there are rock songs and then there are dumb rock songs and then there are really, really dumb rock songs...and The Move's original version of "Do Ya" (written by Jeff Lynne... yes I know, I know) is—in my opinion—the greatest really, really dumb rock song ever recorded. it’s one Big Duh - huge slabs of basic Book 1 chords, inane lyrics, glaring guitar mistakes, double-tracked drums that are way out of sync, a Middle 8 cribbed from a completely different song and non-sequitor ad libs that even massive doses of drugs can't explain...and all coming from one of the most musically erudite combos of the British Invasion era. in short, it's brilliant...and in its spirit, I bring you:

   (song intro)
   (verse)

    in this life, i’ve seen everything I can see, woman
    I’ve seen lovers flying thru the air hand-in-hand
    I’ve seen babies dancing in the midnight sun...

EDIT TO: CB

“well, I’ve seen a ten-mile, festering gash in the earth's crust in Iceland.

it was a wound...all blood-red and yellow puss lava...horrible...it was flesh-earth...and painful to see but impossible to look away...but we had to leave ‘cause a sandstorm blew in off the glacier and blotted out the midnight sun.”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   and i’ve...seen dreams that came from the heavenly skies above

EDIT TO: CB

“well, I’ve seen Muhammed Ali.

I was the token white boy in an otherwise all-black soul band, and we were asked to play at the Black Muslim’s Mosque #12 in Cleveland. I am The Devil in their theology and I was not made to feel welcome, but up walks Muhammad Ali, chuckling, shaking his head and says “Now this boy's got guts.” then he shakes my hand...or rather, he wraps his hand around mine like a cave-in, an avalanche of callousses and scar tissue. then he spies the PA mixing board and yells "Is that a radio? I wanna be on the radio,” and walks off. I can still feel his grip to this day.”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   i’ve seen old men crying at their own gravesides
   i’ve seen pigs all sitting witch-ya....picture slides

   but I...I.....never seen nothing like....

EDIT TO: CB

“...what I saw in Hamburg, Germany in 1985.

I was stranded between trains, with not enough time to slide over to the Reeperbahn and gawk at the whores, or even to grab a bite to eat. so I just walked around. I turned one particular corner, and stumbled upon a big taxidermist shop, and in the display windows were hundreds of stuffed animals...only each animal was, in fact, a combination of animals. There was a duck with a lizard’s head, a squirrel with duck feet, birds with fur and weasels with feathers, and so on through every possible critterly permutation...and all were posed picnicking in a mock-Wagnerian forest scene.

Behold the ingenuity of man!—I thought—although it wasn’t the sight of these recombinant animals that has stayed with me (that was some bent, Germanic attempt at black humor), but the brilliance here was that we—unique among all of earth’s creatures—have the ability to slap some goo between two things and—miraculously!—make one new thing.

Glue! It’s glue that truly sets us apart from the squiggling, squirming biomass that surrounds us. It’s glue that has enabled us to make everything from pencils and pyramids to envelopes and rocket ships. I am aware of some animals that use adhesives to stick their houses together or cling to slippery rocks, but I ask you—does a spittle-built termite mound look cozy? or have you ever seen a barnacle playing Scrabble?

And the social anthropologists are all wrong. Forget about tool- making...even a monkey will use a stick to bust-up a beehive to get at some honey. And forget about fire...according to Greek mythology, Prometheus got into a hell of a pickle by stealing a flame or two from the gods and slipping ‘em to us. I’ll grant that fire did give us an edge on other species, but this glue idea is something we came up with ourselves (as opposed to simply re-purposing a fortuitous lightning strike)...and this ability to reorder the shape and structure of our world is truly a skill normally reserved for gods and the forces of nature. If we—in our infinite wisdom—survey our surroundings and see that something isn’t right, that two things that don’t go together should go together...if we want a weasel with feathers...well, we and we alone on this planet have the power to make it so.

Ecco homo glutium!”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“yes, i’ve seen wonders...”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“i’ve seen criminals... but...”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   I...I...never seen nothing like you.

   (chorus)

   do ya, do ya want my life...woman
   do ya, do ya want my love, i’m saying
   do ya, do ya want my face...i need it
   do ya, do ya want my mind...

   (verse)

   well i’ve...heard the choir singing out of tune
   as they sat....and sang Auld Lang Syne by the light of the moon
   I heard the preachers banging on the drums

   but I...I.....

EDIT TO: CB

“I saw Dave Hamilton drop his hair.

