Backstage I'm Lonely

On Songs About A Life Of Making Music, Smoke & Mirrors & Being On The Road Again

There’s a specialist genre of music that I’m always a sucker for.

Songs about making music for a living. Or a non-living. About being on the road, on the stage, loving it, lonely, heartsick.

As a lucky someone that’s just about to hit the road opening for

Kevin Morby

on his Australia/NZ tour, it seems like a good time to indulge myself, and you, by wallowing in songs about being lost in music.

Where do I begin?

I often find all roads lead back to Dolly Parton. Oh, she has a few of these. Sometimes the girl in the song seems like the same one at different times, or different ages or stages, but there’s a similar conviction, heart, loneliness and knowingness in them all that reels me in.

Exhibit One: False Eyelashes:

A pair of false eyelashes, and a tube of cheap lipstick

A pair of worn out high heel shoes

And a dress, doesn’t fit

These are all the possessions, I have to my name

And a record played in my hometown is my only claim to fame

I typed these lyrics from memory cos this is a song I’ve sung quite a few times, and lyrics that hit hard because I can relate to them. As we all know, often being an entertainer is all about smoke and mirrors. Dressing up, getting shiny and bringing it, no matter what may be going on behind the scenes. The fortunes of a performer are tremulous and rarely last long. We make hay when the sun shines and try to keep our chins up the rest of the time and hope nobody notices the holes in our stockings and that we’re wearing the same outfit every show and the wheel on our gig bag is broken. You know, showbiz. I fucking love it.

But wait there’s more. Have you ever heard Sweet Music Man? This is a song written by Kenny Rogers, and sung beautifully by him too, but Dolly’s version to me is the definitive. I think everyone always imagines Kenny Rogers when Dolly sings it. She performed it at Kenny Rogers’ memorial and I bet there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Kenny wrote it inspired by Waylon Jennings, after a conversation with Waylon’s wife Jessi Colter where she told him "No matter what he does, he's still my sweet music man."

You're a hell of a singer and a powerful man
But you surround yourself
With people who demand so little of you.
You touched my soul with your beautiful song,
You even had me singing along right with you,
You said ‘I need you’
Then you changed the words and added harmony
And you sang the song you had written for me
To someone new…

Dolly reverses the roles in But You Know I Love You, one of her most poignant tunes, written by Mike Settle, and already a hit for Kenny Rogers, but Dolly really has a knack for finding songs that are perfect for her and relatable for her listeners without having to write them all herself. This one really makes enduring separations to bring home the bacon hurt so good, and is a story I know all too well. I’m sure this one resonates for so many people, working so many different jobs that require lengthy times apart.

But you know we can't live on dreams alone
Got to pay the rent, so I must leave you all alone
'Cause you know I made my choice many years ago
And now this traveling life, well, it's the only life I know

This is just off the top of my head, Dolly has plenty more songs about life as an artist but I need to pay some respects and share the love around. There are so many good songs about this stuff.

Welcome to the Memory Motel. I was literally obsessed with this Rolling Stones song as a teenager, I don’t know why. It used to fill me with unholy amounts of emotion. That I now drive a ute/pick up truck (even though its painted cream not green & blue) makes me feel like I grew into a version of the woman I wanted to be. I just always wanted to be travelling around singing my songs in a weird variety of bars/cities. What can I say, I know it sounds like hell to most people but it sure sounds like heaven to me.

She drove a pick-up truck
Painted green and blue
The tires were wearing thin
She turned a mile or two
When I asked her where she headed for
"Back up to Boston I'm singing in a bar"
I got to fly today on down to Baton Rouge
My nerves are shot already
The road ain't all that smooth

This has got to bring us to Motel Blues, a sad and wistful tale about a true road dog trying to pretend everything’s alright when obviously nothing is. Songs abut being lonely in a hotel room are a dime a dozen but this 1997Alex Chilton/Big Star demo version hits harder than most, a slice of musical cinema verite at its rawest, written by the great Loudon Wainwright in 1971 … this is the lyric that just drives the nail in to show how desperate and fucked up our protagonist has become: “there's a Bible in the drawer don't be afraid”

