Tag: Bad Trick

You can’t fix a broken heart with a bobby pin
And everybody turns a bad trick now and then

CB and I get into some interesting musical conversations…he sent me a track from Ray Wylie Hubbard. I knew I remembered him somewhere and of course, when I searched I found what I remembered. It was this song called Bad Trick. The song he sent me was Snake Farm…and I have it in here also.

It was made I’m sure during the lockdown. It features Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Chris Robinson and was produced by Don Was.

Let’s look at Ray Wylie Hubbard. In the early seventies, Hubbard joined Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson as part of the progressive country vanguard on the Texas music scene…known as the Outlaws. These weren’t your crew-cut guys from Nashville with a sweet sound. They were earthy and down-to-earth music for the common people to be honest. Rough about the edges and a little too close to rock for some of the established country fans.

He started to get known when Jerry Jeff Walker cover his song “Up against the Wall, Redneck Mother.” in 1973. He has released 19 albums since 1975. Lately, he wrote a song that Eric Church covered called Desperate Man.

Bad Trick was released on the album Co-Starring. The artists that wanted to play with him were incredible. They included Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, Ronnie Dunn, Don Was, Larkin Poe, Pam Tillis, and The Cadillac Three. You are well respected when these players are backing you.

I want to cover one more song on this post. The song is called Snake Farm and it’s on the album of the same name…Snake Farm was released in 2006. It sounds so nasty with the licks from the guitar he plays.

Ray Wylie Hubbard: I had burned a lot of bridges and didn’t have a career. But I wanted to be a real songwriter. Someone gave me Letters to a Young Poet, and there was this line about our fears being like dragons guarding our most precious treasures. I decided to overcome my fear of embarrassment and take guitar lessons at age 41 to learn how to fingerpick, and that opened all sorts of doors.

On Snake Farm Hubbard said: “There’s an old snake farm in New Braunfels, Texas between Austin and San Antonio. It’s been there about 40 years. And there’s a rumor that it was something more than a snake farm but I don’t know about that. Doesn’t make any difference. I’ve driven by it probably 10,000 times. So one day I’m driving by and all of a sudden I see the snake farm… I see the snake farm there and I’m driving along and all of a sudden I go, ‘Ooh, just sounds nasty.’ I said, ‘Well, it is. It’s not a church or a hospital, it’s a reptile house.’

I’m like, ‘God, snake farm, just sounds nasty. Snake farm, well it pretty much is. Snake farm, it’s a reptile house. Snake farm, eww.’ I kept singing that in my head for some strange reason, and then I said, ‘Well, what am I gonna do with this?’Well, I’ll make it a love song. I’ll make it about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he’s in love with a woman that works at the snake farm.”

Snake Farm

Bad Trick

Don’t get any on you if you go to Nashville
Don’t operate machinery if you on Benadryl
Got to have some faith when you in the lion’s den
And everybody turns a bad trick now and then

Club soda don’t always remove ketchup stains
Ain’t nothing you can take gonna cure a migraine
Broken dreams is a premise in “of mice and men”
And everybody turns a bad trick now and then

You got to have some scars if you wanna be a poet
To get weeds out of a garden, you got to hoe it
Possession with intent will get you 5 to 10
And everybody turns a bad trick now and then

Most gamblers know they’ll never break even
There’s 5 stages to go through when you’re grieving
The sword is always bloodier than the pen
And everybody turns a bad trick now and then

Dancing is promiscuous after midnight
It’s better to be content than have to always be right
You can’t fix a broken heart with a bobby pin
And everybody turns a bad trick now and then