It's time for my official December update, and today's is a little extra significant, because it marks my one-year anniversary here at FurAffinity. WOO-HOO! lol.

This is kind of a strange song, in that I find it both hilarious and almost heartbreaking at the same time. It's called "Glidden's Song", and it was written and recorded by my friend Dave and I at my house on August 4, 1993 (Dave can also be heard on the cover of Led Zeppelin's "Your Time Is Gonna Come" in my gallery). The 'Glidden' of the song was a friend of ours (who I'll call ''Bobby'', though that's not his real name), who despite being 23 years old at that time, was still very much under the collective thumb of his domineering parents. They were not very nice people, and still treated him like a child. My friend Dave and I would often joke about them when "Bobby" wasn't around, and we took to calling them Mama and Papa Glidden. One night we decided to write a song about them, and this was the result.

Dave and I were laughing our asses off as we wrote and recorded this (it took several takes to get one that had no laughter on it). I mean, it's pretty hard to take a line like "Won't you tell me please, what you're thinkin', when you're teachin' kids about Abe Lincoln" seriously lol. But somewhere along the line, the song started to take on a more solemn feel to it. "Bobby" grew up in a household where you were taught that a display of emotion is a display of weakness. This brought about the line "You keep your emotions hidden", which just happened to be a perfect rhyme with "Glidden". Despite starting out as kind of a joke, I really like this song a lot. "Bobby" would have killed Dave and I if he'd ever known we recorded this.

About a year or two ago, "Glidden's Song" took on a more poignant tone with the passing of 'Papa' Glidden. By that time, "Bobby" and I hadn't spoken in close to 10 years. I didn't find out about it in time to attend the wake or funeral, but I did send him a card with my condolences. I never heard back from him. According to the obituary in the newspaper, "Bobby" has a family of his own now. I hope he's not teaching his own children to bottle up their feelings the way he was taught to... but I'll bet he probably is.


"Glidden's Song" (2:56)
Written and recorded August 4, 1993
me - vocals, keyboards
Dave P. - guitar, backing vocals


Hey, Papa Glidden
You keep your emotions hidden
In your Bronco, with your baseball cap
And your blue jeans... yes, those blue jeans
I know you don't like me, but that's just too bad
When I hang out with your son, it makes you mad
You tell him that he's gotta be in by 1
Your whole life is spent tryin' to spoil his fun

Papa Glidden
When are you gonna see?
Papa Glidden
You've got to set him free

Hey, Mama Glidden
You keep your emotions hidden
In your classroom, with your blackboard
And erasers, and your ABC's
Won't you tell me please, what you're thinkin'
When you're teachin' kids about Abe Lincoln?
Don't you know you've got two kids of your own?
What will you do when the birds have flown?

Mama Glidden
When are you gonna see?
Mama Glidden
You've got to set him free

Mama Glidden
Papa Glidden
You've got to set him free