Growing up, it seemed like every neighborhood had its own corner store, basically a place you could buy milk, other staple groceries, pop, magazines, candy, even lunchmeat if they had a deli counter (and they usually had a deli counter). Pretty similar to today's convenience stores, these were a tad different. Usually run by a mom and pop operation, the corner store wasn't in a strip mall or a commercial district; it was usually on the corner of a residential area, usually on the main street that ran through that residential area, thus the name, corner store. There was a certain charm in being able to pop down to the corner store if you needed something. They generally went under because they couldn't compete pricewise with the volume wholesale buying of the larger supermarkets, but they also disappeared from the landscape because the owners got older and retired and died and the next generation wanted to do something else with their lives. There were a bunch of corner stores when I was a kid in New Castle, Pennsylvania USA. Today, I think one of them, Tic Toc on Highland Avenue, is still around, and Tic Toc probably survived because it appears to be part of a chain of stores. My personal corner store, The Sheridan Market as we called it or The New Sheridan Market as it was officially named, wasn't actually on the corner. It was one or two houses in from the corner for some reason, but it otherwise had all the hallmarks of the corner store. It looked like a family ran it. I usually bought comic books there until they went out of business sometime in the 1980s. Today, there's a yard where the store used to be and driving past it one day I wondered if the neighbors even knew there was a store there once. Thus, this song was born.
Musically, it has the usual guitar, vocals, keyboard bass, and drums. I played a tin whistle for the weird instrument (you can hear it in the instrumental break or third input as I like to call it, based on The GoGoBots song). The trebly bit of the percussion is an old broken musicstand that folds together with a nice clank. I liked the riff of the chorus and wanted to feature it on its own at the end, but the song sounded better with the chorus going all the way to the end, so that will have to wait for a remix someday if ever. I also didn't have a low enough B note on the keyboard, so I had to do the third input bassline acappella and it sounds like I channeled Allen Ginsberg collaborating with The Clash for that. It sounds pretty cool, so I might do that again. I also like the echoey bit at the end of the song.
Lyrics are below:
I'm going down to the Sheridan Market.
It's not on the corner, but it's a corner store.
I'm going to buy an issue of All-Star Squadron
and maybe some Swedish Fish.
I'm going to
the corner store
Today, there's just a yard where the market used to be.
The people living next door probably don't even know there was a store there.
Now I can't just walk down to the corner store
because the corner store ain't there any more.
No more corner
store
Now if I need something I have to drive to the Walmart,
and if I don't like that Walmart, then I can drive farther to another Walmart.
They say it's the greatest time ever to be alive,
but I kind of liked walking to the corner store.
I miss my
corner store
More tracks from the Gang Of Foreigner album will appear in future months here, but next week, we'll get back to the songs from the What's Your Flow Setting, Baby? album. Thanks to The Tinnitist for featuring "Hey, Honey" on a playlist! It also looks like he featured "The Calling"--I didn't even know about that one!
For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7"!
And, speaking of Yeast?, here's some bonus Yeast? for you!:
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