300 Songs

The Oceanview Club on Kwajalein Atoll which will be the site of Camper Van Beethoven’s 2027 Reunion show. 

In number #60 I’m So Glad She Ain’t Never Coming Back I posed a little riddle about where  I found the titles for three unfinished demos I exhibited in the blog.   These titles were

“Infidel Sorcerers Of The Air”

“Peppermint Mind”

“Classy Dames and Able Gents”

Only a couple of people figured it out.  It was a reference to a website that appeared to be the semi-secret  homepage for the Forsythe Associates.  This audiovisual services company was the “cover” company that operated the secret underground bunker beneath the Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia  designed to house the US government in the event of a nuclear war.

This is not a joke.  This actually happened. This is not some wacko conspiracy theory thing like the Denver International Airport Conspiracy.  

So after reading about the Greenbriar bunker I decided to try and track down information on the Forsythe Asscoiates.   Eventually I came across a webpage that seemed to have no obvious purpose.  The website had 4 screens that were supposed to be live camera feeds but all 4 only showed static.   Each of them had a cryptic title.   That’s the three titles above.   My first thought was “What fantastic band names!”

Think about it?   Especially the first two “Infidel Sorcerers of the Air” and “Peppermint Mind.”  Classy Dames and Able Gents is more like a wedding or corporate gig band.  However it does make a good song title.  So I used it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

So what in God’s holy name are you blathering about in this song?    I’ll tell you what I’m blathering on about.   I’m blathering on about elements of the military-academic-industrial-electronic-espionage-complex that covers much of the Southern California coast from Vandenberg AFB to the Mexican border.   The whole southern half of the state is bristling with sensors, antennae and mysterious military installations.   Most people who visit Southern California don’t really notice this or if they do give it much thought.   But California is pretty much a garrison state.  It’s pretty well chronicled in this book Fortress California.    This song riffs on this theme and throws in references to other important military and electronic warfare installations in the Pacific.   The main character who is some sort of government contractor has just returned from being stationed at the military installation on the the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Instead of speaking literally and directly I had him speak in a style of cryptic prose that I borrowed from the aforementioned Forsythe Associates website.    It’s perfectly logical in a Camper Van Beethoven sort of way.   As some of our readers have already noted it seems to have confused the starched shirts over at American Songwriter.

Buy at your local record store

Or stream here.

Classy Dames and Able Gents

I Augustine, the fishes widow

I knew the crawfish, I lived on shellfish

Under a sail

Lived on atoll

I had a foreclosed motorhome

At Kwajalein tracking station

I’ve got friends not on vacation

They got big ears they got big eyes

Classy Dames and Able Gents

Classy Dames and Able Gents

We’re here to serve our government

Classy Dames and Able Gents

There was a fire under water

Bring me my space suit!

I always wear it

I feel like Elvis

A million bucks

I lived in Baltimore

I work greenbriar

I worked for Foresythe associates

A Kwajalein tracking station

I’ve got friends i can be trusted

i got black bags i got black hands

Classy Dames and Able Gents

Classy Dames and Able Gents

We’re here to serve our government

Classy Dames and Able Gents

Classy Dames and Able Gents

We’re here to serve our government

Classy Dames and Able Gents

 ©2014 Camper Van Beethoven.

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