Music

Hat in Hand   Run Time: 3:47

Written by Bill Mallonee for CyBrenJoJosh (BMI) ©2000

pen the lament and shadow your eyes
there's a vapor trail stretching across a kansas sky
dirt lot kids making dirt lot plans
shuffle forward your hat in hand

could be the hangman could be the noose
could be the engine could be the caboose
it pays to know on which side you stand
shuffle forward your hat in hand

yeah gold in this house there's gold in my band
there's gold in your blouse honey gold in my hand
it's a rhythm and mystery you don't quite understand
shuffle forward your hat in hand

run fast after everything
and that's just what you'll miss
live your life opened armed
or with a clenched fist

dirt lot kids doing dirt lot deeds
way too much living in the minor key
burn all these sins in a Love so grand
shuffle forward your hat in hand

Did You Know?

Bill has named "Hat in Hand" one of his top five VoL songs ever ("I'd have it carved on my gravestone if I could afford one big enough"). The tune was created in half a day. Bill has this to say about it: "I get this image of some poor blue collar type, in dusty jeans being summoned in... only to be laid off his job at the end of a hard day's labor... hat in hand... it's social genuflecting...a plea for mercy when you don't think you're likely to find it..." In concert, Bill has been known to replace the line "live your life opened armed or with a clenched fist" with "live your life opened armed or with a french kiss." It was recorded with Tom Lewis at his studio in Athens in two days in September 2000, along with "Your Bright Future." Bill says this is a song about "fessin' up" and that it "still leaves a nice lump in the throat." Around the ages of two and three, Bill lived in Kansas for a couple years, hence the Kansas reference.

Bill goes on to say, "Great bass line from Jake and Kevin's drumming was insanely GREAT. A mid-tempo rock song full of bittersweet passion... I still see the vapor trails, too... Kevin propelled the thing with great drumming: It's behind the beat, decisively "sloppy," and (in my opinion) right in league with Max Weinberg of E-Street band fame... i was running acoustics both dry and washed out... a sort of signature sound for me that culminated in Perfumed Letter... the separate feedback track was me in a small isolation booth... my ears rang for a day... the idea was to get the feedback to mimic the chord changes. Hat in Hand was one of many anthems i wrote in VOL. It was an effort to make sense of the strange world we were living in from 1997-2001, and it made me a "spokesperson" for all the sadness and disappointment and frustration we were having with gate keepers in the industry..."

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