Cody Weathers

Flip Nasty: Guitool (Studio, 1995)

	BUY IT:   $5 for complete mp3 download (includes album cover, lyrics, liner notes, and Listening Log)   $10 for CD album
The Songs Too Much/ Best of Days/ Leave Me Be/ Amazon Women/ Underneath My Skin/ Daughter Of Our Enemy/ Touch /This Once/ Two Desperados/ Nothing But A Song/ Small Time/ Man In The Moon/ Footsteps/ Unwelcome   all songs written and arranged by Cody Weathers (c)(p)1995, Cody Weathers, all rights reserved. No stealing the worthless material, OK?	Additional MP3 Singles:
Don't Hate the Players:  John Fried: bass John Speranza: guitar, backup vocals, add'l keys & percussion Cody Weathers: vocals, percussion, keyboards, add'l guitar   Terri Kempton: backup vocals Cat Mayhugh: backup vocals	MP-FREES: Best of Days Leave Me Be

Timmy, do you like Flip Nasty? Yeah. Which album do you like? I like the pretty one. Is that Guitool? I don’t sure. This one? Yeah. What do you like about it? I like the way it’s pretty and makes my mouth move. How does it make your mouth move? Pretty, like this --mwa-mwa-mwa-mwa. That is pretty. Yeah. Which song is the best one? I like a lot of them. Can you tell me which ones? No because um.... because? because....um, I like the pretty ones. Do you like Too Much? I like Footsteps, there’s a horse in it. What about Two Desperados? Yeah, horses. Do you like any of the songs without horses? Yeah. What else do you like? I like the way the harmonic system bypasses conventional academic definitions of tonality while still maintaining a vernacular tonality through harmonic rhythm and harmonic geometry. Wow, that’s mighty astute. It’s pretty and makes me think of horses. What does "harmonic rhythm" mean? Pretty. Did Cody Weathers tell you to say that stuff. Um.... It’s OK. I.... Come on, did Cody Weathers tell you to say those things? No. Timmy.... I like the pretty songs. What does "harmonic geometry" mean? Horses. Do you know what those things mean? I also like how the end of Unwelcome, which is nearly through-composed and has such a chioroscuro of sparse and dense elements, is so obviously free-temporal and event-oriented --it is so refreshing to think about the ways in which they’re breaking boundaries in the way they think about horses and prettiness. Timmy, are you wearing an earpiece? No, that’s my hearing aid. Are you deaf? Um.... yes.

Lyrics:

Too Much: CH: I would love to love you, I would kill to steal you, I would steal to touch you, I want too much. I must control my rage again, but still it coaxes, "give in." I feel so hard, so cold. I wish I had your hand to hold. Now, as I wander through my mind, I cannot face what I might find. I feel you slipping far away. Will this dog ever have his day? CH The swingset clatters in the wind. The starlight shines on me so thin. The midnight field, my toes are bare. I smell you in the misty air. I will not blame you for tonight. You could not see him in that light. And what you shared you lost to him. I will not damn you for this sin. CH. I must disguise myself again, so you can't see how hard it's been. I feel so empty and misplaced --my search for substance yielding space. I see your eyes in yellow skies, the sunset thinks you are unwise. Then all at once, you slip away. My lunge to grab you is too late.

Best of Days: How long did I know her with her kindness and its lubricant mistakes? How long did I gaze into those startled eyes before I knew my heart would break? Now it's four in the morning, I've just seen a ghost, I know something has died. Singing songs to keep my boogies back, I don't listen to a thing but the fundamental ring of "I love you, love you, Cody" CH: She's only really busy, I'm only just another minute away, I'm lying, she don't love me --just a pleasant disinterest on the best of days. Someone smack my head, I'm only getting channel 83. How long have desire and its partner, passion, had their way with me? Now it's four in the morning, I've just seen a ghost --it stomped and said my name. Singing songs.... How long before those roses how sweet bitter up? How cushioned can that hammer be? Now it's four in the morning, where's my angel when these ghosts are walking by? Singing....

