Jack Batcher
Author & Musician
Steppin' Stone
The story behind the songs...
I’m excited to tell you about my EP Steppin’ Stone. If I told you how long I’ve wanted to record these songs, and still so many others, you’d probably scream at me… Why have you waited so long! Life is too short to not go for what you want! You are right! I have done other recordings of some of these songs, but the recordings hadn’t come out as planned, or the bands didn’t work out, etc. It happens like that sometimes. I kept moving forward, and this time I got them songs down! I recorded these five songs at Good Luck Studio, in Great River, New York. I played the instruments and sang on all the songs. I kicked around the idea of calling this EP Acoustic Chaos, but stuck with Steppin’ Stone, because I dig the positive vibe of the song Steppin’ Stone, and that it’s the idea of taking the the next step to where you want to be. A step closer to obtaining your dream. I have plans for other EP’s to follow, but for now it’s the first step with Steppin’ Stone. My hope is that you dig these songs and want to spread the word about them. I truly believe that all creativity, writing books, making music, painting etc, is something that is received, and writing more about that would make this a very long piece, so I will keep it short, and tell you the stories behind the songs. Now, I’d like to share the stories with you.
Steppin’ Stone - I received the first ideas for this song back in like 2001, told you it had been awhile. I was working Sundays as a bartender, for a short time, at a bar called The Double Deuce, in Bay Shore. The Double Deuce was owned by my friend Lynn De Sena’s family. Her brother John let us play there with our band, Soul 69. In that band were my friends Kevin Stockton, Danny Lofaro, (both on drums), Rich Perez (Bass Guitar), & Johnny Nova (Guitar). Anyway, I was bartending this one Sunday when, Ranger Bruce Johnson (That is how he introduced himself), a Veteran, who had marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. Here I am serving Gin & Tonic to him. It was just me and him in the bar, and he got to talking about the war. Then he told me how he met Lynn’s father. Then he got serious with me, and told me you know, I can tell you’re a smart man, and that you don’t belong doing a job like this, but you grabbed on to it, because you felt you needed to to make some money. But, this place is just a stepping stone for you. Jack, you are going to go on and do great things. I got a good feeling about you. That was awesome of him to say. I was done with bartending after that day. It took awhile, but what he had said finally made it into a song. I received the chord progression while teaching guitar at Gil Brines Music store. After receiving the chord changes for the chorus, the lyrics all came together. The third verse was influenced by watching a PBS special of Dr. Wayne Dyer, called the Power of Intention, He described after a reading a story by Tolstoy, in which the main character hated everything about his life. This character then found himself laying in his deathbed and wondering if all this time, maybe he had been wrong? That lead to Dr. Dyer’s personal revelation, to which he stated to himself… “Wayne, don’t die… with your music still in you.” That is the last line of the third verse, “I won’t die, with my, music still in side of me.” If you read this far, you shouldn’t either! That is some of what went into the song Steppin’ Stone. I’m unbelievably excited to say that now you can hear that song!
Rattle Box – The inspiration behind this song doesn’t have the you’re going to do great things vibe to it, but its how it came together. It was maybe somewhere in 2005, that I got a phone call, I think on a Sunday morning from my good friend, Anthony Rosano, who helped me write and record my single Hello Virginia, that is available on iTunes. On a side note to my side note… You should check out his band, Anthony Rosano and The Conqueroos. So, as I was saying, Anthony called me, and I answered the phone, and he shouts out this crazy bit joking around like he’s a radio announcer on a morning show…
“Hey there good morning, this is Boomer and the Cosmic Nudge, its time to get up and get going, come on now ladies and get those vaginas shakin’!”
We had a good laugh about that. We thought there must be a cool idea for a song in there, but we had to come up with a euphemism for vagina…. Rattle Box. Another line in the chorus of this song is, “My baby, loves gas station music.” Now I have no idea what “Gas Station Music” is, and I don’t believe it is an actual genre. I had seen the line on some girls My Space profile, and thought it was cool. I received the chord progression and lyrics while teaching guitar at Gil Briens Music store. I would get a break when someone didn’t show up, so it offered me time to write. I’m just realizing that it was really cool to have the opportunity to write songs in a music store. Most of the verse lyrics were inspired with looking for a new girlfriend. I didn’t have one at the time.
Just Friends - A friend of mine called me up all bummed out, because the chick he was going out with for a few months, told him that she didn’t want to be with him anymore, but they could be “just friends”. I asked him, how are y’all supposed to go back and redo your relationship as friends after you’ve come this far. That was what inspired the lyric to the chorus “No we can’t go turning back time, no we can’t go back to the beginning. They eventually just broke up.
Back Shack - The music came together for this song first, now here’s putting the date on this song somewhere around 1998. I had brought my guitars over to my grandmother’s (I called her Speedy) apartment. My cousin Bucky was in town, from Florida. We hadn’t seen each other in awhile, and we thought it’d be fun to jam, we never had before, and I believe it was the only time we did. He was in a car accident in March, 2002, and had passed away while in a coma. Now, let me tell you how he influenced this song. First, he had shown me the D7 chord. Not the open chord, but on the A string, fifth fret. I was taking guitar lessons, and we were talking about different chords etc. Then he was telling me some stories about how he was living in this old shack with some friends in Florida, and they’d be turning up the tin and token, while playing guitars and singing songs. Oddly, or not so oddly, I was doing something similar, only in a garage at my friend Rich’s house, we’d knock back a few and jam into the wee hours of the night. We also played in a band. Bucky and I had the same problem though, and that was at some point the cops would come and shut down the jam. That’s the line in the last verse, “We can play till the cops come… and bust it up!”
You’re Messin’ with Me – One night while playing a gig at The Double Duce, over by the bar things were getting heated between two dudes, over a chic. Now, I didn’t get names, but the story goes like this… This guy was drunk and trying to hit on this other dude’s girlfriend. Things escalated quickly. They usually did at The Double Deuce. So, he hit this guy with a beer bottle, and broke it over his head. After that, amongst all the chaos of the fight being broken up he threatened to shoot him and pulled out a gun. He shouted “I’m going to shoot you in the fuckin’ face…” Then the excrement really hit the air conditioning! So, those two characters fighting over a woman, in a bar, has now brought you this song.
I hope you liked this brief insight into how these songs came together. On a side note, the lyrics for these songs can be found in my book, Scattered Pieces – Poems & Songs, which is available on Amazon. I would like to know how you like the songs. You can email me on the contact page by signing up for the newsletter.
Steppin’ Stone is available on Amazon, iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, and more!
Copyright 2016 Jack Batcher. All rights reserved.