This is the first time I've ever been fired from my own music. After doing a few singles, Mindworker was the first album for Paul August (that's me). On the last song of the project, Chiten gave me a cold compliment. 'August, you're song is so beautiful that we're not going to let you sing it.'Was my songwriting so good or my vocals so bad? I wondered. In either event, Chiten brought in David La Flamme, lead singer of It's a Beautiful Day. His million seller, 'White Bird,' sold more copies in Japan where it was a religious symbol. The song he sang on my album, 'One Time,' deserved his artistic interpretation. 'You only have one time being a child, one time !' But it didn't stop there. Chiten had La Flamme sing the title cut, 'Mindworker.
' I was beginning to reconsider my career aspirations. Maybe I should just be a songwriter and accept my fate as, 'the world's oldest undiscovered rock 'n roll star.
' Chiten and La flame clicked with a chemistry that conveyed my nonfiction song about a teacher with a troubled kid in an inner city classroom. I had no complaints.
Let me dispel an ugly rumor about 'Mindworker.
' There are those who claim that they sometimes hear 'mindf----r' sung in the background, as if in some subliminal, inaudible way. It may be the power of suggestion or the projection of minds who want to hear an 'expletive deleted.
' I never had any complaints from parents about this word. Conversely, I have had a few hip insiders claim that they can hear the inaudible four letter word with the 'er' suffix. Yeah, right. Chiten and I also decided I wasn't going to sing 'We Teach the Children.
' Chiten wanted to scratch it from the album because its sentimental gush didn't fit into my satirical and sarcastic body of music. I had, however, received a grant from the National Education Association to put their song on my album and so we did. Melody Price, a San Francisco singer, performed it. Chiten gave it an up tempo arrangement and we added children voices.
That left me with seven tunes to sing, one of which I don't sing anymore. 'On Strike' is too angry and hostile. I don't even like my own tune. At the time I wrote it, I tried to remember the outrage we felt while we were on a teacher strike. So, I went out to a strike line north of Berkeley to interview these guys. At first they wanted to run me off. Then they ended up including me in their strike plans. I published this song hoping it would be an anthem for anyone on strike anywhere. Now I realize that people on strike are simply too angry to sing. And no one wants to be reminded of being on strike, a most unpleasant experience.
'Big Max' is more talking than singing but there really was a secret Tuesday evening club for educational lobbyists in the state of California. 'Grantwriter' sums up my ineffective attempts to get funding at just about anything. What little money I ...
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