Leave Me Be: Who's going to cut me now your razor lips are gone? Maybe there's someone that you know. I close my eyes and pray the sirens take me quickly. Who's going to roast me nice and slow? CH: I know you think I'm nothing, but this is the one heart I can be. And you say "Settle down, are you crazy Listen up, understand you've got to leave me be." I went to the wishing well to throw my tin away. Whispered the willow on the way. "To chase a doe," she said, "means the doe is running. You're still a coyote to this day." CH Bridge: I don't believe that fairies stole your heart or that that bite is from a passing shark. I think you really must've had to know.

Amazon Women: Don't hit me like a love affair, I'm not on steady ground. I'm sitting on a cracking bough that can't bear another pound. Water, wash my blood all down the gutter. Don't read me like a trashy threat, I'm basking in your shine. I'm desperately invertebrate and looking for a spine. Smart girls spell my name. They tell me what to do. Oh, you can count on me to say I'm sorry. Chorus: I always believed there were Amazon Women. I knew it was true on the day I met you. You tell me, you tell me your heart will be broken. It's cold but it's soft and it's all up to you. I suffocate in Oregon like a body in a bog. My feet have taken leave of me and I'm jealous of a dog. Lilac, salt my heart it's daily clutter. I'm wedged between attentionless but sympathetic trees. I smack of indecisiveness --perceive me as you please. Tall girls brush my face. They whisper something new. Oh, it surprises me to know I love you. Chorus. Fletcher you be, launching feathers at me. Cupid and thee, splitting darts on a tree. Don't weigh me down with butterscotch, I think I've had my fill of gingersnaps and dewy traps that leak, but never spill. Smart girls parry me, the tall girls do it too.

Underneath My Skin: I have kissed your name on paper, I have held your breath in lungfuls, I have thought of you as if you were my first. I've held your hand in bad times, in my dreams, and at the movies. I have tasted you until my lips would burst. CH: And now it's you underneath my skin. I have been with you forever like a suitcase full of danger. I have bundled you in warm and woolly mesh. I've huddled you together like a sympathetic stranger, but there's voltage unaccounted flesh to flesh. CH. Bridge: So if you think of me at all, it might be time a hint could fall. Do I itch you in the way you fret my hide most every day? I have eaten from your table, from your plate, and from your fingers. I have salted every tear, each glycerine drop. I've wished upon a star, upon a planet, and a spaceship. Such a wishing, once begun, is hard to stop.

Daughter Of Our Enemy: That's me on the mountain, looking east into a land that belongs to every man in this nation. But you and your moonlight had to ruin every plan, disobey the one command I would make you. Chorus: Son, I don't trust it if it didn't work before. You're only getting what you'd get from any whore. Now, I demand that you don't see her anymore. Daughter of our enemy. Just begging forgiveness can't undo what you have wrought --you've forgotten why we fought in the first place. Let's put it behind us. You can kiss your toy goodbye --even snicker when she cries if you want to. Chorus. I have no doubt of which is thicker, I just fear water may be quicker. That's me on the mountain, looking north into a sea that I swore belonged to me until you took it. Just begging forgiveness can't undo what I have wrought. I've forgotten why we fought in the first place. Chorus.

Touch: I don't think she wants to hear "you're beautiful, I love you." I don't think she wants to know anything at all. But somewhere in my heart, struggling to find themselves a home, are the scary things to say to someone you could lose. I don't think she needs to know I think I am her teacher's pet --I anticipate her every sweet desire. Loving her with little things, I keep her in my sights, afraid to even find a good excuse. Chorus: Touch makes me cold --I'll love you with my eyes and find some way to flag you down, my dear. I don't think she needs to know I miss her when I'm with her, and more and more the further she's away. Staring is my secret, I practice it on sight, 'cause if she knew, she'd take herself away. Chorus. She don't think I need to change, she likes me as a friend. I think I might prefer me as a tear. Rolling rosy down her cheek, I touch a little track which no one will remember in a year. Chorus.

