Ode To Clayton

single
(not yet released on any album)

click to enlarge

This is a multifaceted song with a rich background, so I found I had quite a bit to say about it! My "Additional Notes" include the following sections:

• BACKGROUND
  • The Clayton Gang
  • Clayton Gang Hijinks
  • Nemesis of the Clayton Gang
  • Going "ridin". . .
  • The heart of Clayton
  • Who was Lee Clayton?
• LYRICS
  • Completing the lyrics
  • "Anticipatin' pain"
  • Hoedowns
• MUSIC / SOUND
  • Multiple tempos
  • The music and sounds of the Old West
  • The chorus
  • The tradition of humor in the music of Westerns
  • That Southern drawl
• "DRAW, CLAYTON!": THE CODA
  • The (playfully misleading) suggestion of a gunfight
  • A twist at the end
  • Having it both ways
• COVER ART

BACKGROUND

Ode To Clayton commemorates a particular time and place in my early life (when I was 19).

My first real job was an unusual one. It was in 1976, at Cadence Industries in West Caldwell, New Jersey. Cadence was an "umbrella" corporation, a conglomerate that housed an odd assortment of companies under that corporate umbrella — from Hudson Vitamins, to Time Pattern Research Institute (which produced the first computer-generated, personalized horoscopes), to what was then still a small company: Marvel Comics. The cafeteria walls were painted with wall-size scenes of Marvel characters, including Spiderman and the Hulk. Hudson Vitamins had a line of Spiderman chewable vitamins for kids, reflecting the cross fertilization possible among companies that are under the same umbrella. I did many things on that job, including some of the bookkeeping for all the subsidiaries (including Marvel).

The Clayton Gang — I was working the night shift, with three other guys — George, Frankie, and Bill — and we all became close friends during that time.

George Lees was a larger-than-life character. He was an aspiring actor, very serious in his aspiration, and studying at the Stella Adler School of Acting in New York City, whose alumni included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

George Lees ("Lee Clayton")

George naturally assumed the position of leader of our "gang" of four. He gave each of us names.

George himself was "Clayton". He'd often come up to me during the shift, and introduce himself as "Lee Clayton", with a strong accent I couldn't make out. (More about "Lee Clayton" later.) We all got used to George just suddenly acting out lines he particularly liked from movies, like: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!" (Peter Finch in the 1976 film, Network).

George named me "Caine", after the character played by David Carradine in the TV series, Kung Fu, obviously drawing upon my Chinese ethnicity, but also the Chinese half of my character: balanced, reflective, and astute. (The other half of my character is from my Irish-American mother's side — that half is the one that writes and sings songs like this one.) I liked the character, Caine (and resonated with him), so that was fine by me!

George named Frankie (our African-American co-worker) "Leroy" (which Frankie thoroughly enjoyed) and Bill remained "Bill", or sometimes "Billy" (the Kid) because of his baby face.

Frankie ("Leroy")

Clayton Gang hijinks — Because we had a very large building to ourselves during the night shift (except for one security guard), we'd often engage in hijinks to entertain each other, and keep our motivation up.

There was a building-wide intercom system, and George and I would take turns putting on some kind of improvised show at random times during the night. (The security guards generally enjoyed it, I might add.)

At other times, I'd open the door to a room, and be momentarily shocked by the sight of George lying on the floor, apparently dead! He apparently had been waiting there for God knows how long, because he knew eventually I'd come in — and he had been waiting there just for the sake of creating that moment of shock on my part.

George playing dead

Nemesis of the Clayton Gang — And then there was the monster machine known as "the burster/decollator" — a source of endless chaos in the workplace.

Reports printed by the computer would have multiple copies (separated by carbon paper). The printer used enough force to print directly on the top copy, and then generate multiple copies due to the carbon paper between the layers of paper. The paper had sprocket holes on the left and right sides, which was how the report was moved out of the computer (by the sprockets engaging the holes, and pulling the paper along).

