Everybody's Making It Big But Me

Introduction

This was going to be a short piece about why Vocal don't rate me for Top Stories and challenges any more.

I think it is basically because everything I do is structured and therefore seen as formulaic.

It may also be because they just don't like me, but whatever. Then I started to listen to the song I used for the title of this piece, and it still makes me laugh.

It is from the album "Bankrupt, which I found in my mate Andy Marshall's record collection when we were in the band The Bok. He lent it to me, and I bought my own copy the following day.

The songs are joyful, clever and funny, but didn't really influence the music of The Bok. You can listen to the demos, which were recorded directly to a two-track cassette recorder on my Soundcloud channel here.

I saw I had this message on there, not sure they got their evaluation right:

Hi Mike Singleton,

Your music has a cinematic, story-driven quality that feels destined for animation. We'd love to help you build its visual world.

A custom animated visualizer could transform your tracks into an immersive experience, deepening the connection with your audience.

My team specializes in this exact work. Would you be open to a quick 10-minute chat to explore the possibilities?

This is the Dr Hook album "Bankrupt" if you want to get yourself a copy, try not to use those thieves, Spotify.

So now we'll get to the music, obviously "Bankrupt" will be the source of most of these songs, though this is Shel Silverstein's version of the title song.

Shel Silverstein - "Everybody's Making It Big but Me" from "Freakin' At The Freakers Ball"

This is another great album (in my opinion), and you can get yourself a copy here:

Three years ago, I covered some of these songs here, so I will dig out more gems in the rest of this piece for you, but check this out: there is some clever and funny stuff here:

Dr Hook And The Medicine Show - "Everybody Loves Me" from "Bankrupt"

This could be my theme tune, with these opening lines:

Everybody must be on drugs in this town

Or maybe there's a strange new bug that's been going round

'Cause people are all smiling and waving as I go by

Everybody loves me, but I don't know why

Shel Silverstein - "Freakin' at the Freakers Ball" - Title Track

I included the Dr Hook version in the previous post, but the Silverstein version is probably just as unhinged but much funnier than it is offensive. Silverstein is probably closer to Dr Seuss than any mainstream music, and his poetry is truly brilliant, so his hook-ups with Dr Hook work perfectly.

Dr Hook And The Medicine Show - "Roland the Roadie and Gertrude the Groupie" from "Belly Up"

Any Shel Sylverstien song, the subject of which is what you would expect from the song. I am sure this went down a lot better live than on record, but you know Silverstein wrote it.

Dr Hook And The Medicine Show - "Acapulco Goldie" from "Belly Up"

More weed-related Silverstien-led silliness from "Belly Up"

Conclusion

Though this completely veered from its original aim, moving from Witers/Motivation to Beat I think it does work and has a lot of fun music and observations.

I hope you found a few songs you like. Thank you so much for your continued support and encouragement, and I suppose the only way to get rid of me now is to stop reading my stuff.

Have a great day and I hope I leave you smiling.