This Once: Oh, my brain is not home. It knew which ship would sink. Shots are fired --risks at random. What would my doctor think? You wear your sexy hair, shirt loose around your waist. Oh, too much light --my eyes can't see your face. Oh, I'm just the same standard-issue puppy dog, whatsisname. Chorus: I can't take it back, oh scared. Please, fate, this once, this once. Brain would blush to see me now. Blowing dollars, blowing chances. Rushing, dragging, losing track. Shouting for the avalanche. Blind, blind stumblebum. Lilies, roses, honeyplums. My feet follow that trail of Gretel's crumbs. Oh, I dreamt that I confused you with a magic light. Chorus. Daily kindness, years of spirals. Let me hear those things you say. Weave my fate with words and flowers. Crack my heart or kiss this day. Can I get a brain from you? A heart, a home, some courage, too? Chorus.

Two Desperados: Chorus: Two desperados with a bucket of dreams and our lonely, lonely eyes. Two desperados with a pocket of beans and a saddlebag of dimes. Would you believe that I've heard your heart before --that I know your golden core and it led me to your door? Oh, I could concede that my joy is hard to trust --I yell gold when it's just rust. Still, I savor you, I must. Chorus. I couldn't breathe. They were set to let me fall. I was dressed in noose and all. I was scratching at your wall. Chorus. All my friends are lunatics who say your heart will never stick, but I've got sleeves to roll and tricks to show. Happiness, so hard to keep. Manic noon, depressed by three. Kiss me quick before I turn my cheek. Would you receive if I gave you everything? Promised heart and heath and ring? Made the snowy canyons sing your name? Chorus.

Nothing But A Song: Goodbye, Renee. Though you haven't heard your name, rest assured it was you. Another day seemed so easy to obtain, now I don't know what I knew. But it seems like you're just one more time I toed too much and crossed the line. Now it strikes me you and I were nothing but a song, I hope you get along. Double-dared, but the profit's not to share. Cathybear, now it's you. Never fair that my friends can paint who cares while I don't know what you'll do. CH: But I hope you're not just one more time I toe too much and finally cross the line. If it's true that you and I are nothing but a song, I hope you'll sing along. Patience, seize me --struggle me some sense. Rapture, tease me --mock me for a prince. I loved your life, but I said it to your face, now I wait day-to-day.

Small Time: You could never fit in my bed. I would never steal a car for you. Still, my heart falls like through water --slow and deep and always blue. I burnt icthyosaurs and the missing link, sped through the rain just to smell you drink. Over bristleblooms and the kitchen sink, I tell you now I'm on the brink. Chorus: I want to love you but I'm small time, small time. Nickel in my wallet with a dollar on my mind. Small time, small time nickel. I should tell my horoscope to try to join the program, here. When the stars are in your eyes, he's got to make the message clear. I did stupid things from the secret sack, burbled toxic grey in the fire out back. Let the mirror man practice how to ask such a pretty girl for the love he lacks. Chorus. Oh I should tell my scrappy shoes to stand and wait for better news than you're not sure if you can choose between zero love and mine. Then I'll have a word with the silent mouth --time to shape it up or ship it out. I have had it with my tongue gone south when I'm alone with you. Chorus.

Man In The Moon: Chorus: If you'd rather love me than the man in the moon, that's all I dare to ask. Stand up fast and we'll never know you're down. There's no need to hide yourself that way. 'Cause if you want to see some failure, then just have a look around. What were those lotto picks today? My ticket's going to take me where the women are all sweet and they gather around my feet like some fucking adolescent fleet. Chorus. Ask me once again when I'll meet the other end. I don't know where I'm going to live. 'Cause my career is standing still and still my job is no career. I don't know what I've got to give. Chorus. You can read me like a glass book --all the pages in a glance. I had my doubts.... I think that I'm in love with you. I think you look like me magnified. Five more days and I won't be sorter slave. Guess I'll get packed and on my way. There's no room with a view, but there might be room for two if you were headed out that way. This time I'm going to make it, eating steak until I die, selling horsie desks to pave my way. Chorus.