The "burster/decollator" was a clever machine that simultaneously separated out the copies that came off the printer, which would then fall into separate bins ("decollation"). It also had blades that stripped off the sprocket holes on either side ("bursting"), leaving just nice, neat reports.

A decollator capable of separating 4 copies.
Our machine was capable of separating out 6 copies,
and also had a burster built into it.
In short: Many more things could go wrong!

At least, that was the theory! In practice, though, something would always go wrong. For example, the reports, the sheets of which should be naturally fan folding into the bins, were not — and the long sheet of paper was now piling up to the ceiling! Or pages would get ripped. Or the blades would cut off not just the holes on the edges but part of the report.

George and I were the guys who ran this behemoth. And sometimes one or the other of us got so tired of having to fix the endlessly misbehaving machine that we'd just let the thing misbehave — running and running until it filled up the whole room with a chaos of paper! Then we'd call the other person in to take a look at the mess, which would send us both into fits of belly laughs. And then we'd toss all the paper in the garbage, and ask Frankie (who was the computer operator) to re-run the report.

Going "ridin". . . — We would often take a break in the middle of our night shift, somewhere between 11pm and 2am, while the local bar was still open. "Let's go ridin'!" George would shout, invoking that cowboy metaphor — and we were off. There's much I could say about what happened in those visits to the bar, but suffice it to say. . . "the Clayton Gang" brought the same spirit of (sometimes outrageous) humor and hijinks to the bar with them, generally entertaining (and occasionally shocking) the other folks at the bar.

The heart of Clayton — On the surface, George was a guy who was all about projecting strength and leadership. But underneath, he was a softie with a heart of gold. He cared about all his co-workers. Besides entertaining us all and taking us on jaunts, he always checked in personally, to make sure we were doing okay, and helped us when we were not.

A year or so after I stopped working at Cadence, George invited me to a party, where we re-connected. I had written Ode To Clayton by then (the first half of it, at any rate), and I played it for him on a piano at the party. "Damn, Caine!" he said, over and over again, as I sang the song. It didn't happen often. . . but he was speechless — deeply touched that I had made a song out of his words, our friendship, and our adventures.

Who was Lee Clayton? — When I returned to the song in 2022 to complete, arrange, and release it, I delved into its background a bit more. In particular, I wanted to know: who exactly was "Lee Clayton"? It took me a while, but I finally tracked it down. In 1976, a movie called The Missouri Breaks was released. It was a Western, and it starred Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. It was a box office flop and a critical failure at the time, but audiences and critics have warmed to the movie over the years. As usual, Brando's character is a very strong one. He plays "Lee Clayton", and speaks with an Irish brogue. So that's where George's "Lee Clayton" came from! Not surprisingly, Brando was one of George's favorite actors, and was one reason why George was going to the same acting school Brando went to (Stella Adler's School). I should note: George in no way resembled the character played by Brando. Brando's "Lee Clayton" was a sadistic psychopath; George was a larger-than-life persona with a gentle soul. For me (particularly when singing Ode To Clayton), "Clayton" will always be my good-hearted friend George, never Brando's character.

* * *

As I look back, I can see this time of my life was a very creative songwriting period for me. I wrote three songs based on my time working at Cadence Industries: Ode to Clayton, Claudia (based on a friend who also worked at Cadence, during the day shift), and Ballad of the Working Man, which contained a bridge that I borrowed and used in Space Girl 2.

LYRICS

Completing the lyrics — When I first created this song back in 1976, I had all the musical parts (except for the Coda, which I added for this new version of the song). But I only had the first half of the lyrics for the song: the first two verses, the first pre-chorus, and the chorus. I needed another couple of verses, and another pre-chorus (and I would repeat the chorus) to complete the song.

So when I re-visited the song in 2022, I looked to the song itself, in its incomplete state, for clues as to how to complete the song.

One thing was immediately obvious: Clayton was at the center of the song, and the song was billed as an "Ode" to him, but I hadn't said much about him yet. So I focused the next two verses on saying more about the man.

