TIME FOR DA SWAMP PEOPLE

Continuing along with my break down of recent songs:

Working with my cowboy, Bob Marshall, we had started a cajun song that I entitled "Gator Bait." He had never worked on a Cajun song before and since I had a few I tried to come up with something interesting. I see these commercials for "SWAMP PEOPLE" (and have seen the show a few times to torture Julie Moriva) which is basically those people who live back in the swamps of Lousiana and hunt Aligators for a living. Kind of a quirky show but entertaining. I thought back to one of my favorite songs growing up, "Amos Moses" by Jerry Reid.

I don't know why "Gator Bait" came into my mind but it did. I thought about a guy who was out hunting gators and had a little piece of him eaten from time to time. That made me laugh. Then I decided to make him a cook:

GATOR BAIT
MAB/BOB MARSHALL

Somewhere down in South Lousiana is a little bitty Bayou bar
A pile of airboats tied to the pier cause you can't get there by car
Dey' don't like outsiders so better be wise if you come to this place
Cooking in back is the man named Gator Bait

Chorus
HE CAN THROW DEM GATORS FROM SWAMP TO THE PLATE
FRY EM UP A HUNDRED WAYS
GOT SOME SECRET CREOLE MAGIC, YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE TASTE
EVERYBODY KNOWS HOW HE GOT THAT NAME
PUTS ALL THE OTHER CAJUN COOKS TO SHAME
HE'LL CATCH EM AND HE'LL COOK EM, YOU'LL BE AMAZED
BY THE ONE THE CALL GATOR BAIT

I had given it that mid tempo zydaco beat that you hear with the squeeze box and a lot of "yeaheee!!!!" kind of stuff. Again, mostly to make me laugh. When I played it Bob, didn't see it and so I dropped it. This is why I write the way I do. If it doesn't work we go on to another song that song was the previous one, THINGS THAT MAMA'S SAY.
I was ready to move on to another one, when Lori, Bob's girlfriend said "I like the Gator Bait  song." So back to the Gator song. I revisited it, got my groove back and back into the moment. Much of writing to me is like being a method actor. You have to be able to call it up in a moment's notice. The second verse went like this:

Don't ask about the way he lost his leg back in 1982
Or how he lost two fingers on his right hand just to get himself a pair of boots
How last year lost a piece of his ear to dat Gator who was nice and fat
He says if you want the big one's, gotta be willin' to give a bit of you back

So that was it. I wanted more of a break than anything else. Some songs are meant as a diversion and to give a little different approach. Some are there to tighten up skills and some are written to totally be silly. This was one of those. But the next one was going to be really cool.

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