Cody Weathers

Cody Weathers: I Love You, Helicopter (Slightly More Significant Failures) (Box Set: Disc 3 studio, 2005)

	BUY IT:     $10 for CD, available by special order
The Songs Daughter Of Our Enemy/At First Sight/Hero/Caramel/To Know Your Love Again/She's The One/Shiny Dimes/Deep/Two Desperados/I'll Never Be Far From Your Side/Catnip/Passing Through/October Air/Separate Ways/Always/Too Much/China, Present Day  all songs written and arranged by Cody Weathers (c)(p)2005, 1991-2004, Cody Weathers, all rights reserved. No stealing the worthless material, OK?	Additional MP3 Singles:
Don't Hate the Players:  Cody Weathers: All voices and instruments except....   John Fried: bass on Shiny Dimes. John Speranza: guitar and bass on  Passing Through. Larry Elwood: upright bass on Separate Ways. Cara Weathers: additional scat on Catnip.	MP-FREES: Separate Ways October Air

This disc is the companion bonus CD to Least Significant Failures (LSF). Culled from the same sessions, it, too represents an acoustic reworking of longstanding FlipNasty/UFO Catcher/Cody Weathers songs. When the dust had settled from recording LSF, Checkmate executives decided that 3.5 hours of Cody music was probably way too glorious for general release. Explains Chief Legal Counsel Sydney Snotpockets, "There are significant liability issues associated with releasing that amount of pure joy into the marketplace. The risk of engendering a class-action lawsuit in the vein of Meyer vs. Heroin-Freshener(tm) was simply to great to justify putting all these songs together. Although the debate was heated, and there are certainly still factions within the company that may wonder, 'what if....,' ultimately, I was able to convince management to take a more conservative legal position and re-mix the album into a double-disc."

But sentiment was nonetheless very strong on the other side of the fence that the faithful fans of Cody's songs deserved the entire album. Says Weathers, "I'm no lawyer, but it seems like in the Heroin-Freshener(tm) case that Sydney kept harping on is really about people who can't handle their heroin. Difference between me and Sydney? I think my fans can handle their heroin."

"When they told me that despite my faith in the collective jones of my fans, I would still have to cut 70 minutes from the triple disc, I had a hard time figuring out how to approach it. I mean, we had put so much time into the selection process, and felt like there were really good candidates that didn't even make it onto the final list --And You Say or Raggedy Man, for instance. So to then flip it around, when you're feeling tempted to record even more and instead have to cut the list by a third was really difficult. Normally, you make an argument based on song quality, but I couldn't really rank a third of the songs as substantially different in quality from the remainder of the album. The only selection method that made sense to me was to pick the songs that I play less frequently live, which actually gives this disc a pretty nice balance. You get some songs that are awfully hard to play, like Hero or Daughter of Our Enemy, then others that just aren't my own personal favorites like Always, revivals like Separate Ways, brand new stuff like She's The One, songs that give me trouble and songs that were written during periods where I didn't gig much. I think people are really going to like it --especially the people closest to me."

Daughter Cara's initial review: "This *Dada* song. (pause) Hi-ho song *different* CD. (pause) Play hi-ho song again, please?"

Lyrics:

Daughter Of Our Enemy: That's me on the mountain, looking east into a land that belongs to every man in this nation. But you and your moonlight had to ruin every plan, disobey the one command I would make you. Chorus: Son, I don't trust it if it didn't work before. You're only getting what you'd get from any whore. Now, I demand that you don't see her anymore. Daughter of our enemy. Just begging forgiveness can't undo what you have wrought --you've forgotten why we fought in the first place. Let's put it behind us. You can kiss your toy goodbye --even snicker when she cries if you want to. Chorus. I have no doubt of which is thicker, I just fear water may be quicker. That's me on the mountain, looking north into a sea that I swore belonged to me until you took it. Just begging forgiveness can't undo what I have wrought. I've forgotten why we fought in the first place. Chorus.

At First Sight: At first sight, the only line into your heart was over-tangled in a knot, an endless, complicated snake. That first night, I didn't dream of you at all, but in my lonely bed, my heart had come awake. At first light, I went about my daily ways, but something different in the maze --the smell of cheese. CH: You would be the one for me. So I tried to look for happiness around, and as my hopes went up and down, my heart said, "she has not been found." And you tried to find a love worth fighting for. You travelled bravely shore-to-shore, and yet your heart said, "something more." (CH) And in my old age, I hope I'll be a happy grandpa walking by the sea. All my life, I've been a failure and a fool, but then I took a chance or two and turned the corner into you. So, my wife, although it took a little time, I wouldn't change this knotted line which --once unraveled-- made you mine.