The other big clue was provided by the words of the chorus, which began, "Where are you hidin', Clayton, hero of the boys. . ." It's a very mysterious line! What exactly happened? Why is Clayton "hiding"? So that became the purpose of the remaining part of the lyrics — the second pre-chorus — to provide some sense of how we got there: Clayton and the boys had planned a meeting, and Clayton didn't show up. That's when they knew he had "left the gang" and probably had retired altogether from the life of a cowboy gunslinger. (I'll say more about this when I talk about the Coda.) They apparently never saw him again, hence the line, "Where are you hidin', Clayton?" The line, "Don't you know that we're still waitin'", then becomes understandable as a reference to that place and time when he didn't show up.

"Anticipating pain" — One of the lines George used to throw at me was, "Are you anticipating pain, Caine?" or "I keep anticipating pain, Caine." He loved that line! I have no idea where he got it from, though I'm sure it was from some movie of the time. (Perhaps it was a Brando line from The Missouri Breaks.) I knew I had to include it in my song, and so I did: I made it the final line of the chorus. But in completing and releasing the song, I wanted to have some better sense for what that line was doing in my song. I finally came to understand it in a way that makes perfect sense, in the logic of the song: it's at the heart of a gunslinger's psychology. They get their high from being "the fastest gunslinger in the West"; but deep down, they're always terrified that someone younger and faster is going to come along and kill them. And that's why such gunslingers (including Clayton and his gang) are always anticipating pain.

Hoedowns — One of the new lines I wrote about Clayton (in the spirit and language of the Old West) was: "With his heart, he led us through life's ups and downs — sweet hoedowns Clayton made of them all." I've discovered (from listeners of the song) that some listeners mistake "hoedown" for "showdown" — which is the kind of gun battle made famous at the OK Corral. But a hoedown is a completely different thing from the Old West: it's a square dance, set to lively fiddle music, and everybody has a great time. The classical, twentieth century American composer, Aaron Copland, made the "hoedown" musical form famous with his Hoedown. So the line I wrote meant that Clayton turned all occasions in life — both the ups and downs — into lively, festive hoedowns: quite an approach to life, if you can manage it!

MUSIC / SOUND

Multiple tempos — When I first began working on this song again (in March, 2022), the first thing I realized was that it had three musical parts, and they all were at different tempos. The "honky tonk piano" verses were the fastest. Then there was a pre-chorus that was slower. And the pre-chorus led to an even slower chorus. I had a clear sense for the tempo of the verses (169 beats per minute) and the tempo of the chorus (62 beats per minute). But I wasn't quite sure about the tempo for the pre-chorus. So I created three versions at different speeds. The "90 beats per minute" version was too fast:

And the "70 beats per minute" version was too slow:

As in the Goldilocks story, the third version (80 beats per minute) turned out to be just right:

The music and sounds of the Old West — When I started arranging this song, I was very intent on making it a "cowboy song" or "musical Western". In my years of songwriting, I experimented with many different genres of music. This was going to be my "Western". It would tell a story of the Old West. But it would also be filled with all the sounds and music of the Old West — at least the "Hollywood" and "pop music" versions of the Old West.

On the one hand, we have the Westerns made in Hollywood movies, from movies in the 1940's and 1950's (like High Noon), to the "Spaghetti Westerns" of the 1960's (like A Fistful of Dollars and Ennio Morricone's innovative contributions to the sound of the Western, which included electric guitars and haunting whistling) and in 1960's television series (like Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, etc.), which were replete with all kinds of "Old West" music and sounds.

And on the other hand, there was the "Western" tradition of pop music inspired by the myths of the Old West, including actual cowboy songs, country songs centered on the Old West, and (particularly relevant for my song) pop rock songs like Paul McCartney's Rocky Raccoon, Elton John's various cowboy songs (which he often sang with a Southern drawl), Billy Joel's Ballad of Billy the Kid, and many more. So I had a very rich tradition to inspire me, and I drew from all of it!

One of my first happy discoveries was a way of making a drum track sound like the clip-clopping of horses. It was perfect for the opening of the song, accompanied by some "Old West" standards: a harmonica playing, a horse neighing, and a gun shot:

A perfect way to "set the stage"! (The harmonica would appear again, now and then, throughout the song.)

