The 101st

The 101st
Franklin Bruno
available on Local Currency: Solo 1992-1998

Intro:
F# B / / | F# / B / | x4

Verse:
g#
Why does the front of my new notebook say
F#
"College ruled" when I know it sucked?
g#
Flat-out fucked in the aqueduct as we
F#
Cross the garden to take a look around.

Interlude:
a# / / / | / / / / | C# / / / | / / / / |
d#add9 / / / | / / / / | C# / / / | Badd9 / / / |

Verse:
Frozen hands couldn't play guitar, so I
Inventoried my penny jar.
Spiral-bound couldn't make a sound, so I
rooted 'round in the mulch and found--

Chorus:
   a#             g#        B
The hundredth song about you said the
a#                g#   B     cdim
Same thing as the very first I
a#/C#       a#       d#           a#
Came across before I opened up my drawer.
  a#/C#             a#
So excuse me while I burst into the 101st.

Intro

Bridge:
          a#                      d#
There's an accordion file and it's wheezing away
D                  A       C#
Sixteen, seventeen hours a day.
         F#                              a#
With your Debordian guile there's nothing left to survey.

Verse:
The broken glass on the backyard path
You could cut your foot where the TV smashed.
Like copper coils from the polygraph
As you weed the wheat out and save the chaff.

Chorus:
The hundredth song about you said the
Same thing as the very first I
Came across before I opened up my drawer.
Unrevised and unrehearsed, just like the 101st.

Intro (end on a#)

***

Is this even a song?

I mean that more metaphysically than physically. The song's got some formal irregularities (the form suggests AABA-with-chorus more than it is one, the rhyme scheme in the verses verges on free-associative), but those seem largely irrelevant. Franklin Bruno's written enough by-the-book songs that it should be safe to assume intent here.

The lyrics help us out a little more, specifically the chorus. We find out the speaker has written 100 love songs about the same person. He launches into the next section by proclaiming he's about to start into #101, i.e., the 101st of the title. So really, this isn't a song, this is a song coming into being. That seems to justify the verses' free associations.

Isn't that weird?

***

I would like to develop a format for presenting tabs I've done with some commentary on what got me excited about the song, i.e., something that's mixes the practical and academic. I'll be playing with the proportions between the two, but please leave any comments for improvement below.