Tracking The Early Year: Paper Rock Scissors

(Check out the player over to your left on the blog or go to Jana's Myspace page to hear this track!) "Paper Rock Scissors" went through quite a few formations before getting to its finished form. I was taken with the playfulness of the game itself, except usually when people play it there is something at stake, giving it the potential to have important consequences hidden behind the simple "1-2-3-go." My favorite part about this song is the layers it has were unintentional when I wrote it; I don't sit around thinking about how people are going to interpret things...but after talking it through with a few writer friends, it's like this tune is a disco ball. It reflects very differently on different points of view. Nifty. It's the first song I wrote in the DADDAD tuning, which is fun as all get out. I stole it from Patty Griffin. When we tracked it, I got to bust out on the snare drum and tambourine...and previously I had requested to Dan that there be hand claps somewhere on the record. Dan decided if a track was going to have them, this was going to be the one. We clapped through the whole tune twice, making for a total of 4 sets of hands clapping. ("What is the sound of 8 hands clapping?") That's also the only instance of anyone but me playing an instrument on The Early Year...it was good to have a hand clap buddy! For the guitar track we went for a smooth Duke Levine-like vibe because...Dan and I both love us some Duke Levine (he plays for Mary Chapin Carpenter a lot. A lot). Lyrics: Took an offer for a ride to Amarillo It was 23 miles by a drunken crow Be careful who you talk to when you roll down your window And you can't call home Cause I'm from great plains and greater superstition And my mother I know - she is a very good Christian Between church bell chimes and late night dimes I never really was Now paper beats rock and rock beats scissors And the note on the table cut me to slivers And I quote God in the middle of the night When I say, "Let there be light" Started asking around 'bout where the circus went I got pointed to a prophet in a Bible tent And the preacher leaned and the people cleaned Down in the river with the water and the lye So I got held up for the winter in Wichita I guess something didn't read on the radar It said "Jesus saves" on family graves But I knew they didn't always intertwine And now paper beats rock and rock beats scissors And the word on the stone broke me to splinters And I quote God in the middle of the night When I say, "Let there be light" Get down into the cellar The storm will blow over, the storm will blow over Everything's gonna get better The war will blow over, the war will blow over And now paper beats rock and rock beats scissors And the word on the stone broke me to splinters And I quote God in the middle of the night When I say, "Let there be" Paper beats rock and rock beats scissors If the book is so good why can't we deliver? I quote God in the middle of the night When I say, "Let there be light." Words and Music by Jana Pochop © 2008 Patient Grasshopper Music (ASCAP)