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The Stories Behind the Songs on Our 11th Single
Sat., Jul. 17. 2021 4:32pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the stories behind the songs on our eleventh single:
JOB'S COUNSELORS
Don't get Job's counselors confused with job counselors. The latter can be quite helpful; the former, not so much. I suppose they mean well, but they often come off as ... well, mean.
We've covered Job's so-called friends (Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite) before in "Such Impressive Loving Smart Close Friends" and "With Little Help from My Friends," but that's from a historical perspective, whereas "Job's Counselors" gives it a modern-day application, because, unfortunately, those type of folks still live among us.
This is our first parody to feature backing vocals by my wife, Lisa, and our two youngest children, Natalie and T.J. They sang on the chorus along with our second-oldest daughter, Heather, and Jimmy's wife, Eve, who have both have sung on many ApX recordings.
Technically, Lisa, Natalie, and T.J. also did vocals on our song "The Ballad of Peter Plungin' Ahead" in 2019. I had forgotten to do the "Hooray!" in the studio, so I recorded them shouting it with me in our living room on my cell phone and sent that to Jimmy.
Regardless of all that, I think my wife and kids were much more excited about meeting Jimmy and Eve's new puppy, Molly. This was their first trip to the new recording studio, and that was the highlight for them.
LET'S SHOW ALL THE WAY
The meaning of "all" in "Let's Show All the Way" is twofold: Let's show everyone the way, and let's show all of the way — not just the feel-good parts (you can't spell salvation without sin).
I was a big fan of the song we spoofed here when it came out, during my senior year in college. I didn't know if Rich Mannion would know or remember it, let alone like it, but he surprised me and said he used to play it in a band and thought it would be fun to do with us. That's him doing the "see the needy" parts. The original line reminded both us both of Twiki, the little robot from the old TV show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which ran from 1979-81.
In the second verse, you'll hear me sing "Rich Mannion's band, singin' this parody." The original line there was "Rich man, poor man, livin' in fantasy," and I couldn't resist inserting Rich's name, since he played all the instruments on this except for the guitar (that's Tom Tincha). Rich was flattered but worried that some people might think I was giving him undue attention. I told him I'd make sure everybody knew it wasn't his idea.
Besides, I wrote and sang "we're in Bob Flaherty's band" in "We're in a Parody Band," and that was five years after Bob stopped playing drums for us (although he was our sound man at the time). Furthermore, other band members are mentioned in that song, plus "Strangest Folks," and both versions of "Fishin' on a Pier."
I was also thrilled to get the Portuguese man-of-war analogy in there. Those things are cool. But scary.
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