In this town television shuts off at two
What can a lonely rock & roller do
Oh the bed's so big and the sheets are clean
and your girlfriend said that you were 19
The Styrofoam ice bucket is full of ice
Come up to my motel room treat me nice

A perfect sister song to this is Tex Don & Charlie’s I Must Be Getting Soft, where the narrator of the song is way beyond any interest in the temptations of the road and the big empty beds and just adrift, ‘kicking’ in the TV’ and longing for his true love…'Now I feel that it's time that I called you, I'll tell the boys to turn the radio off, I can't stop thinking about you, Hell, I must be getting soft’.

In Caroline Spence’s Hotel Amarillo our exhausted troubadour narrator is perennially just passing’ through: ‘I’ve been playing shows out west with no guarantee, that anybody’s ever gonna give a damn about me, I’ve made enough last night to fill that tank up one more time and pull on into Hotel Amarillo with a bottle of wine…’

The specificity of songs about life as a musician would seem unrelatable to those in different industries, but they still seem to hook listeners far and wide.

I could never quite comprehend how Shawn Mendes 2020 hit ‘Lost in Japan’ was in anyway relatable to its mainly young listeners with its throwaway lyrics about being such a rich pop star you could fly to Japan for a sexy hookup with presumably another young popstar after scrolling Instagram and seeing all the romantic rainbows the girl of your dreams was posting… like wtf?

All it'd take is one flight
We'd be in the same time zone
Looking through your timeline
Seeing all the rainbows, I
I got an idea
And I know that it sounds crazy
I just wanna see ya
Oh, I gotta ask
Do you got plans tonight?
I'm a couple hundred miles from Japan, and I
I was thinking I could fly to your hotel tonight
'Cause I-I-I can't get you off my mind
Can't get you off my mind

Alice Cooper’s Be My Lover always gives me a thrill. I love it to death. You just know it’s about a band sauntering in to a club and scoping the place for potential easy action. I guess even though its kinda creepy it makes more sense to me than Shawn Mendes’ jetsetting romantic antics cos its world I have seen plenty of and it feels real.

I told her that I came from Detroit City, And I played guitar in a long-haired rock 'n' roll band She asked me why the singer's name was Alice, I said listen, baby, you really wouldn't understand

Hayes Carl’s brilliant Hard Out Here lays out the realities of touring far more honestly and hilariously. He says he wrote it in response to his friends telling him ‘Hayes, shut up’ when he complained about the hardships of the road, even though he knew he had the greatest job on earth.

Ah, I guess there must be something I'm missin'
My mama told me I should have gone into easy listenin'
Joined up with a band 'cause I thought it was cool
Lord, I probably should have just gone back to school

Miranda Lambert’s exquisite Holding On To You was written fast and came out perfect, cos it just cuts straight to the heart - its a simple song about steadfast love that gets a deeper dimension when you realise its from the perspective of a touring artist, away from home. Cowriter Jessi Alexander (along with Miranda and Ashley Monroe) told Rolling Stone “We played it over and over. We were, like, addicted. We wanted to eat the song over and over and over. It was so delicious.”

Baby, we just rolled in
It's cold here in Michigan
Got a sold-out show tonight
Pretty soon we'll hit the stage
I'll feel the lights hit my face
We'll see some magic in the room
Ain't no moment like when I'm holding on to you

Did anyone ever understand the glory and the sacrifices you make to be in a band more than Australia’s true poet laureate Bon Scott? It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll) is anthem, warning, call to arms, documentary and Bon’s swan song and artist statement. When they were starting out, the song grew in popularity every time they played it live - and it has only grown more since they stopped playing it. It’s the only song from their catalogue AC/DC won’t play anymore, Bon was the last one to sing it a month before his death in 1979. Angus told Rolling Stone the song “really summed us up as a band. It was the audience that really allowed us to even get near a studio.” The hastily thrown together music video is utterly iconic, filmed on the back of a flatbed truck down Swanston Street, Melbourne, in two takes for $380, with Bon (who was Scottish) miming playing bagpipes on a whim along with the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band. It captures the the pure essence of rock’n’roll and seems as fresh today as it was then.

