Ask me about the weather,
Ask me what I think’s taboo,
Ask me if I would wear leather,
Or who I pray to?
Ask me any question, any day,
Ask me cause you know I’ve always,
Got something to say!
Ask me what I think of friendship,
Ask me how I feel about love,
Ask me my two cents on money,
Or on happiness?
Ask me any question, any day,
Ask me cause you know I’ve always,
Got something to say!
Ask me about blogging, clear cut logging,
Autobahns and black swans,
Michael Jordan, Bob Dylan,
Islam, Viet Nam,
H-bombs and my Mom.
Yeah ask me any question, any day,
Ask me cause you know I’ve always,
Got something to say!
Ask me what I think of people,
Who’s always got something to say,
But who never asks other people,
For what they’ve got to say?
Cause having an opinion, without discussion,
Thinking one is right, day and night,
Is a plan for, fights and war,
Hot heads, bloodshed,
Lost heads and tears shed.
If we discuss our problems, I think we,
Can mutually find the answers that would be,
Good for you and me!
So where do you stand on abortion?
Would you help someone to die?
Would you allow human cloning?
Or take a killer’s life?
Tell me your opinions, so that we
Can mutually find the answers that would be
Good for you and me.
So let’s talk about global warming
Let’s exchange ideas on world peace
Let’s share thoughts about world hunger
And inequality.
Let’s discuss things over, so that we
Can mutually find the answers that would be
Good for you and me…
And all humanity…
And for the world we lease
08.12.10 – 08.21.10
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Copyright by Minh Tan on listed dated of completion.
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Notes to this poem…
This is the fourth, and hopefully, final version of these sets of lyrics for me. It has taken me almost four years between when I started this song to now, though it wasn’t like I was toiling on it the entire time or anything.
This song started as being a simple jingle about my opinionated nature and some topics about which I either cared a lot for and/or felt I had some interesting opinions on. Version 1.0 was intended to be fairly repetitive, like a jingle should be to be easy to learn, leaving the accompaniment to provide the variety to keep things interesting. Version 1.1, which I didn’t post because it didn’t involve major changes but some time did elapse between it and version 1.0, was a sign of things to come for me. I went through many minor changes with these lyrics over the past couple of years. It got bad enough I went to the hundredth decimal place for my own records on the very small changes, but with enough impact I felt it was worthwhile progress. So in a way, it has been on my mind a lot for the past four years or so.
I wasn’t very active with this blog when I had version 2, which had an additional verses and some changed order. I have since lost that worn out piece of scrap paper, but remember it fondly. The big change to version 2 was the addition of the bridge to convey how I liked to hear other people’s opinion, as well. It’s true. It was a side of me I had left out so I added it in. The changes to a few verses reversed them from “ask me about” to “tell me about”, to share “your” opinion. It just wasn’t the smoothest of transitions, and I knew it wasn’t going to be the final version. But it was a big enough change to warrant a new version.
Version 3.0 came out of a songwriting camp in Sherbrooke Village in June 2008, and got further refined with a week at Humber College at another songwriting workshop in July 2008 to become version 3.14. The big change to warrant version 3.0 was to remove the original and first bridge (in this version), along with some other verses. This made the song a bit more “commercially viable” in being shorter and lacking too much repetition. More wordsmithing to various extent bumped it up to version 3.14 before I gave it a rest.
But while the song at version 3.14 was more “commercially viable”, I was neither for the idea nor disillusioned I was going to be commercially viable with this. Songwriting is a minor hobby for me, not even a major one on my extensive list. I liked those verses I had discarded, only in version, as I still had copies of them with me to bring back should I want to.
So another couple of years go by, along with a few more try outs among songwriter circles, and I felt I needed some closure on this song… and I was going to do it the way I wanted for version 4.0.
So I brought back all those past verses. Yes, I will rely on accompaniment in performance to give some variety, although the latest lyrics should have enough to keep things moving and the audience engaged after a few jingle style repetitive verses. Like good comedy, where you set them up on one train of thought and you blindside them with another, that’s what I did here. For one thing, I added that bridge between two bridges. That’s the “Ask me what I think of people…” verse. I have a sharp sense of humour, with some of it being of the self-deprecating nature, so I put it to good use. I’d perform this a little cautiously and quietly after things would have built to a climax with the bridge before that, which included the short chorus at the end.
Then after the tone down, I would get to build things up again, in a totally different direction. Aside from the musical build up, so is the ask for opinions, then the invitation to take on some bigger challenges or potential areas of disputes than the set in the previous verse. Notice I did not invite them to do the “obvious”, like stop or reverse global warming, attain world peace, end world hunger or inequality (chosen to account for discrimination of all types). Rather, I just invite them to talk about it the people who would cause me problems are the ones denying global warming, think war is needed, that some people have to be and deserve to be better than others, or some worse off. Trust me, that was hard for me to do not only to realize that, but also to decide to be “neutral” in the lyrics on what are some pretty obvious things for me. But that’s the sort of non-judgmental attitude it would take to make this happen. Finally, it all ends with the goal being revealed as not just being good for the parties cooperating, but for humanity, and the world all around us that I view as something we humans lease rather than own like many think. Leasing is a great concept, in my opinion, cause that means we have to give something back. It’s a bit more intensive than borrowing as if Mother Nature loaned us the planet to live on. Anyhow, that’s what I’ve got to say about that! 🙂
Version 4.1 was the addition to version 4.0 of that last statement about the world because, of course, humanity isn’t the be all and end all of things. I was just so focused on the nice rhyme to end things in version 4.0, as well as that most lovely of words, humanity.
So with that, I finally feel pretty happy with it all. I don’t doubt with a few performance try outs, I’ll end up wordsmithing a few more instances. As I do, though, I’ll just come back and fix up this version because there is no need to create a whole new entry for it with this being the third already.
But yes, hopefully, this will pretty much be it for this song. Time to move on and work on a whole bunch more I have unfinished! If I’m this patient for songs to work themselves out, is it any wonder I don’t have many songs written? But fear not, if this is typical, the many others I’ve started in the past 4 years will be soon taking their turn to come out as they finish themselves in turn. 🙂
Thanks to everyone who have given their feedback on the various versions of this song over the years. It was all very much appreciated, whether your suggestion got used or not.
Please click here to see version 5.0 (and true final version) of these sets of lyrics.
Minh Tan's Old Poetry 
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