Fun songs and boring songs you’ve had to learn.

Morrisman

Platinum Member
I’m filling in for a 60/40 band next weekend and I’ll have to play a lot of ‘teen angel’ songs from the early 60’s. I’m not inspired - half the songs sound like ‘The Wanderer’ and ‘A fool such as I’. The other half all sound like ‘Dream Lover’ or ‘Save the last dance for me’. Not really my cup of tea, but the gig pays well and the guys in the band are nice people.

The following weekend another band wants me to play ‘Late in the Evening’ ‘Lido Shuffle’ and ‘Reeling in the Years’. Now that’s more like it! I’m having a lot of fun looking up clips and learning the drum parts as close as I can.

All of which made me ponder - what are some songs you’ve had to play that either bore you to tears or really challenge and excite you?
 
I recall when I was in college, whenever we played a Bob Florence chart, it was exciting on the read-down, but then usually Bob Florence tunes go on and on...you get bored by the time it's finished!

I try not to appear bored regardless of what I'm playing - I figure I'm there to have a good time, and to help others have a good time, so I just grin and bear it.
 
Lido Shuffle and Reeling In The Years, two pretty up-tempo shuffles right there. In one of my bands, Hit The Road, Jack is a tune that I take no particular pleasure in playing. In another band, a tune that I really enjoy playing is Teddy Pendergrass's Love TKO (although the original recorded version was by David Oliver) So go figure, neither tune is taxing, but with Love TKO, it's something to do with the cool bass drum patterns and the way they line up with the bass, the little stops and the great vocal. I'm much more happy playing Seventies/Eighties soul anyway. Give me Teddy, Frankie Beverly & Maze or Jean Carne to play and I'm happy.
 
When I got back into drumming a couple of years ago I decided to join a covers band for starters. It was a poor idea to begin with (I´m really only interested in jazz, to be honest), but it got really awkward when it was decided that we play "Nothing Else Matters".

I never could take Metallica seriously, and this song is a terrible drag. That the others could barely pull it off didn´t make it any easier, and the only way for me to cope with the situation was gradually going Elvin throughout the song. Just as I started to enjoy it, the band decided that maybe I wasn´t the right fit for them. No argument from me.
 
I am usually not excited about anything blues, but play a decent amount of blues stuff in one of my bands. But I do that band b/c I like the people I am playing with.

Mostly excited about my original band stuff, but the other band I am in is doing old school proto-rockabilly stuff, as well as swing and jump blues, which I do like.
 
"A Touch of Gray" by the Grateful Dead is a song I could do without playing. It doesn't belong on a dance floor. And disastrously, that's when the girls decide to freshen up, get a drink, have a smoke, chat it up, go somewhere else.... If it was half as long I'd be a little better with it. It just never seems to end aaaggghh!. My bass player feels the same way. We mock the song, and have made these feelings known, to no avail. It's just a bad choice for generating the revenue IMO. Don't repel your target audience FFS lol.

I really like probably 95% of the songs we do, so there's no shortage of good stuff. I mean as wacky as this sounds, we kill Mustang Sally lol. And "Wagon Wheel". So if it's played like it was intended, to me the song doesn't matter, so long as it connects... So long as it connects. I'm happy to say that the good far surpasses the 80/20 rule in my band. Some of my favorites to play..

Ray Charles "What I'd Say"
Stray Cats "Rock This Town" (Love shuffling on the snare rim relentlessly ala the rockabilly style on that one)
Elton John's "Your Song"
Prince's "Kiss"
Paul Simon's "The Boxer"
Dolly Parton's "Jolene"
Santana's "Black Magic Woman"

So many more.
 
Some fun songs that I learned loooooooooooooooong time ago:

1)

2)

3)
 
I'm primarily a classic rock kind of guy, and have always been. My current band plays that, plus a dose of contemporary country stuff. Full disclosure, when I was a kid, I always thought playing country would be easy. To do it right, not so much!

One of the songs I had the most fun working up in practice was Mama's Broken Heart. I fully admit that I'm not playing it "right", but I feel I capturing the flavor and intent, and boy we had fun with it. Two of our band used to play it in their previous band, and we heard them do it in a reunion set at a festival this past fall. We talked about how much we liked their version of it, so the bass player, guitar player and I worked it up on our own, without telling the singer. And sprung it on her at the next gig, without telling her it was coming. HUGE smile on her face once she realized what we were doing, and she jumped right in and killed it! Fun stuff...
 
Well in the country rock thing I'm doing at the moment I could play Firecracker and Like A Hurricane, on repeat all nite but "Wagon Wheel", (well done above) makes me want to stick pins in my eyes.
 
Too easy/boring songs:
Island in the Sun by Weezer.
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

Fun cover songs-
Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears
Today by Smashing Pumpkins
Say It Ain't So by Weezer
Everlong by Foo Fighters ( I can't actually play this one well enough to perform it but we play it in practice sometimes and it's pretty fun)
Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers

And.. Wagon Wheel was mentioned earlier- I actually like playing that one but I can't explain why.
 
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