Memphis to Norman, and Like Me by The New Hippies
Well, the rain followed us to Memphis this morning, so we didn’t really get a chance to do any extra exploring around the city. Coffee and puzzles to go for the second day, drove by the Civil Rights Museum (we’re relegated to outdoor activities long as we travel with the dog) and crossed the Mississippi River into Arkansas. Arkansas looks a lot like Kansas. It was a long uneventful drive. Then we crossed into Oklahoma. More of the same. Stopped to get gas. Got back on the road. Passed by a place called Lotawatah. Passed by a big lake a little bit after that. Said that’s a “lotawatah”. Low-hanging fruit. Saw a sign that marked the home of Carrie Underwood, American Idol winner 2005. I remember watching Carrie Underwood win American Idol in 2005. Passed a silo that said home of Toby Keith, played a couple Toby Keith songs. I used to listen to a lot of Toby Keith when I was a kid. We’re staying in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is, because I figured there might be a little restaurant we could go to and a coffee shop for the morning, but it’s literally 106 degrees out so maybe we’ll take something back to the hotel room (can’t go inside most places because of the dog). It’s only going to get hotter for the next two days so this might be most of what happens the rest of the way home. We’ll see.
In other news, today is the first of three release Fridays in August for Beautiful Idiots LLC. Today, The New Hippies start off the month with their new single “Like Me”. Streams for Wishing Well have been picking up a lot over the last two weeks, so I’m hoping there will be some carry-over and we can begin to build a solid foundation for the band. We’ll see how it goes. Like Me is another song that was born almost seven years ago with Zane’s original demo. Then in 2019 in the midst of my 100 Days endeavor (more on that later) I put in little overtime and recorded a scratch version of the first verse and the hook. The second verse didn’t come until a few years later, and then I added the tag one day by taking one of my ideas from 100 Days and combining it with what I had added to Zane’s instrumental. I really like this one. It feels like an essential part of The New Hippies character - every rapper has a song about being one of a kind, right? So we needed one too. But really, most all those songs just kind of sound like a cry for love. That’s where the outro comes in. At the end of the day, we just want to be loved. Just like me. Hope you enjoy!
-J.P.