Footsteps: The willow says it's no big deal the dryads sew their eyes to me. These little seeds we whisper will grow into my grey farewell. The doe that starved and carved my heart has flown from here, she played no part in staring through that fence at me --alone, forgetting wood could see. Chorus: I know I'm wrong, but my heart swells with the waxing moon. It does not know these footsteps lead to death. In your corral, what do you eat? The grass there must be very sweet to keep you from the clover here. Is it taste or simply fear? You, I never know --strange from me by the memory of the one who stole the snow. Chorus. You did not know how wild I could turn that tear to cloud your eye, but somewhere in the northern sky erupt the howls of blood like mine. Howl to spook everyone around you and that everyone means most of all spook me and my origins, my desperate daily foraging alone. How to speak, answering a question that I'd never known could pose itself to me as the only one you'd ever known could never be your own. Chorus. Mare, you'll run, I know. Driven on by the whistling yawn of coyotes in a row. First, before you go, stare surprised at my winter eyes and the love you should've known. On through the trees to the ice on the sea, where the driftwood is blind and alone.

Unwelcome: Have your tears turned upside-down, to fall straight up through rain so brown? Is the sun now underground? My ash feet say, "unwelcome here." Do your ears abhor the sound these lips commence for feelings drowned? Did you think that once around and I would know "unwelcome here."

Listening Log:

Our last and best commercial studio effort, recorded the summer after I graduated from college and set out to be a PROFESSIONAL ROCK AND ROLL STAR!  I would still sell this album today.  It's one of the best we ever put together.  Also recorded at Free Reelin', I initially tried to book the session with a different staff engineer than Ben Tanner (who engineered Snausages), but when he saw the session, he requested a switch with that guy, then called me to let me know that he made his schedule clear for us.  I didn't have the chutzpa to make waves, but fortunately this session ended up going much smoother than the last.  We arrived with newer gear (in particular, a new drumset replacing the one I'd played since I was 12), and Ben had a little more faith in our ability to pull off the ambitious timetable.  Plus we plied him incessantly with meatball sandwiches from nearby Pasquinni's.  On an unrelated note, although I met my wife in college, we did not start dating until several years later, which is unfortunate on a personal level, but yet without that miserable time before her, I would not have been inspired to write these reams and reams of wondrous songs of spectacular rejection.  I love you, Vaunne.

Too Much: This is the version on Songs You Hate.  I'm extremely happy with this recording of it.  All the performances are right on target.  Speranza performs a nifty variation on Nick's original lick in the middle two of the solo.  Very subtle piano overdub I'd forgotten about in the final verse.  A combination of Codies and Speranza, Fried, Cat, and Terri Kempton on backup vocals.

Best of Days: I'd rate this as a top 5 song.  This is the version on Songs You Hate, and is very good, but is no longer as representative of the way I currently play it.  Backup vocals utilize a trick I employed liberally from this point on: tight harmonies performed by the Codies, but with Speranza's voice in the mix.  I'm responsible for hitting the notes, and he's more responsible for trying to follow me, but making his voice the dominant tone.  In this way, I can push Speranza's voice easily into the harmony group without him needing to learn the complex parts independently.  This is obviously about coping with the reality that someone you like doesn't like you back, despite what you thought the signs said.

Leave Me Be: Another of my strongest --top 10 on my list.  I love the "Australian Rugby Chorus," Cat, Speranza, Fried, Terri, and myself hut-hutting at the end.  This is subtle "sequel" to Coyote and is followed by Footsteps.