Hero: A crisis must be faced somehow, though hiding may look safer. A queen is all a country has. To save her takes a hero. So take this sword across the sky; the crowd is all behind you. The unfamiliar, friendly eyes of nice girls will remind you.... Chorus: The only heroes now are sailing far away. Up away across the sky, just find the queen and bring her home, just save her from the lightning king. Wait, I don't believe that I've ever fought a king, and though I love the queen and don't want her to die, it seems to pin our hopes on me is a silly thing, although I'm just eighteen, and I don't know these things. But here I am across the sky with no clue what I'm supposed to do. I have a sword, but I can't fight. Chorus. "Help me," sings the queen, "my magic's tired, or I'd be free. Don't you remember me?" "Hero," says the king, "your country has made war with me. Are you surrendering?" "Please, sir," I tell the king, "I'm not the best at anything, but they've sent me for the queen." "Young thing," now laughs the king, "I can't believe they do such things, but you are the ransoming." Chorus. A crisis must be faced somehow, though lying may look quicker. A traitor is a country's wound. To heal it takes a hero. So take your hate across the sky; the crowd is all behind you. The unbelieving, angry eyes of nice girls will remind you. Chorus. Highness, will I be betrayed? Have I been betrayed? Who has betrayed me? Up in arms across the sky, the baby thugs of nations made of fouler stuff than need survive. Hunt like bees to honey thieves, blind to everything --your empty retribution is a dying sting. Dead, the traitor lies there dead --arrows in my head. Freedom can be won, but it's a final price. Still, in chains here lives the queen --root of everything-- with no one but the elders winning anything. Chorus.

Caramel: I don't know what you've been told, but eat this if you're feeling cold. The recipe is very old, but caramel's worth more than gold. One part sugar, one part butter, one part secret spice. Eight years making, slowly baking, eight years to cook right. CH: Bitterness was all I knew until the day your heart shone through. My sweetest thoughts are all of you and all the caramel you do. Yes, I need it, need to eat it, tasting sticky sweet. Sticky pots and apricots tender in my teeth. CH. Dark this flavor, meant to savor, melting on my tongue. Love forever, sweet endeavors, sweethearts sugar young.

To Know Your Love Again: The liquid of mere language will not, cannot make a bride of stone. My heart betrayed upon this slate still argues with dry bones. I disbelieve each snap you breathe as poison words of slumber. The truth forgets such baited breath, with love's true weight encumbered. Would I were a dog --a beast more fond to you-- I venture aptly thus your stern embargo lifts and leaves your mercy true at last. CH: To know your bed, to know your skin, to know your love again. The turmoil in our slumber is a darker heart than we possess, yet known to capture beauty in its secret inky nets. In dreams, your face surrounds me and I kiss your cotton lips. Your downy thighs persuade me into sour bliss as this. Would I were the dawn and not the midday sun, I venture I could wake you in that gentle hour and love your simple heart with child. CH. Maybe it was you who lit the fuse that singed my clumsy wings, your flame a strange-lit spectacle illuminates the mirrors near. I rush to find you in them, only bringing injury and shame. My damaged heart is drowning --float me in your blood. The murmur of your pulse is somehow known to me in silence, but I chant you like the rhythm of the sea. Rise to me, my darling --every star betrays a story. I've seen you as you are, and you are glory on a wing. Would I were the air and deep and cool invade to feed your hungry heart, that you would need me simply as I need you in my blood.

She's The One: Somewhere in her heart a magnet that I cannot see. Still, when I get close, I feel it like she's wanting me. This is it, I know the falling and the gravity. Every risk deserves its moment, every wish is free. CH: She's my baby, she's my baby, she's the one, she's the one. All this, all this air between us is so said and gone. Every drop of love's spent lustre pools and lingers on. Even as I chase your long and lithe and blushing tones, i can feel that Spring is coming to my Winter bones. CH. Anyway she goes, she wounds me, and she loves me not. I will never know the faces of the roads forgot. I must now devote my passions to a magic ship, sailing through the cracks and clockworks, my mistakes unripped.

