Day 9: From The Mouths Of Babes (Song-a-day January)

 

Day 9: From The Mouths Of Babes
By David Coile

Part of my daily songwriting project for January 2025

Lyrics:

"Stay young at heart," is what they say
But my back is acting up again
And popping pills used to be so edgy
Not so much when my dealer is a CNA
And now I hear it everyday
From the mouths of babes

They say we squandered all the money
But I wasn't given handouts on the way
Hold on, now, I 'm looking for my checkbook
'Cause I don't know how to use ApplePay
And now I hear it everyday
From the mouths of babes

And they don't know what we fought for
And they don't know what we bled for
And they don't know what we yearn for
To this day
And they don't know what the bill is
How the future makes us villains
All the burdens that the children
Will erase

Now I don't claim that I've got wisdom
But, hey, I still got something to say
From my lips to their virgin ears
Listen here, pal, I wasn't born yesterday
But now I hear it everyday
From the mouths of babes

***

Details:

Today is Day Five of Timmy Riordan's Fearless Songwriter program, where he challenges participants to write a new song everyday for a week. Each day, he provides a prompt. Today's prompt was "hands of children".

Like with yesterday's prompt, I was struggling to find a good angle. My first thought was to do something like "I believe the children are our future," but I'm too cynical for that.

For whatever reason, I kept thinking about The Replacements, a huge college rock band from the 80s. Their music represented young people at the time, even though now it's decidedly old fashioned. They have a song called "Alex Chilton" that I really like-- it's a tribute to their musical hero, the front man of the 70s power-pop band, Big Star. I tried to imagine a comparable hero, but who was a kid, and maybe not musical. I dabbled with writing a song about the young environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, but the American pronunciation of her name is awful, and the native pronunciation confounds me. So I gave up on that.

Then I concentrated on coming up with a Replacements-esque guitar riff. I'm not sure I succeeded, but it's got a similar energy. The "hands of children" prompt made me think of the phrases "from the mouths of babes, and "virgin ears," which quickly turned into "from my lips to your virgin ears."

From there, I wanted to explore how it can seem like the younger generation wants to erase the older generation. We've witnessed the boomer-millennial divide over the last decade, so there are echoes of that. But I've always been fascinated with how folks who seem like heroes at one point in time can become villains later on after a cultural shift. I imagine it's tough to get older and see all the victories you've had suddenly get discounted.

Anyway, I like the topic of this song, but it's a very rough draft. I think there's a much more nuanced version to come from the revision process.