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Foolishness (Acoustic Demo)

Uploaded March 2, 2022 2:46pm.

Foolishness - A A J Russe
Written 3rd January 1988
Recorded 1st March 2022
The Shoebox Demos Vol 1

While writing and recording songs for FAWM 2022 I discovered that I can create acoustic demos of nearly any song I’ve ever written.

I’ve spent the last few days getting the contents of the Shoebox (the Andrew Russe Song Repository) in order. The contents of the Shoebox go back as far as 1979 and seem to represent over 300 complete songs and lots of half-baked ideas.

I immediately found 60-odd complete and singable songs that I would like to demo in this way. There are possibly another 20-30 I’m prepared to treat like this. And there’s a bunch more that, with a bit of tweaking, might scrub up nice too. And there are some half-finished ideas that I got stuck with, but could finish now.

So, with no particular rhyme or reason, here’s the first off the production line.

Foolishness was written on the 3rd January 1988.
Finally recorded as this acoustic demo on Tuesday 1st March 2022.
It’s never been recorded (except on paper) before.

I wrote it in Bb, but that sounds a bit squeaky now, so I lowered it a bit.
I made a couple of other tweaks in the final verses to make sure it worked as intended. Mainly this was because the second half was all “you”. I used to write to myself as “you” a lot, often switching from I to you halfway through a song!
And here it made it feel like two halves of entirely different songs.

Now I’m older, wiser, and can’t sing so high, I don’t really give a sh1t what the younger me thought or felt - the song has to work first, personal feelings can follow on after as best they might! LOL

I was very tempted to change “little girl”, I can see how this could be interpreted in a very different way nowadays. If I were to record this song more seriously, I probably would change it.

However, for this demo, I DO kind of give a sh1t about how the little girl might feel, if she’s still alive. She was 15 years older than me!

Foolishness - A A J Russe

If all this is is foolishness
If all this is is wait for happiness
I’d rather not get stuck with it
But I have it now
I asked for it

There’s a little girl lives down my way
But I don’t think she can come out to play
I dream about her every night
But she musn’t hear
You know it isn’t right

I think she knows enough by now
I think she’s heard it all by now
She begged me not to write of it again
But my foolishness
Means I have to sing

I’m waiting on my little dream
And nothing’s as cheap as it might have been
I can’t afford to pay my way
But I’ve broken it
What can I say

My foolishness
Means I always sing

I can’t get off the premises
An apology is sorely missed
I could dream my way out of this mess
But she mustn’t hear
Of my foolishness

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Andrew Russe said March 2, 2022 6:42pm

Hehehe... there's LOTS of youthful angst is these Songs from the Shoebox... possibly an embarrassing amount... You wait... let's see if I'm brave enough to record the ones from 1978/9!!!

oldfolks2 said March 2, 2022 5:27pm

That's rather wonderful ...... a bit of youthful angst ??

Colleen Dillon said March 2, 2022 4:43pm

You've been a writer / poet for so many years!!! How delightful to put these songs out. I'm glad you found the shoe box.