Zero Practical Skills

I wrote this song in September, 1982. The theme is the way self-sufficiency skills may have atrophied for most people. I guess I have an average amount of practical skills, so the song is not entirely autobiographical, although I do sometimes present it that way when I play on stage. I'll give you the first verse so that you can get an idea of what the song is up to:

He don't know how to grow his food
Build a house or make his clothes
He can't fix a leaking roof
Repair his car or mend his shoes
But he can take them to a cobbler
Buy a ready-made home
He can call a mechanic or a builder
Satisfy his needs by phone

I think that the verse (and the others are pretty much in the same vein) stands up well to the test of time. However, the chorus is fast dating the song:

He can use the yellow pages
Telephone for service with a smile
Pay for expertise with his wages
He's a modern man with zero practical skills

Of course, in England, we do still have the yellow pages phone directory. But the chorus doesn't have quite the same punch in this era of internet search facilities. And unfortunately 'Google' doesn't scan well to 'yellow pages' so I can't see a seemless update emerging here.

Musically I find the song reasonably challenging to play on the guitar. The home key is in E but it wanders off all over the place from time to time. It's one of those pieces that emerge from a period of doodling around, without realising it; suddenly the bare bones of the verse or chorus structure is there. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I have married the music to the first verse and chorus since the task of writing lyrics for the remaining verses is nearly always fun. I know that the song will be finished at that point, eventually. However, there are no bets on completion while the music remains incomplete; I couldn't count the number of half-finished songs I have abandoned because I couldn't make the music come right in the early stages.

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