One of our favorite bands, Brooklyn, New York-based Bandits On The Run put that extra time on their hands to good use while quarantining in North Carolina with this living room recording of our song “Fool To Love Her.”

In their real life, they have far better songs than this, of course! Check out their website here and their YouTube channel here.

A big thanks to our new social media intern, Cher Maposte, for setting up the Mysterious Beings YouTube channel, viewable at the link below. Please show your support by visiting and hitting the subscribe button.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTfa7oRxhligSvZjv0u_vjg/

Cher comes to us from… well, we’re not really sure. We found her in the back of the van behind one of our big-ass speakers after a gig in Russellville, Arkansas in the drunken company of our notoriously lascivious keyboard player, Gene Poole-Skimmings, who had no recollection of how they had got there. Cher claimed that she was, in her own forthright and uninhibited way, interviewing for a job with the band and, owing to her cordial relationship with the CEO of the local branch of the Retreads motor cycle gang, a man of imposing build and persuasive personality, was confident of being hired, which she was.

Like all mega-bands, we get a lot of fan mail. Much of it is of a frank, even raunchy, sexual nature, but a much smaller pile on our desk contains missives such as this one from a Mr. Elton J of Windsor, Berks.

Dear Mysterious Beings,

Your song, “How Can I Leave Her Behind, When She Won’t Leave Mine,” is the best song I have ever heard by anyone anywhere. For a long time I thought it simply couldn’t be improved, but the other day, as I was dropping the kids off at school I realized there was a slight problem. At almost six minutes, it’s pretty long. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. A song of this calibre I could listen to all day until the sun went down on me and still not get enough. The kids feel the same way and that’s the problem. They won’t get out of the car until it’s finished, and they have been late for school nineteen times as a result. Could you make it a wee bit shorter, please?”

Respectfully,

Elton J.

Well, Elton J. of Windsor, Berks., we Mysterious Beings pride ourselves on being responsive to our wonderful fans, and, since you ask so nicely, here it is. Same song minus the last two verses and chorus in a handy fun size four minutes and forty-one seconds pack. Those extra verses are not really necessary for the story anyway.

If you have absolutely nothing better to do, why not check out our new song, “Gulp – Don’t Sip.”

A while back, the band was performing at a private party in New York. During a break, I stepped out onto the roof for a breath of fresh air. I soon realized that I was not alone. Our bassist, Juan Tusrifor was standing at the edge of the building, leaning over a railing. His back was to me, but I was pretty sure that he had a strange look in his eyes. This was confirmed when, hearing my approach, he looked up with a wistful smile.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like?” he said quietly.
“Juan, you’re not thinking….”
“No, I wouldn’t ever want to hit the ground. It’s the falling through the air.”
I imagined my friend in his Peruvian homeland, peering over the edge of an Ande and thinking the same thoughts he was now sharing with me so far from where he started.
“I guess it’s time we went in, ” he said.
And we did.

Our new single, “Climate Change Denier,” will be released to all online music stores and streaming services on December 13th. If you are on Spotify, click on the button below to have it added to your library as soon as it’s available. As well as guaranteeing yourself a jolly good time listening to this excellent song, you’ll be supporting the band because the more saves we have, the more Spotify likes us. This can make them add us to more playlists and boost our sales to where we might one day be able to afford an ice cream like the one that polar bear has.

This is the last song in my trilogy about idiots – conspiracy theorists, climate change deniers and sundry other bozos.

It’s amazing how many buffoons there are out there who don’t always have the good sense to agree with me about everything. One of them is our very own keyboard ace, Gene Poole-Skimmings, who felt that this song was a personal attack on him and refused to play on it, which is why there’s no piano. Our fiddler, Beau Strokes also believes every conspiracy theory that comes his way and resolutely opposes social advancement in any form as un-American. He doesn’t believe in universal health care coverage because it isn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible, preferring to rely, when he’s sick, on the clammy hands of his pastor Rob M. Blind Jr. clamped firmly on his head at the Falling Rock Pentecostal Holiness Church. This is the only time he removes his hat for any reason. Besides the fiddle, Beau is a great banjo player, but when I asked him to play, he initially refused. However, once I assured him it absolutely was a personal attack on Gene, he was happy to oblige. He may be a good pianist, but nobody actually likes Gene Poole-Skimmings, not even his mother.

We premiered this song during a live concert in Central Park to coincide with the recent Climate Summit at the UN in New York. It was the last song to be performed that day before the event was canceled due to excessive heat right after Sting fainted backstage. Our Swedish sound engineers Max and Minnie Mumsetting were on hand to make this recording of the performance.

We’re thinking of releasing this as a single, our scholarly contribution to the climate change debate.

A few weeks ago, our pianist Gene Poole-Skimmings suffered an unfortunate accident when the keyboard cover fell on his fingers, causing them to swell up. It is taking a long time for the swelling to go down and we have been unable to continue our world tour. The consequent loss in earnings has compelled me to look for employment. Luckily, with the labor market being so tight at the moment, many employers have relaxed their requirements and I was able to land a job with the climate denial department of the Americans for Prosperity think tank. Actually, having had a few days to get to know my fellow “scientists” at the Foundation, I’m not convinced that accepting me on the basis that I scraped a pass in O Level physics constitutes much of a relaxation of the requirements for employment there. I might be over-qualified. Anyway, manipulating data for nefarious purposes is not hard, a lot less demanding than actual science, and I have a lot of time left over for writing songs. Like this one.

As mentioned in a previous post, I won the chance to record with a six piece band at the fabulous Beaird Music Group in Nashville. That’s great, of course, really great. Not so great is my complete inability to figure out what song to record. That’s where you come in.

The playlist below consists of songs that I think might be good candidates for the Nashville treatment. They are all produced as well as I can with Band In A Box. Take a listen to them and list your top 3 in order. Remember, it’s not necessarily the best song, and it certainly doesn’t have to be the best production. It has to be one of the best songs, of course, or it’s not worth doing, but what really matters is which song would sound great when recorded by a band consisting of bass guitar, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar and drums. You don’t have to listen to all of them all the way through: 30 seconds to a minute might be enough to eliminate the weaker candidates. You might have to adjust the volume between tracks a little, as I have not got around to normalizing the volume between tracks.

Let me know your selection in the comments or, if you came here from the NSAI Charlotte Facebook page, you can post them there, if you prefer.

THANKS!