Shiny Dimes: Met her on the lawn, and I thought I would forget her, but I should've known better, yes I should've known better. Twenty-eight months, and a thing or two later, and she ought to know I love her, but I don't know how to let her. Standing on the roof, with the rain above the ground, and my ears are optimistic for that one gold sound. Something like, "I love you, won't you please come down?" But I know that it's not coming, like I knew she'd frown. Chorus: I'd be had for shiny dimes but she still can't be had for a song. Met her in a dream and she wore a yellow sweater. Said she could've done better, and I knew I would regret her. Question and a scream and a stupid little letter. These are acts of klutz seduction that I'd rather not remember. Standing in the trees in the middle of the night with the pins up in the ceiling bleeding lantern light. Hearts cannot be won because they don't know how to fight. It's a matter of arrival; is your passport right? Chorus. Meet her at the door in the middle of September. I have come to light a bonfire with a pinpoint of an ember. Cigarettes and stars, what is close and what's forever? Will her tender feelings blossom by the sunrise or December. Standing in the wind like a fool without a voice, my stupid silent serenade continues and destroys every single option born of passion, born of noise. It's a question, it's an answer, it's a simple choice. Chorus.

Deep: CH: Deep, deep, way down deep. I know you can melt me. I know you've got heat. You must be inside me, 'cause I'm burning deep. CH. I've been full of winter. I've been lost in a dead, cold sleep. You're my infant summer, and I'm thawing deep. CH. And it's a fine, fine line that we walk sometimes between fire and a scar, but with your heart beats mine 'til the end of time and I'm reaching, reaching far.... CH. I am hot as embers. I am hot as steam. I must really love you 'cause my coal is deep.

Two Desperados: CH: Two desperados with a bucket of dreams and our lonely, lonely eyes. Two desperados with a pocket of beans and a saddlebag of dimes. Would you believe that I've heard your heart before --that I know your golden core and it led me to your door? Oh, I could concede that my joy is hard to trust --I yell gold when it's just rust. Still, I savor you, I must. CH. I couldn't breathe. They were set to let me fall. I was dressed in noose and all. I was scratching at your wall. CH. All my friends are lunatics who say your heart will never stick, but I've got sleeves to roll and tricks to show. Happiness, so hard to keep. Manic noon, depressed by three. Kiss me quick before I turn my cheek. Would you receive if I gave you everything? Promised heart and heath and ring? Made the snowy canyons sing your name? Chorus.

I'll Never Be Far From Your Side: Walk beside me and light me up slowly, in your arms I never am blue. Say you love me and need me and kiss me. I give you this ring and I'll always be true. CH: Fly my flag and I'll find you, I'll never be far from your side. Never hungry, nor freezing, nor lonely, my darling, my soulmate, my wife. Trust and patience and love without boundary --I give you this ring and this promise for life. CH. Don't you worry, it's all right. I would never let you down. Home is happy, home is warm, home is where we're headed now. CH. Years of friendship and boxes of laughter, my favorite surprises and tears. Happy endings and Hollywood wishes, I give you this ring and the rest of my years.

Catnip: It could be that Cupid is a fairy tale, like Martians or bottomless coffeepots. And I can remember when I came into town as the clumsiest clown you had seen. Maybe it's the first time, maybe it's the last time, but baby, the moment is ripe. CH: I'm your catnip. I'm an itching spell, and once you get me, gotta scratch me. It could be that romance is a dying art, and that broken hearts are the rule. But I can remember how we suffered apart and made do with the cards that we drew. Maybe it's the moonlight, maybe it just feels right, but baby, this arrow's for you. (CH) Baby loves to purr, baby loves to purr, baby likes the itch.

Passing Through: The spectre of young love is laughing at me. The horse that you hide in looks happy and free. And though it's been years, I still trip in these shoes --I can't tie the laces, my heart is an avenue. CH: Passing through You're just passing through. The phantom of Pamela lewdly amused. Every day's loser day --I live to lose. Oh, I can drive nails through the tops of your feet. You're looking ahead, and I know you're not with me, just.... (CH) I know you don't love me, there's no need to hide it. A shoe with no partner, I'm roadside detritus from.... (CH) The banshees are howling, they mean it today. They bite me and pound me to scare me away. With your flip agenda, you think you're so clever. You're leaving on Wednesday to haunt me forever with....

October Air: When you were young, oh so young, you had your dreams but now you've got to live your life however you can make it work, and I can't wash away your problems with a single potion. And I can't take you where you've never been before. CH: Let it go like the autumn leaves as they fall to Earth in October air. In the spring, you will grow new leaves that will feed you 'til the cold October air. Stabbed in the back, but you still persist. Do you even know what the conquest is when you have wasted all your options on frivolities? If I can't make you see the light, guess you'll have to say goodnight because life doesn't give a damn if you don't give a damn about yourself. CH. When life deals the cards, you can't always hold the aces. Sympathy made me weak to a hundred falsehood faces. I'll never let the day come when I let jealousy tear me apart because nothing ruins friendships more than jealous, broken hearts. CH. Sometimes you must let go to hold on to your sanity. Sometimes you have to take a brand new direction. You've got to give up what destroys you and start again. I cannot help you when you're bringing me down.

