And then, in the Spring of 2020, did they find themselves trapped in their own domiciles. Hunkered in their houses, huddled in their hovels, hiding in their homes. They had hoarded their toilet paper, learned to pronounce new words like COVID and Wuhan, they could now properly spell quarantine on the first try. For the first time in a very long time, they thought having a case of Corona was a bad thing, even with those little lime wedges. They had rewatched all the seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and found themselves struggling with a new sexual awakening, brought on by repeated viewings of one Commander William Riker. They begged for some good news, some sweet release; from their mayors, their governors, their senators, their President. Each request was met with a negative, or a positive that they knew should have been a negative. You know how that goes. The immediate future looked bleak. They turned to the place they had always turned for comfort, to the smooth styling and rich wit of Uncle Walter. And there they found what they sought. A warm blanket on a cold night. A cold beer on a hot day. A homecooked meal and a handjob goodbye. There they found peace and there they found joy and there they found hope. Except of course they didn't. Take a look up at the top of the page. This is the Walter Becker Media Site. You know, the place for the guy who "sang about the good bad and ugly, and all and everything in between." So we're giving you a song about the Apocolypse, or at least the post-apocalypse. A hellscape...no, that's too harsh. A heckscape full of toxic suburbs and golden ghettos, petrol slicks and triple killzones. And wandering westward through the wasteland we find a trio of academics with their spouses...
Boom Baby
Walter Becker and Larry Klein
© 2005/2019 Zeon Music LLC, Strange Cargo/Downtown Music Three half-wise professors co-ed wives in tow
Putting up the sled now to the flatlands we must go
Searching for salvation following that star
Cross the purple plains of fair Amerika
Down in that golden ghetto Cal-i-forn-i-ay
These are the toxic suburbs that once was San Jose
Must be almost there now, can’t be very far
Which way to the lost Messiah our reluctant avatar?
Boom baby boom baby where are you?
The whole round world’s turned black and blue
Wake up tomorrow what you gonna do
Laugh baby cry baby boom baby where are you?
(Boom baby where are you?
The whole round world’s gone black and blue
Wake up tomorrow what you gonna do
Laugh baby cry baby where are you?)
Ah say can you see from miles away
Wading through the petrol slick at Half-Moon Bay
Ah so sorry that you can’t come out
And see for yourself what this brave new world is all about
Fanned out in concentric circles in dustbowl brown
The triple killzone running round the old agro town
Froze in fatal shades of biochemical surprise
Globally warmed-over for your unseeing eyes
Boom baby boom baby where are you?
The whole round world gone black and blue
Wake up tomorrow what you gonna do
Laugh baby cry baby boom baby where are you?
(Boom baby where are you
The whole round world gone black and blue
Wake up tomorrow what you gonna do
Laugh baby boom baby where are you?)
Wandr’in through the files down where the ugly truth was hid
Before that info shitstorm fractalized the entire grid
Sifting through the ruins, what’s it gonna be?
Intellectual deprivation, virtual unreality?
Holed up in the numbers the aborted d-base runs
Between the empty zeros and the lonely ones
Conspicuously absent, set off in silhouette
He must be here somewhere we just haven’t got to yet
Boom baby boom baby where are you
The whole round world gone black and blue
Wake up tomorrow what you gonna do
Laugh baby cry boom baby where are you?
(Boom baby where are you
The whole round world gone black and blue
Wake up tomorrow what you gonna do
Laugh baby boom baby where are you?)
I was not at all expecting that funky, catchy chorus after that first stanza. Neat! And I was really really not expecting Falsetto Walter to show up, but that was delightful. Seriously made me smile.