In 1965, high school was class war...the Collegiates—rich, preppy and college-bound—versus the Greasers, who like me were lower class, third- generation immigrant kids new to the suburbs, deflected onto the vocational track and destined for trade schools, autobody shops or—if we were lucky—the Army.

And Dave Hamilton was our Leader...the King Rack, the top, full-steam- ahead Hood. But no mere thug he...Dave was a Continental Greaser, an elegant breed that favored neon mohair sweaters over crisp, white button-down shirts, slit pocket-ed, cuffless gray gaberdine trousers with a small belt on the butt back, Banlon socks, Stacy Adams lace-ups or anything with Cuban heels. Mandatory accessories included a large, pink rat-tail comb in the rear pocket, a silver I.D. bracelet and always...always a black leather car coat.

Note that that’s Hamilton...not Hamiltono or Hamiltoni. We had the vowels—he had the Irish redhead pompador, and it crowned him so gorgeously that we dark, stumpy Italians could never come within a ‘Vette’s-length of this much class.

And that hair was everywhere...in the boy’s john glowing in the center of a puff of Camel smoke...in the window of the principal’s office where Dave was once again sent for some surly infraction...and out in the school parking lot bopping to the Four Season’s latest as he held court after detention. Cursed with a high, squeaky voice, his leadership style was silent and passive...he just did...he just was...and through his total resistance to any kind of authority and non-compliance with their rules, we got our cues as to how he was parsing the world into ‘cool’ and ‘not cool’.

Both the Collegiates and the Greasers had their pet bands. I played drums with The Disciples, and since we had a beconked black lead singer with a Harley and Buddy “De Bug” Vincent on sax, we played all the Greaser’s parties, bike runs, car club rallies and funerals. Great gigs...lots of beer and slutty Catholic girls who were keen on all kinds of rebellion. And nobody seemed to mind getting their James Brown or Link Wray through our homemade speaker cabinets.

The Collegiate’s band was The Rebel Kind. They played strictly British Invasion through rich parents signed-for, store-bought Vox and Sunn amps and got their stage clothes on Carnaby Street via weekend trips to London. They were Jagger skinny and Daltrey pretty and we kicked their asses on a fairly regular basis. It didn’t matter...their haughty, fabulous girls remained unimpressed, and there was no crossover contact that I can recall...except once when at a Battle of The Bands, Kathy Worthington tripped over a guitar cable and I caught her by the tits.

Hamilton, of course, considered this whole long-haired thing to be a pile of pussy shit. Nevermind that moptop culture was becoming huge...it was a threat to everything manly, blue-collar and Elvish. It had bumped surf music off the radio. It enabled our high school’s lowliest squid to acquire some status by merely donning a polka dot shirt. And our parents thought The Beatles were cute. Cute?...rock ‘n’ roll?. This was a disaster...the established teenage hierarchy was crumbling, and the noble Greaser was rapidly becoming an anachronism.

Then one day Dave Hamilton showed up at school with his hair combed down . His clothes, his shoes, the chip on his shoulder...everything else about him was exactly the same, but this shocking, apparent capitulation to the new pop culture brought lunch trays crashing to the cafeteria floor and teachers to lose their places in their lesson plans.

...and brought even more heat down upon him. Suddenly, Hamilton’s hair was the most important thing in the world. This was not submission after all...it was subversion. In one brilliant move, he had co-opted a threatening cultural trope and redefined it as a symbol of rebellion. He was immediately suspended, the high school banned long hair and one ex-Marine gym teacher with a buzz cut started patroling the halls with scissors and going after any boy whose ears he couldn’t see. Both Collegiates and Greasers who’d let their hair grow dropped out to attend Griswold Academy, a trade school in downtown Cleveland that didn’t have a dress code. One family sued the school—they were Quakers, and to them, long hair on their kids had religious significance.

Dave peaked early, I guess. I saw him a few years later, after he’d fallen asleep, drunk and drugged, and had burned off one of his arms to the elbow. He’d been working for several years in a car scrap yard near downtown, then met and married a girl named Ellie and had moved to a house trailer in a one-intersection village half way to Youngstown. Dave liked the isolation and lived for the local fishing, but Ellie could't stand the isolation, so they split and she moved to Florida. His parents got divorced when his father declared himself gay.

Dave still had all of his red hair, tho.

yes, i’ve seen geniuses...”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“yes, i’ve seen wonders...”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“i’ve seen marvels...”

but...

