Halloween Horror Comedy in "THE BATHROOM THAT YOU SHARE"

Here's a link to another track from my album "HA HA HALLOWEEN."

The album was originally going to appear as one of the first releases from the new label ACCIDENT RECORDS.

Their slogan: "If It's Worth Hearing, It' an ACCIDENT."

But seriously folks...the idea was that a Halloween concept album would trump (pardon the expression) any problem about me not being a household word (like Drano).

The label managed to issue an album by Tom Christopher (who wasn't a household word either) but that was it. It was nice to be encouraged by ANY label, as I wouldn't have knocked off a Baker's dozen of songs otherwise. (A few ultimately did not make the cut, as I do have some kind of editorial judgment).

THE BATHROOM THAT YOU SHARE

Oh look who my warm-up act is THIS time:

Dear Bernie Sanders...I'm extremely flattered that you chose MY fans to be YOUR fans, and that you figured you'd reach your target audience by sponsoring "The Bathroom That You Share."

Every vote counts.

[I have no idea if Bernie will be talking to you when YOU listen to my novelty song. Kamala Harris might've out-bid him, or Mayor Pete. Or it could be an ad for bathroom tissue.]

I've been reading Elton John's autobiography. As you probably know, he didn't work WITH Bernie Taupin. Bernie gave him lyrics, and he went off and put music to them. Sometimes, as with "Your Song," the entire melody came to him as he eyed the words for the first time.

With Gary Osborne, it was the reverse. Gary wanted to hear Elton's melodies and then put words to them.

Me? Sometimes I don't do EITHER of those things. I rarely write a melody and put lyrics to it, but in the case of THIS song and a few others on "Ha Ha Halloween," I didn't put music to lyrics I'd written.

"The Bathroom That You Share" started out as a parody. A friend of mine, who has issued quite a few albums, inspired me to goof around and put some novelty lyrics to a few of his tunes. Some were highly personal, making fun of his then girlfriend, or his boss, but others were more generic.

As it turned out, a few of them were pretty good, but since the music was already spoken for, what now? I went back and wrote my own music to the parody lyrics.

Apparently this IS a technique that some artists use once in a while. Nick Lowe took Chuck Berry's "You Can Never Tell," and turned it into "I Knew The Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll." By the time I was done being "creative" with it, there were enough changes to make it a legitimate original work.

It was said that George Harrison could've avoid a lawsuit on "My Sweet Lord" (aka "He's So Fine") if he'd listened to some good advice and altered a few notes here and there. But who knows, Neil Innes still got into trouble for doing Rutles songs that sounded TOO much like Beatles songs.