These are the notes I wrote down when I first heard this: Great chorus. It almost reminds me of Walter's take on the kind of futuristic thematic stuff that colored Kamakiriad. Except instead of ending at a bar on the outskirts of town, it ends in various kinds of awful. Global warming? Nuclear fallout? Something that ends "Fanned out in concentric circles of dustbowl brown." And I love the line "Between the empty zeros and the lonely ones." Binary as a metaphor. I think that maybe because they had to practice sitting under their desks in school in case the Soviets dropped a bomb (as if school desks are somehow shielded against radiation), that whole generation grew up under a huge cloud. My generation was the last of that. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and then then the fall of the USSR, we kind thought shit was going to be better...until September 11th. And of course my kids grow up under the specter of imminent terrorist attack the same way my parents grew up under the threat of imminent nuclear attack. We never really learn anything, I guess. My 4x great grandfather survived an attack by Creek warriors in Alabama because his mother hid him in a hat box under the bed. They killed the rest of the family while the dad and older brother were out hunting, returning home to find dead bodies and crying baby in a small box under the bed. So Injuns, Plague, Nukes, or Terrorists, we're always afraid of something.
Could that be why so many men in you nuclear family wear hats?
Just what the doctor ordered, thank you! I already feel better after only one listen. Do you have any idea if they got around to recording this track with the Circus Money band? The demo itself is fabulous but really begs the question of how far did it get? I can picture background vocals by the Danettes where that repeated chorus is (is that Klein doing the repeat? Sounds too high pitched for Walter although I could be wrong...) Thanks again for this much needed breath of fresh air!
That's WB, Tony. I don't know for sure if this one got ore than this demo, I'll triple check, but I sorta doubt it
Just read this comment in an article: "Have you noticed that music and art are already filling the emotional gaps left by the absence of direct human contact?" Perfectly expressed for how I feel. Thank you to the WB Media crew, and of course to the man himself. Even while he's on the upside looking down, he's helping us all get through this.
Thanks for posting this, another gem :-)
Thanks so much!! I needed this. Such a perfect ending to a long isolated week. Uncle Walt has delivered again, and as Tony said, is just what the doctor ordered! Thanks again wbmedia team!
How prophetic.....but then predicting calamity is pretty much a sure bet
Talkin' about prophetic...I've heard there might be another baby boom in 9 months...baby boom...'Boom Baby'...hmmm
@hourstuff The whole round world gone black and blue
This is a tricky little devil. The changes and especially the intervals are slippery indeed. Tip [1]: Try singing that melody. Those selfsame changes and intervals are exceedingly hard to hit. Tip [2]: Now try singing it without accompaniment. It took me about 8 practice runs before I could come close to hitting them: Your mileage may vary. If you can do it in less than 5, you're King O' The World.
I wish I had even a little musical literacy so I could describe what's happening there without having to resort to high-level jargon like "slippery" and "tricky".
In fact it's tricky -- indeed, even slippery -- enough that one needs a minimally competent ear even to just hear the melody and make sense of it right away, to pick it up from the minimalist tone information in the thin keyboard and the tone-obscuring boom bass (baby).
more on this one later.
ps; Careful, Matt: that intro might fool somebody into thinking you're one hell of a writer.
... a heckscape ....
A Little Something From Larry
whoa, awfully nice for Larry to toss in his two cents here...especially given he's a little busy setting up a school in his dining room, among other things. And..hm.., I'll ask him next time how you produce music while maintaining 'social distance'.
Thanks, Lar... 🥰
=====
Walter and I spent a lot of time inventing characters that were a blend of what you could call “degenerate characteristics” and what you might call intellectual or pseudo-intellectual (which most intellectuals really are on some level, especially if they think of themselves as intellectuals) characteristics. We would frequently adopt those characters’ voices in phone conversations and that would bleed over into songwriting sessions, which quite frequently could drift into traded riffs regarding the end of the world. This song is quite firmly planted in that ground. The notion of how people quite frequently distill down to the degenerate elements that are parts of their personalities, especially when the ship is going down, was quite a humorous and entertaining area of conversation and songwriting for us. The music of this one is a sort of combo of reggae elements, bi-tonality, and southern R&B. We had a lot of fun writing. Enjoy this trippy little number! Somewhat apropos of the times….
-Larry Klein
March 2020