EDIT TO: MOVE

   I...I...never seen nothing like you

   (chorus)

   do ya, do ya want my life...woman
   do ya, do ya want my love, i’m saying
   do ya, do ya want my face...i need it
   do ya, do ya want my mind...

   (middle 8)

   in the country where the sky touches down on the field...

EDIT TO: CB

“I saw heroin roll throw my lily-white suburban neighborhood house-by- house.

oh Freddy, Freddy my crazy cousin...lover of so many women for four years you kept a full time job, went to college at night, and had a $100 dope day habit...jeez what courage...now that was a man!...'til his folks came back from vacation and found him hanging in the basement...

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   he lay her down...
   to rest in the morning sun

EDIT TO: CB

“I saw Vikki Singleton cum.”

she was the most sexual woman i’ve ever known. one time we were hanging out in her backyard. hot sun. hot day. she said “hey...wanna see something?”, I said “uh...sure” and she took off her jeans, lay back on a lounge chair, turned toward the sun and spread her legs. in a few minutes, she came...hard....”the sun fucked me,” she said.”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   they come a’running just to get a look
   just to feel, to touch her long black veil

EDIT TO: CB

“i saw myself be sick for eleven years over a priestess.

she was everyone's art-babe-muse...oh i was so in love!...twenty years later i hook back up with the guy who married her (my best friend, of course)...called him up...i was so nervous..."WHAT" she snarled into the phone..."um it's chris butler (pause...no response) “uh...is Steven there?"..."STEVEN" she shrieked...and drops the receiver...nothing...not a word to me. and i got shock treatments because of this cunt???

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   they don’t give a damn...

   (reintro = x 2 for nothing)

   (plop!/ x 2 >hold x 3)

   ahhhh.......

   (chorus)

   do ya, do ya want my life...woman?
   do ya, do ya want my love, i’m saying
   do ya, do ya want my face...i need it
   do ya, do ya want my mind...

   (verse)

   well, now I think you understand what i’m trying to say to you, women

that is...i’d like to save you for a rainy day, yeah

i’ve seen enough of the world to know, baby

that i’ve got to get it on, to get it on tomorrow

EDIT TO: CB

“WHAT???

well, i saw a beach with pink sand that was so soft that you’d sink in up to your shins.

...but i also saw my brother-in-law smashed on magic mushrooms think about taking a swan dive off a cliff onto the jagged coral...”Don't worry,” he said, “the rocks are my friends.” And this was after i'd spent the entire day snorkling and playing tag with a parrot fish that was - I think - in a good mood. can fish be happy? can a fish have a sense of humor?

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

and i saw a Jehovah's Witness blow his chance at The Rapture.

...by selling me a used car and lying about its condition. who better to trust than a JW, I thought? he said his job was translating The Watchtower into German. “Yep...lotsa good miles left in that car...lotsa good miles.”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“and i saw the club I was playing in burn down in the middle of a song.

my band had just replaced all their gear after everything was lost in another fire barely a month before in the club next. door. “Not again,” we said, and grabbed gear and cables as the flames came up throught the floor. the harp player just made it out with my bass amp as the buyilding crashed down around him. we hauled everything three flights of stairs to an apartment across the street, but sparks landed on the roof and soon that building was on fire, too, so we dragged everything back down the back fire escape to a music store. we stayed up all night soldering stuff back together, found another club by noon the following day, built a stage that afternoon and played that night with our shoes sticking to the wet paint. we won...now that was courage!”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“I saw the searchlight in Antibe harbor...

...from the balcony of a little house in a medieval village up in Les Alpes Maritimes...and smelled the Mistral, fat and moist with thyme from the Rhone Valley and pine from the Swatzwald and thought...it doesn't get any better than this.”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

“and I saw a rainy moonrise...

...while standing in the doorway of a warehouse in Nyhavn, Copenhagen, with two great friends and have never felt closer to anyone else ever...and thought it doesn't get any better than this”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

it doesn't get any better than this

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   D CHORD FROM INTRO

EDIT TO: CB

no...it doesn't get any better than this

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   (drum plop!)

   (chorus)

   do ya, do ya want my life...woman?
   do ya, do ya want my love, i’m saying
   do ya, do ya want my face...i need it
   do ya, do ya want my mind...

   ahhhh....you bother me...

(stop/drums x 3 +1!)

EDIT TO: CB

“...and I saw The Move!”

EDIT TO: THE MOVE

   (chorus)

   do ya, do ya want my life...
   do ya, do ya want my love...
   do ya, do ya want my face...
   do ya, do ya want my life...

   look out baby there’s a plane a comin’!

END