Amazon Women: I like a lot of the words to this song, my favorite being, "I'm desperately invertebrate and looking for a spine."  Same backup vocal crew, similar tricks to push Speranza's voice more into the harmony group.  Fried devours these bass parts.  I wrote this upon leaving Oregon and starting my new life in Denver, with a new girl on my mind.  Difficult for me to play live, so it's only rarely on set.

Underneath My Skin: I think this may be my most marketable song.  Another top-5 best on my list.  (Keep in mind that's like being named "Cleanest Cockroach").  Just so you know I'm not saying this for 20 songs, this was my top-10 ranking of the Least Significant Failures candidate list: 1. Blue as the Moon 2. Best of Days 3. When 4. So Will I 5. Underneath My Skin 6. No One Could 7. Mad About You 8. Leave Me Be 9. Goodbye, Dream 10. Scared.

Daughter of Our Enemy: Favorite of the band.  This song was floating around, waiting for an arrangement to bring it out its shell.  Some songs really shine in multiple contexts, but our collective enjoyment of this one is definitely tied to the parts, especially Fried's (which, again, he nails effortlessly).  An extreme scenario of parental disapproval, which I've never really faced.  Mostly, they invented additional romances that never existed just in the hope that I would move the heck out of their house and quit whining.

Touch: I still think this is a very strong song, but for some reason, it's fallen off the set list.  I've just plain overlooked it.  Prime for a revival.  I wrote Fried's solo, but he totally sells it, as usual.  This is about not being ready to let go of someone, but knowing that you have to.

This Once: strong uptempo that works well live.  Great solo from Speranza.  The frenetic euphoria of early love, hoping that just this once it could work out, with fingers crossed.

Two Desperados: In a modified form, this became a staple of the live set.  Another good melodic solo from Speranza (very complete idea in an extremely short space).  More Speranza harmonizing.  Normal vocal crew for the unison out-chorus.  You and me, babe, we're just two desperados.  (Fitting since it turns out that desperados also sometimes shoot each other in the desert).

Nothing But A Song: top-20 on my list.  Great energy to this song, one of our few real power ballads.  One of my favorites live.  Fully entrenched in a long line of romantic failures, lamenting each as nothing but a song.

Small Time: Although probably the weakest song on this album, I think it still fits well in the flow and sounds good in its role.  Beginning to see the cracks in my latest pursuee, yet still my heart falls like through water --slow and deep and always blue.

Man in the Moon: Very difficult live without a piano.  Difficult by any stretch.  Nonetheless a personal favorite.  The guitar solo has two interesting aspects: first, Speranza is playing "deaf," without being able to hear the backing instruments, yet ends up playing in time (this also happened when we tried the same thing on "Break Up"), second, Speranza and I are laying a carpet of about eight different piano parts, recorded two at a time since we only had 4 tracks left.  Setting out on my new life of struggle, looking for a partner in crime.

Footsteps: The final song in the Coyote song-cycle.  I dropped some hints to following the metaphor back on the notes for Senor Squeaky which you may have understandably missed.  Not that it will be particularly satisfying to follow the stupid metaphor.  I like this song a lot, probably because it holds a personal meaning.  Awful difficult to play live.

Unwelcome: I originally wrote this as a percussion/piano duet (with Robert McIntosh playing marimba and hand persussion and me playing piano and singing --can be heard on Secret Microphone) for my senior composition recital.  Musically, I was going for something sparse and event-oriented (although it doesn't really lapse into free time until the very end).  Lyrically, I'm expressing my frustrations with the academic musical establishment, which ignores rock and roll as unsophisticated and meritless.  I received no end of criticism (songs unheard) for seeking to grow as a singer/songwriter rather than write "legitimate music."  (It should be said that my advisor, Vincent McDermott was more accepting of my work)  At the end of the song, Speranza and I have a number of themes we are free to cite or alter, making an attempt to respond to what we hear, and also cutting free of the pulse of the song, and instead using our individual breathing as a surrogate for a metronome.