Jimmy Came Home

Tucson, midnight,
Arizona summer night,
Mercury was up high,
Eighty somethin' Fahrenheit,
Mary on the front stoop,
Madder than a wild cat,
Screamin' like a Banshee,
"Where the hell Jimmy at?"
He been gone for days now,
Reckon he ain't comin' back,
Right about then though,
Lights streamin' out the black.
Jimmy rollin' up in a brand new Pontiac.

She says "Well now,
What do we have here now?
Maybe somethin' that the cat,
Was draggin' in somehow?"
Jimmy says "C'mon girl,
Ain't no need for all that,
I been out workin' hard,
Earning this 'Cadillac'!"
Mary yells "Dirty cash!!
Filthy ill-gotten gains,
Even to a damn fool,
Th' explanation's real plain.
You been out on the street, sellin' that stuff again."

Jim yells "You lyin'!"
Pretty soon the lead's flyin',
She's shooting he's scooting,
Mighty keen on not dyin',
Shots dinging off the hood,
Jimmy's head ducking down,
Dives in behind the wheel,
Drives the car back to town,
Swings on by the chop house,
Parking lot out the back,
Says "That girl crazy boys,
Sick and tired o' her crap.
Anyways, any y'all need to score a C-wrap?"

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[notes]
A year or so ago I wrote a song about a character called Jimmy disappearing
in the middle of a police raid on a card game. I often thought, "Must have him
return some time, it's bound to get interesting".

Anyway - someone just said to me the lyrical pattern was a bit odd and noted
that it was a little like Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" in patches.
I mean I get it ("Mary on the front stoop"/"Johnny's in the basement") although
the Bobster has one line for my two and an extra syllable but I suppose you could
sing it fast with a choppy guitar part. But that's was not where I was going - although
I really don't mind how people play them if they want to use them ;)

Keen eyed readers will probably have noted that verse structure is pretty uniform
and ordered 4 lines/4 lines/4 lines (then a long one on the end). The first four mess
about with the meter a bit but the rest is locked down on six syllables.

So yes, it was a 4/4 time blues riff with a pretty standard 12 bar progression
(and a bridgy bit on the end). So for me the block of 12 (in A) goes (as you would expect):

AAAA Tucson/Arizona/Mercury/Eighty/
DDAA Mary/Madder/Screamin/Where/
EDAA He/Reckon/Right/Lights

The first line is always 4 syllables so the first bar of the riff sort of establishes the
rythmn with 4 crochets/fourths:

G:- - - - - - - -
D:- - - - - - - -
A:- - - - - - 5 -
E:5 - 5 - 8 - - -

And then the answering measure starting with 4 quavers/eighths

G:- - - - - - - -
D:- - - - - - - -
A:- - - - - - 5 -
E:5 5 5 5 8 - - -

So very standard stuff really and very like a lot of blues bass riffs - very close
To Green Onions if you move it back to G of course.

And then the last line is an extra 2 bars, I was just playing a blues scale backwards!
I'm sure others could do much better.

G:- - - - - - - -
D:7 7 5 5 - - - -
A:- - - - 7 - 6 -
E:- - - - - - - -

G:- - - - - - - -
D:- - - - - - - -
A:5 - 5 - - - - -
E:- - - - 8 8 5 -

So it sort of ends on a nice little triplet on Pontiac/Stuff Again/a C-Wrap.

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