The Sidewalk Song by Pok the Bard.
Album: Anthology
Fun Facts:
The Sidewalk Song is in the glorious key of E major.
The tempo is 120 BPM, or allegro moderato if you will.
The Sidewalk Song is one of the oldest songs in the Wud Records pantheon of awesome music.
It is full of the bombastic swagger of a young person who sees the world and its exciting possibilities beginning to open up.
The Sidewalk Song was first composed by Pok and Mark Drower and performed by Now.
It may have even preceeded that, possibly being played by Achilles Heel in 1981-2 and Beyond the Pale in 1983.
There are cassette recordings of The Sidewalk Song by Now from 1982 in the cassette vault at Wud Records.
This song was also included in the repertoire of Lemming Meringue and Wud, with Ken adding his own special flare to proceedings.
The Sidewalk Song in essence is a very simple song, with just four chords – E7, A7, G and D.
The riff at the beginning is played with a fretted E on the 12th fret of the low string on only the one-beats.
All of the other beats for the Es on the low string on the 12th fret are the harmonics.
Pok, panned to the right, plays Betty the Bastard, a Tokai SG with a mean streak, and handles all of the lead breaks as well as the rhythm.
Fedax plays rhythm guitar on Nicodemus and is panned to the left.
During the breakdown, Fedax plays the clean riff in the centre and Pok is double tracked, left and right, for some guitar wizardry.
There is a shout of “G!!!”, as became traditional, to warn everyone that the first G of the song was approaching.
There are three definitive combinations of E7 and A7 on the guitars.
The first variation is a standard E chord adding a little finger on the B string at the third fret.
Its corresponding A7 is a standard A chord played as a barre at the second fret across the D, G and B strings with the addition of a finger on the hi-E string at the third fret.
The second variation is a C7 shape, which is moved up the neck so that the first finger is playing an E on the B-string at the 5th fret, and the third finger is playing an E on the A-string at the 7th fret, with the low and high E-strings also sounded open.
The corresponding A7 voicing is a barre across the fifth fret, the second finger holds down an E on the A-string at the 7th fret, the third finger holds down a C# on the G-string at the 6th fret, and the fourth finger holds down a G on the B-string at the 8th fret.
The third variation uses the same voicing of E7 as the first variation.
The A7 is actually an A7sus4, as the player simply lifts the first and second fingers off the fretboard from the previous E7.
The third variation uses sustained rather than strummed chords and can be heard clearly in the left channel when Fedax plays them during one of Pok’s lead breaks.
The improvised vocal section was never performed quite the same twice.
Pok used a classic recording of Mark Drower singing during a 1982 Now session for his vocal improvistaion template.
Maxx uses distortion on his bass from after the breakdown section to the end.
Sven, Maxx and Fedax overdubbed their percussion parts, which Sven arranged.
lyrics
THE SIDEWALK SONG
Well I don’t care what you’re wearing
No, I really don’t give a damn
Just tell me where you’ve been, boy
Cos I don’t know where I am
And the sun don’t shine for you, it shines for me
“G!!!”
Well I don’t care what you’re wearing
No, I really don’t give a damn
Just tell me where you’ve been, boy
Cos I don’t know who I am
And the sun don’t shine for you, it shines for me
Well I don’t care what you’re wearing
No, I really don’t give a damn
Just tell me where you came from
Cos I’m lost in strawberry jam
And the sun don’t shine for you, it shines for me
(Improvised)
Walking down the road almost every day
I see the people and they’re coming my way
I see their eyes and they’re looking at me
Do you see them
Do you see me
I love you too
Do you love me
I know you
Do you know me
I say whooo!
I see them walking almost every day
See them walking and they’re coming my way
I see their eyes and they’re looking at me
You can’t kid me that you are free, no
You can’t kid me that you’re free
And the sun don’t shine for you it shines for me
Well I don’t care what you’re wearing
No, I really don’t give a damn
Just tell me where you’ve been, boy
Cos I don’t know who I am
And the sun don’t shine for you, it shines for me
And the sun don’t shine for you, it shines for me
And the sun don’t shine for you, it shines for me
Lyrics by Mark Drower / Simon Miller.
Copyright ℗ 1982 MGD Music / Pok Songs / Explicit Music.
credits
from Anthology,
track released February 3, 2024
Music and lyrics by Mark Drower / Simon Miller.
This arrangement by Pok, Fedax Si-Hulmin, Maxx Damage and Sven Stiglund.
Pok’s guitars and voices recorded at Wud Records Studio One, Exeter, 2017.
Everything else recorded at Wud Records Studio One, Central Europe, 2023-4.
Engineered, mixed, produced and mastered at Wud Records Studio One, Central Europe, 2024.
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