I get stuck in never letting it go
Feels like I’m wasting time
I see the face of my position
Standing still is getting behind
How do I get to the place
Where I don’t need this…
How did I get to this place
I can beat this….
Foot’s in a pocket of hope
And I keep on pushing along
My foot’s in a pocket of hope
I keep on rolling down the road
My foot’s in a pocket of hope
I never know how far it goes but
My foot’s in a pocket of hope
And I’m never gonna give it up cause I know
When I get beat I wonder why
I get beat all by myself
I see the culprit coming from the inside
I ain’t well
I see the hopelessness
I’ve been surviving for so long
It’s time to live
All the things I waited for
Never gonna give it up
I’ve been giving it all along
And I’m comin’ home
Foot’s in a pocket of hope
And I keep on pushing along
My foot’s in a pocket of hope
I keep on rolling down the road
My foot’s in a pocket of hope
I never know how far it goes but
My foot’s in a pocket of hope
And I’m never gonna give it up cause I know
FFeels like your walkin
Just markin time
Feel like you been workin so hard
And you look back
At all of this time
Looks like you haven’t gone up down left right
Forward Back
Everything looks the same
How do I know
How do I know?
Cause I believe
And I can look
And I can see
The change
So I still got my feet on the ground
One night in 96 or 97 I set out to write a Janet Jackson/Paula Abdul song. At the time my friend Brian had the old 8 track analog to cassette set up in his kitchen, and he sat a few feet away in the living room watching tv, while I put the headphones on and got to work. As was often the case in those days the song started with making some beats on the Alesis drum machine. I made up the three different beats, and arranged them into a song structure, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown-chorus out. Next I put down a bass line, and that’s where I developed the chord progression. Next I put down the keys, trying to throw in some syncopated rhythms through out the verses, rockin organ on the hook, and bluesy piano during the breakdown. Finally the wah-wah guitar, cause it had to be funky. I had a complete song, and I don’t know that it sounded like Janet or Paula, but I was pretty happy with the results, and figured I’d save the words for another day.
The one phrase that I kept hearing in my head as I listened to the hook for this song was, “Foot’s in a pocket of hope”. I wrote some lyrics about getting out of being stuck and moving toward success, and just not giving up. I figured I had a bonafide hit on my hands. The one thing I wanted to record better from that first night was the bluesy piano. I tried to bring in a ringer, but I ended up redoing myself, and that’s what ended up on Dr Wippit’s 1st time out. I had a buddy mixing it down, and I noticed he pulled all the keys I had put down in the verses. “Oh that stuff just sounded like a bunch of fart noises.” And he was right. The back up vocals are a mix of me, me with effects, and a female.
For the reboot you hear above, the Anthology of Sorts version, I kept the drums, bass and guitar from that first night. I now had access to a semi-professional keyboardist who gave me a couple of organ sounds to choose from for the verses and choruses, as well as a regular piano and Rhodes piano to choose from for the breakdown. The results are outstanding. I redid the vocals as well, including the backups in falsetto, and I have to say this sounds like the song I was trying to write all those years ago in Brian’s kitchen.
