Listen on Bandcamp!

 

This week, The Electrick Reckoning (note our fancy new spelling!) put our new single “S.O.S.” (destined to be part of our debut album American Catastrophe) out on Bandcamp, ahead of general release on the 18th of September. The idea for the song came to me like a thunderclap on a Sunday morning in 2012 on the stairway to the attic of our old house. The crazy thing about this was that, at that time, I was officially retired from guitar playing, songwriting, etc. I hadn’t written a lyric in ages. Well, I managed to dig out a guitar and a notepad. I wrote out most of the lyrics and recorded a couple of riffs into my phone and that was that.

Over the next few years, S.O.S. joined a number of old songs and ideas banging around in my skulling in helping motivate me to guitar the guitar out for real. At some point, I just knew I wanted to hear these things properly recorded and performed. So, about 10 years after I wrote the song, I started gigging lightly around town and looking for a band, and now, a few years after that…. Here we are.

So, here’s the thing. I know this song is going to piss off a lot of my friends. The title doesn’t mean “help” in Morse code, it’s an acronym. Guess what for? And the song is pretty unsparing in its treatment of its subject. But I wrote the last line “I can see where we’re heading” in 2012. If America is ever going to recover from our national nervous breakdown, we’ve got to be honest with ourselves about how we got here and how the horrors of today are rooted in decisions made a long way back by people who should have known better. People smart enough that I’m sure they did know better. We can no longer risk repeating the mistakes of the past simply because we don’t want to criticize our home team.

The song is a lot funkier than the Old Blue Gang stuff most of you will know – this is the kind of music I was playing and writing for much of my 20s, inspired by all kinds of ‘what if’s.’ What if Jimi Hendrix and George Clinton had joined forces? What would an M-Base rock band sound like? What happens if you mix modern jazz approaches to soloing with James Brown’s approach to groove and Messiaen’s approach to harmony. I hope it is a song to shake both your fist and your ass to.

 

 

Same Old Shit

Words and Music by Kenneth Woods

Two thousand and eight
We had a great debate
About whether to vote
For hope or for hate

You pledged to restore
The American dream
If we gave you our vote
But just what did that mean?

It meant:
The same old shit
The same old shit
You promised us changeAnd this sure isn’t it

The same old shit
This lame old shit
You offered us hope
But what did we get?

The same old shit
The same old shit
You promised us change
And this sure isn’t it

The same old shit
This lame old shit
You offered us hope
But what did we get?

We got the same old shit
The same old shit 

Two thousand and nine
Started just fine
The first Prez in a long time
I was glad to call mine

You inspired the crowd
You were Black we were proud
When you chose Wall Street over Main Street
We said “FOR CYRIN’ OUT LOUD!”

It’s just
The same old shit
The same old shit
You promised us change
And this sure isn’t it

The same old shit
This lame old shit
We were crying for justice
And what did we get?
We got the same old shit 

The same old shit 

 

You sought compromise
But was that really wise?
When McConnell and those motherfuckers
Don’t even value our lives?
You saved Goldman Sachs

You kept up drone attacks
While half the nation’s cops
Were out killing the blacks
The same old shit

The same old shit
You promised us change
And this sure isn’t it
It’s just the same old shit
This lame old shit
We were crying for justice
And what did we get?
We got the same old shit

The same old shit 

Eight years went by
And I’m not going to lie
‘Cause when I look back on it all
I just want to cry

Instead of feeling hopeful
Things are just looking bleaker
You gave us amnesty for torturers
And prison for leakers

The same old shit
The same old shit
You promised us change
And this sure isn’t it

The same old shit
This lame old shit
We were crying for justice
And what did we get?

The same old shit
The same old shit
You promised us change
And this sure isn’t it

The same old shit
This lame old shit
We were crying for justice
And what did we get?
We got the same old shit

Man, there’s cancer that’s spreading
There’s a future I’m dreading
‘Cause now you’ve run out of time
And I can see where heading
Yeah you’ve run out of time
And I can see where we’re heading
I can see where we’re headig
I can see where we’re heading
I can see where we’re heading
I can see where we’re heading

Oh god, I can see where we’re heading.  

© 2012-2026 Kenneth Woods