The slightly out-of-tune, "honky tonk" piano (which was a staple of most Old West saloons) is the centerpiece of the songs' verses:

These saloon pianos tended to be played in a ragtime style, which was popular from the 1890's right up to about 1917 (when jazz began surpassing ragtime in popularity). Because the pianos were usually out of tune (and had a few keys that didn't work), the playing emphasized rhythm over melody or harmony. So in homage to that tradition, I've made the piano passage here one that inspires real foot-stomping (which is reflected in the percussion I've chosen to accompany it), as well as featuring the standard four-note, ragtime ramp-up:

and trills (rapid alternation between two notes) that were a feature of this kind of music:

The music of the pre-chorus picked up on another aspect of Westerns: cowboy swagger. The lyrics are about this gang of four guys walking into the bar with their guns held high — a display of force and swagger. So I arranged the music accordingly: the male voices are in four-part harmony (one part for each member of the Clayton Gang, of course), which creates a forceful "wall of sound":

The male voices in tight harmony "pack a punch"! This follows a long tradition, like the male voices in this excerpt from Ennio Morricone's theme for The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly:

The chorus — The chorus is the heart of the song. So here I drew less on the sounds of the old West and more on the rock ballad tradition, letting myself be influenced particularly Elton John's style (in songs like Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road), because he was one of my friend George's favorite singers/songwriters.

In the final singing of the chorus, it's just a single voice singing to Clayton, to make it as personal and intimate as possible:

I arranged the song to be in the lowest key I could still sing well, so that my voice would hit those "deep cowboy tones" when I reached the low notes in the line: "and I keep anticipatin' pain".

The tradition of humor in the music of Westerns — The "Spaghetti Westerns" of the 1960's (so-called because of the many Italian directors, most famously, Sergio Leone) began a tradition which, to some degree, poked fun at (or even subverted) the older tradition of Westerns (à la Gary Cooper and John Wayne), with anti-heroes (like Clint Eastwood). As the musical companion to such subversive movies, Ennio Morricone's scores contained intentionally humorous elements. For example, perhaps the most recognizable of his themes, the one from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, contains horn parts that are obviously designed for comic effect:

In similar manner, I sprinkle comic musical elements throughout the song, to add a touch of lightness and self-deprecation to the Western archetype. These include:

• The male voice going "uh boom boom boom boom" that turns into an actual bass guitar:
• The guitar "boing" sounds (created by guitar bends) in the pre-chorus.
• The entire Coda, which I'll talk about next.

That Southern drawl — I've always sung this song with a bit of a Southern drawl. But as I worked on this new version, I asked myself: Did gunslingers of the Old West actually speak with a Southern drawl? The answer (after I did some research) was: not always, but often: yes. After the Civil War, many of the settlers in the West were Southerners looking for a more prosperous life away from their devastated homes. Also, some of the first cowboys were Texicans driving cattle north to the transcontinental railroad.

So my research convinced me it was viable enough for me to continue singing in my Southern drawl. And, in the Coda, I could also give Clayton and Billy Southern drawls. It took me a while to find the right voices for them. I wanted Clayton's voice to be very mellow, relaxed, and laid back. Billy's voice had to be distinctly different (so you could instantly tell the two voices apart in the dialogue), so I made Billy's voice gruffer. (That's me doing their voices, and the whistling, by the way.)

"DRAW, CLAYTON!": THE CODA

The (playfully misleading) suggestion of a gunfight — The Coda begins as though it is about to become a traditional Western gunslinger confrontation. There was a foreshadowing of this at the end of the first chorus. As the singer sings the words, "And I keep anticipatin' pain", we hear the clock tower ring twice. In Westerns, clock towers often mark the time of a scheduled gunfight, and so that is the suggestion here. But no gunfight occurs (presumably because 2 pm is not the appointed time). The piano ramps up a little hesitantly, but then returns to its normal speed:

But in the final chorus, the words, "And I keep anticipatin' pain", are accompanied by the clock tower now ringing three times (apparently 3 pm is the appointed time; the OK Corral shootout took place then), and we hear an intense male voice shouting: "Draw, Clayton!" We also hear standard "Spaghetti Western" musical elements in the backgound: a guitar with a couple of bends as it is being played; and an echoing, haunting whistle. It sure sounds like a gunfight is about to ensue!

