rotten view

Peeling paint

Nothing new

I hate my apartment

But it's the only thing I can afford

I hate my apartment

I want something more

Poor lights

Looks dead

Ceiling leaks

On my head

I hate my apartment

It's a shame I have to call it my home

I hate my apartment

But at least it's my very own

"A Very Strange Feeling"

I’ve been doing a lot of writing for school lately. If nothing else, this term has been good practice for my writing chops. Every writer says the key to writing is writing. Who would have guessed? I say I want to be a writer, but I don’t do enough writing. I think it was Truman Capote who said everyone wants to have written, but no one wants to write. I’m guilty of that. Well, from now on, I’m going to make a better effort to stay consistent with my writing. Do it every day! This blog is a good place for me to dabble and try things. So is school.

None of this has anything to do with the song at hand. Here is a breakup song from an early collection of mine. I recorded it as part of Making a Mess. The follow-up was supposed to be Another Fine Mess (a little tip o’ the hat to Laurel & Hardy), but I never completed it.

"A Very Strange Feeling" on YouTube 

A Very Strange Feeling

© 1984 Brian Hutzell

How could your parents look at me that way?

The same way they've looked at me a thousand times before

How could they sit and smile

And all the while

Talk as if we were still to be married

What did you say to make them play that not so innocent game?

I know that they knew and that they didn't know I did too

It's a very strange feeling

Seeing you while you're seeing

The man who changed our plans

What do the friends we had together say

When they see you not with me, but holding someone's hand?

It's a very strange feeling

Seeing them while they're seeing

A new face in my place

Do I look different to them?

Have I changed in their eyes?

Am I less?

I think I hear them whispering

"Collage Portrait"

Brian Hutzell

"Bottle In The Bedroom"

I recorded this song for my cassette collection “Making a Mess,” which is one of my personal favorites. It’s just a bunch of early songs I wrote, recorded in “everything-including-the-kitchen-sink” fashion. No commercial potential whatsoever! I began work on a sequel, “Another Fine Mess,” but never finished it. I leave a trail of unfinished projects wherever I go.

Bottle In The Bedroom

© 1983 Brian Hutzell

She's living with a bottle by her bed

It helps her get to sleep by lightening her head

"Just a little now and then," she says

But that little bit can sometimes make a mess

You know, making a mess of her brain

Making her insane

Making a mess of her mental facility

Hampering her mechanical ability

Wreaking havoc with her thought processes

When taken in reckless excesses

(Would you like a drink?)

She's got a bottle in the bedroom

And she touches it more and more

What does she need it for?

It knocks her to the floor

In the morning her head is sore

All the time it's making a mess

(Oh yes!)

Making a mess of her sense of discretion

Creating unneeded liquid excretion

She's got a bottle in the bedroom

And it's making a mess

And why should I have to clean it up?

That's not my job

She's such a slob

She can't even tell she's losing touch

Something she does not think about much