About the song "12-8"

John Lennon

Fred: In early Dec ‘22, my wife got herself a pretty sweet ukulele from a local music store near where we live, an impulse purchase she seemed quite pleased with. It was a very high-end “George Harrison“ model made by the Fender guitar company. A quality instrument, to be sure.

She later told me the main reason she wanted it was because “it was blue and it was pretty.” Given that the first (and only) instrument I ever took lessons for was the ukulele when I was around 5 years old (my mother‘s logic was, “He likes to play guitar, and it looks like a small guitar, anything to get him off the damn drums!“), I kind of already knew what to do, and could easily figure out the rest in between my wife struggling to learn chords.

I’m not a trained musician in any sense of the term. I don’t know the proper names or formations of any of the chords I play. No music theory, or anything even remotely related to that. As a musician (and with life), I’ve relied mostly on gut instinct. For the most part, it has worked out pretty much, making up my life as I go along, just like anybody. If nothing else, it’s been a hell of a ride.

Anyway, I picked up the ukulele while my wife was in the other room and had the formation of a song pretty quickly, both to her admiration and irritation.

“I just bought the thing and you already came up with that? Whatever. I’ve mastered ‘Hot Cross Buns’!”

Ok, Honey.

While picking out a melody that just seemed to come to me, I started singing about when I was a young boy feeling like a misfit, as most people do at one time or another.

Then I noticed the date on my phone… “12–8.” That was a pretty important date in my life, so I just went with where the inspiration took me and finished the song right then and there.

In actuality, it really just wrote itself. The song seemed to be more about some of the people involved and affected, both directly and peripherally, as opposed to a simple retelling of history.

When I played it for John, he was really impressed. That’s how our songwriting relationship works with each other; we let the other know when we think they’ve come up with something special. John has really strong musical instincts, and he’s a good arbiter of whether something is qualitative or not.

John and Fred

When I played the song for others, I got a similar response. At that point, I figured I might really have something on my hands.

Around September of this year, John let us know he was going to be doing a Red Rockers reunion (which went well from all accounts) in order to promote the remix and re-release of their first classic album, “Condition Red.” I figured I would use the down time from the Mouth to take care of a medical procedure I’d been really needing for a while: The complete repair of my right shoulder.

Since we wouldn’t be gigging for a time, I wanted CM to be able to release a single during that down period so people wouldn’t forget us. Given that it would fall during the month of December, I thought this song would be the perfect fit. Who knew that, right before we put this out, the Beatles themselves would release a new single to great acclaim and success all over the world? Life is definitely funny sometimes.

JTG adds wonderful piano, as well as keyboard strings to the arrangement. And we had the mighty Brendon Anthony, the king of Texas, put some lovely incidental fiddle on the track as well.

Doing these single releases has been a lot of fun for us over the past couple of years because we get to keep it interesting both for you guys as well as for us. I also find it fun, as well as creatively challenging, to not always give what might be expected from us, hopefully making the musical journey we’re on more interesting and possibly meaningful for all involved.

I hope you all enjoy our new single, “12–8.” I’m pretty proud of it. Let me know what you think, pro or con.

And we will see all of you out on the road next year.