Separate Ways: She was fast and sleek, dancing cheek-to-cheek. I don't know why I loved her --I knew she would leave. Now everyone's telling me I never should've met her. Like cyanide, I should've known better. Chorus: Baby, why did you lead me astray? You kept me in the dark, knowing you'd leave anyway. Baby, you know that I want you to stay, but you thought that we should go our separate ways. Well the light was red an awfully long time, when it finally turned green, I thought she was mine. My senses all told me she'd shed her skin. Shark-infested waters I'd jump right in. Chorus. I was saturated with love, sweet love. Thought she would fit me like fingers in glove. Now all my money's wasted and my time's all spent, but we had a good time as far as we went. Chorus. Now that she's gone, I've got to find me a date. Take her out early and bring her home late. Now everyone tells me I'm a crazy dog, but falling in love's just like falling off a log.

Always: No money baby, that's just me --living my life and taking my time. You're beautiful, it's plain to see. I'd love to let your curtains down and make you mine. I'm easy to understand. Easy to talk to when you need a friend. Think it over, baby: I'm a good plan. I could just touch you forever. CH: Money's green but love is blind. Close your eyes and see me. I will always find the time. Take a step believe me. You know that I will always hold you, even when you're growing old. And you know that I will always warm you, even when it's very cold. You know that I will always cheer you, even when it's looking dark, and you know that I will always want you, even when we're far apart. Always, I'll love you always. Even when it's dark and cold, I'll love you always. Long hair, but baby that's just me living my life and being myself. You're beautiful, it's plain to see. I could be with you in sickness and health. I'm easy to get to know --easy to figure, got nothing to hide. You're funny and you're never slow. I could just hold you forever.

Too Much: CH: I would love to love you, I would kill to steal you, I would steal to touch you, I want too much. I must control my rage again, but still it coaxes, "give in." I feel so hard, so cold. I wish I had your hand to hold. Now, as I wander through my mind, I cannot face what I might find. I feel you slipping far away. Will this dog ever have his day? CH The swingset clatters in the wind. The starlight shines on me so thin. The midnight field, my toes are bare. I smell you in the misty air. I will not blame you for tonight. You could not see him in that light. And what you shared you lost to him. I will not damn you for this sin. CH. I must disguise myself again, so you can't see how hard it's been. I feel so empty and misplaced --my search for substance yielding space. I see your eyes in yellow skies, the sunset thinks you are unwise. Then all at once, you slip away. My lunge to grab you is too late.

China, Present Day (Inst.)

Listening Log:

These are all the leftovers that didn't make the final cut onto Least Significant failures, packaged as a companion bonus disc and the third installment of my Box Set series.  My 2-year-old daughter, Cara, is currently obsessed with helicopters, and isn't afraid to declare her feelings.  She drew the cover on her Doodle-Pro (what toddlers use instead of etch-a-sketch these days).

Daughter of Our Enemy: This song was a favorite of the band off of Guitool.  This re-recording just shifts the ensemble.  An extreme scenario of parental disapproval, which I've never really faced.  Mostly, they invented additional romances that never existed just in the hope that I would move the heck out of their house and quit whining.

At First Sight: An acoustic re-recording of one of my favorites from Fortnight.  I cut it from the final because the groove is just a little bit fuzzy between the first chorus and second verse (the peril of not using a click).  This is an ode to the splendor of Vaunne.  I'm running out of ways to say that songs are about her, so it's a good thing this is the last album to review.  Specifically, this is a loose string of memories about the long transition from friendship to marriage Vaunne and I underwent.  It's somewhat simplified for Hollywood.

Hero: This is based on a short story I never quite completed about a pariah sent on a fool's errand to deliver the ransom of a kidnapped queen.  I rarely play this song live, but this arrangement is loosely based on a live version recorded at Vincent McDermott's retirement concert with myself on piano and Robert McIntosh on percussion.

Caramel: Lifted directly from The Tale....  This song is about the long time Vaunne and I spent growing together before we realized our love for each other.  Although I like this song, when the time came to cut material, I had to admit that it doesn't seem to perk up the audience.

To Know Your Love Again: Also lifted directly from The Tale....  This is just a little song of playful longing.  I really enjoy playing it, but like Caramel, it lost out on the tiebreaker of audience reaction.