Hotel, motel
Make you wanna cry
Ladies do the hard sell
Know the reason why
Gettin' old
Gettin' grey
Gettin' ripped off
Underpaid
Gettin' sold
Second hand
That's how it goes
Playin' in a band

A few years later (1980) Willie Nelson would write On The Road Again on the back of a sick bag while on a flight in ten minutes, after the producers of the movie Honeysuckle Rose that he was starring in, about a travelling music family band, asked if he could write a song about being on tour. "I like to show off occasionally," Nelson told Rolling Stone.

In 2022 Nelson told a cheering crowd in San Diego “I have a new album, my 98th album, and it came out on my 89th birthday”. He has released another two since then, and he doesn’t count all the collaborative albums he’s made - that would bring the tally to around 165. The San Diego Examiner noted ‘his passion for performing remains as palpable as the passing of time. And when he hit his stride with a delightfully spirited “On the Road Again,” about 30 minutes into his 67-minute performance, time slipped away in an instant’. On this song he wrote in response to the constant internet rumours of his health failing, the lyrics sum up his dedication to a life on the road “I woke up still not dead again today. The news said I was gone to my dismay. Don’t bury me, I’ve got a show to play. I run up and down the road, making music as I go, they say my pace would kill a normal man…”

Leon Russell claims his classic A Song For You was written in ten minutes and he knew immediately it would be a standard. He was envisaging it being sung by crooners like Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee as he wrote it, knowing it would resonate with any entertainer. He was right - A Song For You has been covered by supreme singers Donny Hathaway, Ray Charles and Whitney Houston, among so many others, eager to showcase their vocals chops and move a crowd.

I've been so many places in my life and time
I've sung a lot of songs
I've made some bad rhymes
I've acted out my life in stages
With ten thousand people watching - but we're alone now
And I'm singing my song to you

I’ve tried my own hand at writing self referential rock’n’roll songs - my very first Substack essay ‘What’s a Sweetheart Like You Doin’ In A Dump Like This’ was about trying to write my own anthem. The song is called Rock’n’Roll Tears and these are the lyrics that set out where it was at:

Like my daddy before me I earned my stripes

Staying up nights, in late night bars

Standing around, stumbling on, singing my song

And loading up cars

I ain’t getting nowhere, I’m just sittin’ here cryin’ rock’n’roll tears

Leonard Cohen’s gorgeous confessional Tower of Song about ‘paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song’ paints a portrait of man caught on the hamster wheel of song life, looking for advice from the master, Hank Williams.

Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song

I said to Hank Williams, how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
Oh, a hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song

Gene Pitney could have told Leonard how lonely it gets. In the wounded tragedy of Backstage I’m Lonely (despite the fact that ‘every night there’s a different girl’) he tells us ‘A thousand hands applaud tonight, I sing my songs my star shines bright, I stop and smile I take my bow, I leave the stage and then somehow, Backstage I'm lonely, backstage I cry’ …. I hope by the time Gene Pitney suffered a heart attack and died while on tour he had found a better support system and a little more joy in life.

Joe Cocker’s epic Performance comes on like an entertainer’s romantic dream - Joe’s waiting backstage to take his artist partner home after her big show, rub her sore feet and massage her shoulders, hopefully fix her a nice big bowl of midnight spaghetti too.

‘there’s a sad almost grin across your face, cos you know you’ve done your best, now honey leave the rest to me, and I’ll take care of you’

Well I’m late with my Loose Connections cos I’m writing this on a fourteen hour flight zig zagging across the sky and through timezones to make it home in time to jump on another plane to begin this tour. But I can’t wait, this is what it’s all about, and now my soundtrack is ready. Bring it on.

Send me the songs I missed, I’ll be listening. And seeing places that I’ve never been. Living the life I love making music with my friends. Maybe see you out there somewhere!