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Every songwriter wants to write a Beatles tribute song and here's mine, "Can't Buy Me Help." It's a little cute, a little sad, perhaps. But the cool thing is, it complains about the high cost of psychotherapy while using snatches of Beatles lyrics.
I count 13 partial or full references to Beatle songs. Not bad. 12 Lennon-McCartneys and 1 Harrison. About the same proportion as on any given Beatles album. Not bad. And extra credit for the end coda that uses the riff from "Last Train to Clarksville," for a touch of sheer irrelevance.
lyrics
"Can't Buy Me Help"
[vonHummer]
I make enough to keep my famine fed, gas in the stove, water in the sink, clothes on the bed, just nowhere near enough to pay someone qualified to shrink my head,
Be nice to talk to someone who’s heard it all before, for sixty minutes whenever I feel like I can’t take one minute more,
Can't buy me help 8 days a week, but I need to…tell you can tell by the things I do or don't do. Can't buy me help but a hard days night with you might get me to love love me do. Am I asking too much? Am I burdening you? Can’t buy me help 8 days a week, so I need you...
Keep buying self help books to stem the tide, read ‘em at lunch, and on the bus home ride, whether it’s growing my self esteem, I’m unworthy to decide,
Be nice to couch my words and thoughts in therapy, so when I’m down she can work it out and let it be
Can't buy me help 8 days a week, but I need to…tell you can tell by the things I do or don't do. Can't buy me help but a hard days night with you might get me to love love me do. Am I asking too much? Am I burdening you? Can’t buy me help 8 days a week, so I need you...
Fixing a hole in my head (with a little help from my Freudian friends across the universal health care) is an uncoverable expense…Tell me why they charge so much get me straight? No reply, Now my neuroses gonna have to wait.
I make enough to keep my famine fed, gas in the stove, water in the sink, clothes on the bed, just nowhere near enough to pay someone qualified to shrink my head,
Be nice to talk to someone who’s heard it all before, for sixty minutes whenever I feel like I can’t take one minute more,
Can't buy me help 8 days a week, but I need to…tell you can tell by the things I do or don't do. Can't buy me help but a hard days night with you might get me to love love me do. Am I asking too much? Am I burdening you? Can’t buy me help 8 days a week, so I need you...I need you...You don't realize how much I need you...
Can't buy me help...Can't buy me help...
credits
from
Hotel Oregon,
released April 16, 2005
vonHummer: drums, guitar, vocals
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