She's The One: This was the only hitherto-unrecorded song I included in the LSF sessions.  This song, like "Sleep With Him," (on Free Horse Manure) was one of the handful of songs written post-Flame Cow that would've been a candidate for my next album had my life not so radically changed.  These were lyrics that I kicked around for the better part of a year, and I fear are not cohesive.  They certainly don't have a cohesive truth to them, being a little bit of a mish-mash of snippets from my lyric book "Phrase Pages."  I hadn't played this live since the first tentative trials in Denver, so the song was basically up for grabs.  It feels fresh to me, but since it's not a song that was voted on or has any live track record, I cut it from the top 2 discs.  The piano solo is in a microtonal (smaller intervals between notes than the standard piano) temperment.

Shiny Dimes: Lifted directly off Flame Cow.  A more uptempo version of a song originally recorded for Archaeology with 12-string guitar instead of keyboard.  I like these words, which chronicle three different women who wanted nothing to do with me.  I can say this stuff now without feeling quite so stupid since everything turned out pretty well for me in the end.

Deep: Lifted directly off The Tale....  One of my favorites from that album, this is a fairly straightforward lyric about the depth of my love for Vaunne.  Awwwww.  This was a hard cut, but it didn't have the track record to make the top two discs.

Two Desperados: This is a very fun song to play live, and has changed a lot since originally recorded on Guitool.  I'll sum it up as "You and me vs. the world, babe!  We're just two desperados!"  (Fitting since it turns out that desperados also sometimes shoot each other in the desert).

I'll Never Be Far From Your Side: Lifted directly from The Tale....  This was our first dance at the wedding.  Continuing the pre-nuptial disaster theme, I broke my left elbow in a fall a few weeks before the wedding, having not yet recorded this song.  With a broken elbow like mine (specifically, a radial-head fracture), you don't wear a cast, but have a lot of difficulty bending or extending your arm or turning your palm up.  Not that any of those motions is required to play guitar.  I waited until the last possible moment, maximizing my recuperating mobility, then hobbled through this recording as best I could.  Even our wedding photos are subtly marred by this injury, as with my perpetually-cocked left elbow, I seem to be either Napoleon or the victim of bad shrimp, depending on your point of view.  I cut it because I don't play it all that much.

Catnip: This was Cara's favorite song as a baby, and one of the few (along with "Baby, You Can Drive My Car") that would lull her to sleep.  Now that I'm married, I can write this kind of song without any trace of irony.  This is a lighthearted treatise to forever remind knockout Vaunne that she is hopelessly spellbound by a big-nosed pudgy balding nerd like me.  On the original version (Fortnight), I stitched together many of Cara's noises as part of the scat outro.  These days, she likes to sing and scat, so I thought I'd just sing with her, but the microphone made her a little shy, and her contribution ends up being much more subtle than before, ending with the classic Cara line, "Shoo, fly.  All done, Dada.  All done."

Passing Through: lifted directly off River Dreams.  I really felt on when I was writing this.  It was one of those lyrics that somehow came to me fairly cleanly in meter and rhyme.  This is about falling into bad patterns and recognizing that someone is getting ready to leave you.  I included this in its original form because I haven't really changed the way I play it, and it's got some really nice bass from Speranza (bass & guitar) and a piano solo that I'm mildly proud of.

October Air: this was a really difficult cut because it's pretty high on the Flip Nasty list of favorites.  I don't have a real good reason other than when weighed against other recordings, it just wasn't as slick.  This song's about trying to amicably let go of someone.

Separate Ways: this is lifted directly from 2x3<4 with Larry Elwood on bass.  Extremely straightforward, somewhat clichéd lyric about being the hound dog I clearly have always been.  I really like this re-recording in a lot of ways, and wanted to consider it.

Always: One of Vaunne's favorite songs of mine, though not her favorite version.  This is directly from The Tale.... and at the top of a short list of songs that I don't personally like, but have been consistently favored highly by other people from my inner circle.  The same people reading this comment.  See, I do care about your opinions.  You guys rock.  Also, I cut your song.

Too Much: This was the hardest cut.  I'm still not sure about it.  It was basically this or Dollface vying for the same spot, and I concluded that Dollface was more in the vein of the acoustic album, and this was better electric.  Now that I'm listening to it, I wish I left it on, but it's too late now.  I originally recorded the solo as a distorted scat alone, but it was lacking until I sucked it up and figured out how to play something on guitar.  The scat is still in the background for the pre-written portion and Nick's old lick.  This is a song of deep regrets and the angst of loss.

China, Present Day: I've come to terms with the simple fact that the original version of this (Flame Cow) is arguably the catchiest thing I've ever written.   The original was a very distorted version of this, used as incidental music for Brian Costello's scene, set in.... China, Present Day.  It was so popular with other members of the Frumples Pictures crew, it become mandatory incidental music for all subsequent films, including Colfax, for which this acoustic surprise version was initially recorded.