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Encyclopedia Black and the Case of You

from The Ghost of Alexander by Buggy Jive

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about

Do you remember the first time you heard a favorite song? Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" first entered my consciousness while reading about Prince covering it at the club show where he debuted the songs he'd written for "Purple Rain." It didn't register that the "case" in the title was a metaphoric case of wine -- I thought it was a case like a police investigation. So I expected something musically... sharper? Funkier? Whatever. It blew me away in a very different way. The beat on this song approximates the song I heard in my head when I first saw the title.

lyrics

Like Encyclopedia Black I'm tryna solve this case of you.
It's brand new mystery for a kid detective to investigate.
Like a Hercule purple Poirot prequel
backing into blue.
As the beat inside my head begins to syncopate.

But love is already funky.
So when you go to paint it
It don't need no nothing extra
If you try too hard that ain't it.

I drop the needle for the first surprise
I gotta wait and wait and wait for track 9
Right out the gate she say that she "alive alive alive"
And all she want is to get up and buggy jive.

I could do that.

Brandi says the shampoo line repulses her
It's the line she loves to tell us that she loves to hate
I get it, girl: but I’m about that dulcimer
Cuz hold up! This ain't no Dorothy D.N.A.!

Cuz love is already funky.
So when you go to paint it
It don't need no nothing extra
If you try too hard that ain't it.
If you try you got to fight it
So be cool like Mrs. Parker
If you keep the loud parts quiet
Then the quiet parts hit harder.

The quiet parts hit hard.

She is cellophane.

"This is your obsession."
I go on about her too much.
"Have you learned your lesson?"
I am tender to the touch.
"Have you solved the crime yet?"
Sherlock Homeboy's on the case.
"Have you lost your mind yet?"
I've only lost my faith.
The crime is all mine.
But the quiet parts hit just in time.


Got to get some. Got to get her.
She got a mo betta blue. I just gots mo meta.
She got hers and I gots mine.
And she's in my blood like holy wine.

So just the facts, ma'am. I'm tryna solve this case of you.
Just the facts, ma'am. I'm tryna solve this case of you.
I swear I swear I ain’t tryna do what you do.
I'm just a kid detective tryna solve this case of you.

credits

from The Ghost of Alexander, released December 1, 2022

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Buggy Jive Albany, New York

BUGGY JIVE is a soul rock singer-songwriter quietly uploading music from a basement somewhere in Upstate New York.

Equal parts Zeppelin and D’Angelo and Prince and Joni in sound and sensibility, his lyrics often mine the literature of the past to make sense of the present – from Ellison to Morrison to Eliot to Didion.

“Literary Kravitz,” as some say.
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