A twist at the end —But that's the joke of the song: what we next hear is the sounds of actual drawing — not the drawing of guns, but drawing on a sketch pad! It turns out to be Clayton, who, we discover, is an artist, and is even humorously billed as "the fastest draw in the West" because of the incredible speed with which he can create his drawings. The song ends with (we envision) Clayton turning to the audience and saying, "If there's one thing us cowboys can do, it's draw!"

So the song ends on an outrageous pun: Clayton draws.

I've always been a sucker for a great pun. And apparently I'm in good company! Shakespeare, too, loved puns, and some of his most moving lines were built on double entendres, as when the now blind Gloucester (in King Lear), when asked how he sees the world, replies, "I see it feelingly" — meaning, on the one hand, he has to use other senses, like his sense of touch (through which he literally feels the world) to know the world; but on the other hand, he is overwhelmed by the feeling of the circumstance he has come to be in.

The famous science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, wrote a short science fiction story (Dreamworld) that was entirely a set-up for a final line delivering an outrageously bad pun: If the main character cannot awake, he will be "trapped in a world of giant aunts".

Of course, many cartoons — particularly Looney Tunes (with Bugs Bunny and friends) — were actually aimed at adults, rather than children, and also sometimes delivered outrageous (adult) puns. I was remembering one such cartoon (a Bugs Bunny cartoon titled, People Are Bunny) as I was working out the wording for the final line of Ode To Clayton. As a contest question, Bugs Bunny is asked to multiply two large numbers, and he instantly responds with the correct answer. He wins the prize, but is asked how he got the answer so quickly. He slyly replies, "If there's one thing us rabbits can do, it's multiply." (Obligatory groan.)

So I fashioned the punchline to Ode To Clayton after Bugs Bunny's line: "If there's one thing us cowboys can do, it's draw!"

Apparently, I'm in good company! Just recently, I ran across this old cartoon by Gary Larsen (cartoonist of "The Far Side" series), and he made use of the very same pun in his cartoon:

The Duel, by Gary Larsen
click to enlarge

I should add: even though it's an outrageous pun, I intended the Coda to actually be interpretable as an answer to the mysterious question: "Where are you hidin', Clayton?" Clayton tires of a life of endlessly "anticipatin' pain", with each new gunslinger he encounters. So he retires from the Clayton Gang (in the abrupt, "cowboy" manner described in the second pre-chorus: he doesn't show up), and eventually takes up an alternative life as an artist. He even plays off that pun himself, billing himself humorously as "the fastest draw in the West", which Billy refers to.

Having it both ways — Many art forms mix drama and comedy. For instance, several of Shakespeare's plays (The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest) were tragicomedies; the "rom-com" (romantic comedy) is one of the most popular forms of movies; etc. So even though it's less common in a pop song format, I'm looking to have Ode To Clayton work both ways. I've crafted a song that I'm hoping will tickle your funny bone in some places, and, in other places, touch your heart.

I added the Coda as I was arranging and conpleting the song this year. I could have ended in grand style with the Chorus, but — as I thought back to the time and people I was commemorating — I knew a more humorous ending (especially one with an unexpected twist) would be a much more fitting commemoration. It will serve as the final hijinks of the Clayton Gang. I do think my deadpan delivery of the Coda's final punchline ("If there's one thing us cowboys can do, it's draw!") would give Clayton himself — the master of the one-line delivery — a good belly laugh!

COVER ART

The suggestion of the art on the cover is that that cowboy in his horse at the end of town is Clayton. He returns to town now and then to remember "his boys", but never actually enters the bar where they are (and where you can see their shadows) to say hello.