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TAPE 2 OF 4 · WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO RECORDS
What Are You Gonna Do
The follow-up. Same answer to every question on it.
- 01What Are You Gonna Do
The Slidell show is not in the band's date book. Kowalczyk says it happened. Tran says it happened twice.
Words, as sung
Alternator went out on us in Slidell Show was at nine and it was seven when it quit Bobby said we are not going to make it I said probably not. And that was it. What are you gonna do That is not a question, that's the answer What are you gonna do Nothing. Same as ever. Got there at ten-forty and they let us play Two songs short, and the room had mostly gone Man behind the bar said tough break, fellas I said we got here. He said — yeah. You did. What are you gonna do That is not a question, that's the answer What are you gonna do Nothing. Same as ever. Bobby says it mad Mike says it flat Jimmy doesn't say it, he just shrugs And I have come around to thinking Jimmy's version is the best of that Everybody wants a word that fixes it Something you can say that makes it turn There is not one. I have looked for about a decade. There is just the four words, and whatever else you learn.
- 02Gerald (Out of the Rain)
Gerald has never been located. The archive has made three attempts. Whitfield has asked the archive to stop.
Words, as sung
March of eighty-nine, a Thursday, out in Gulfport Two people in a room built for a hundred and some One of them was waiting on somebody She left at twenty after. He did not. He came in out of the rain — that is all it was Wasn't there for us. He was there for the roof. Sat down at the second table from the left And he stayed for every song. And that's the truth. Gerald. Out of the rain. Bought a cassette when it was done. Paid exact change. Gerald. Out of the rain. Said the bass was good. Said it just like that. Didn't say the songs. Didn't say the band. Said the bass was good, and then he left And I have carried it around since then. Gerald. Out of the rain. Bought a cassette when it was done. Paid exact change. Gerald. Out of the rain. It is my favorite show. They ask me why. I don't explain it and I won't begin. Two people in a room in Gulfport, Mississippi. And one of them came in.
- 03The Bass Was Good
The critic is Darren Mouton, whose 1993 notice the band did not read until 2019. Whitfield has said that Mouton was more accurate and that Gerald was more use.
Words, as sung
Four words from a stranger in the rain Not a review. Not a thing he thought about. He was being polite on his way to the door And he could not have known what he was handing out. The bass was good That is the whole review Nobody ever said a smaller thing And nobody ever said one truer Critics didn't come. That is not a complaint. One drove down from Pensacola in ninety-three Wrote a sentence about me I did not read for years And I would still take Gerald's four over his twenty-three The bass was good That is the whole review Nobody ever said a smaller thing And nobody ever said one truer There's a kind of praise that costs the giver nothing And is worth more than the kind that costs a lot He was buttoning his coat. He was already leaving. He said the bass was good. And then he was gone.
- 04Four Hours to Play for One
The one is Gerald. The band has never said so on record and has never denied it.
Words, as sung
Left Mobile at eleven in the morning Two hundred miles of pine and roadside church Loaded in at six and we sound checked at seven Four hours in a truck for what it's worth Four hours to play for one That is the arithmetic Four hours there and four hours home And I would do it all again for it Bobby did the math out loud in the parking lot Said this is not a living, Dale. This is a hole. I said I know it. He said then why. I said because he stayed for the whole show. Four hours to play for one That is the arithmetic Four hours there and four hours home And I would do it all again for it Every band I ever knew that quit Quit on a night the numbers did not work Numbers never worked. Not one time. Not ever. Numbers are not what the work is for.
- 05Rained on the Amps in Hattiesburg
The amplifier is a 1968 Fender Twin Reverb belonging to Whitfield's father. It is described by three separate people as having sounded better afterwards. Whitfield has said it sounded louder, which is not the same thing.
Words, as sung
Outdoor stage in Hattiesburg in July Man said don't worry about it, it will not rain It rained. It rained about as hard as I have seen it. And the tarp was doing seventy percent again. Rained on the amps in Hattiesburg Rained on the amps, rained on the crowd Rained on a Twin Reverb my daddy bought in sixty-eight And it still works. It is just louder now. Mike unplugged the whole thing in the weather Which is either brave or stupid, I don't know Bobby stood out there with his guitar in the downpour Playing to a parking lot that had let go Rained on the amps in Hattiesburg Rained on the amps, rained on the crowd Rained on a Twin Reverb my daddy bought in sixty-eight And it still works. It is just louder now. Promoter came around and offered us a hundred Which was more than what the door had been that night I said we didn't finish. He said nobody does. Handed me the money and turned out all the lights.
- 06Cuss It or Grin It
Tran has read this song's third verse and declined to comment on it, which Fontenot has called "the most Mike thing available."
Words, as sung
There are two ways down off of anything And the both of them will get you to the ground You can cuss it all the way down, hollering Or you can grin it on the way down Cuss it or grin it There's no third thing on the list Cuss it or grin it Same ditch, either way you sit Jimmy grins it. Jimmy always grinned it. Bobby cusses it and gets there just the same Mike does neither, which I've never understood And Mike is likely the smartest of us four Cuss it or grin it There's no third thing on the list Cuss it or grin it Same ditch, either way you sit I have tried them both across about a decade Kept a tally in my head of how it went Grinning does not fix a single thing But you get to the bottom in a better temperament.
- 07Road Acceptance
The last song written for the record and the last one the four of them tracked together in a professional studio.
Words, as sung
Two in the morning on 98 going east Everybody sleeping but the one who has the wheel Radio is down to preachers and to static And I have quit pretending that I mind This is road acceptance Not a peace exactly. Close. The knowing that it is this now And it is this for a while more. A young man wants the road to take him somewhere An older man just wants the road There's a stretch out past Chipley where it opens And I have never once wished I was home This is road acceptance Not a peace exactly. Close. The knowing that it is this now And it is this for a while more. They will ask about the money and the crowds And whether it was worth it in the end I have got an answer and it is not a good one: I would get back in the truck. I would go again.