Asylum

You know, Sean, I can occassionally sympathize with your undying hatred of the human race. After playing “My Hump”, Alanis Morrissette, and “Numa Numa”, I’m feeling like I need to return to my roots somewhat.

And for the purposes of this post, anyways, that would be Supertramp. I did live in the Nevada City/Grass Valley area, and the local celeberty there was Roger Hodgeson, one of the two main members of Supertramp.

In any case, if you feel like killing all the humans, be careful, or people might talk about putting you in an asylum:

Asylum

I’ve always had an affinity with this song, which should surprise no one. After all, I read things like this[1]:

Don’t arrange to have me sent to no asylum
I’m just as sane as anyone
It’s a just a game I play for fun – for fun.
I told em – look! – I said I’m not the way you’re thinking,
Just when I’m down, I’ll be a clown, I’ll play the fool.

Hide In Your Shell

Ok, let’s be honest; I loved the whole album “Crime of the Century“, which both these songs are off of. This was a particularly good song, though.

Part of why I like this song is that ‘hiding in your shell’ is unfortunately something I’m rather good at. The complex structure on this song is also part of it. And the lyrics are certainly worth a look.

Maybe I'm A Beggar

Now, you might notice the sound of this song is a bit different. That is because this is off of Supertramp’s first album (titled simply “Supertramp”), and Rick Davies and Roger Hodgeson are the only musicians on this album that were on later albums.

Notably, all the lyrics on this album were written Richard Palmer, who also did some of the vocals, including on this song, and wrote lyrics for the band King Crimson.

Oh, and if this song seems like there should be more at the end, the songs on this album tended to work into each other. Really good album, actually, just hard to find, which is why the only copy I have of it is a tape tucked away somewhere.

[1] Skin Horse, by Shaenon Garrity & Jeffrey Wells, incidentally.