Blow It Up

[billroper]

I have been suffering from what I will describe as a mild case of musical constipation. This is a condition in which various ideas and lines drift through your consciousness, but none of them actually manage to escape and become songs. I hate this.

Today, however, is my birthday (about which more later) and my subconscious decided to solve my problem as I drifted out of sleep around 6 AM this morning, apparently as a birthday gift from it to me. I started scrawling lines into my phone, putting it down, then picking it up and scrawling more lines. Before I went back to sleep, I had pretty much the whole song, save for one missing line, a couple of places that clearly needed some editing, and the missing bridge which -- while theoretically optional -- felt like it needed to be there to connect the second and third verses so that none of the listeners fell into the bottomless chasm.

I am a big fan of Jim Croce. He wrote incredibly beautiful love songs. He also wrote some of the most amazing piss off and die songs which *also* managed to be beautiful.

All this song owes to Croce is the sentiment. The bits and pieces of music that were flowing through my head as I was constructing this while not sleeping were clearly much more inspired by classic rock. I realized that when I got ready to put a tune to this beastie and lock it down, I was going to need to channel my inner McCartney. Or maybe Steve Martin. (There were a lot of very strange things going through my head this morning.) And there was still the matter of the bridge which was going to need its very own tune, different from everything that surrounded it.

So, liner notes:

Key of E, everyone, with no chord odder than B7 anywhere to be found. There is a thumping bass somewhere in the accompaniment and probably some aggressive drums. There is also a big old break after the bridge which I hope someday to hear my favorite fiddler, Amy, fill in. :)

This is not a political song, despite some of the references that will seem very obvious. It is a relationship song.

Happily, it is not any of *my* relationships...


Words and Music: Bill Roper
Copyright 2025

Blow It Up

You strut across the tarmac like some new age millionaire
To inspect the line of rocket ships that’s waiting for you there.
Blow it up.
We are done with the construction.
Blow it up.
Gonna test it to destruction.
You’re gonna take each one of them
And see what you can find.
You’ll find a flaw in any gem.
You’re sure that I won’t mind.
Blow it up.

(Chorus)
You take your tea with honey
Then you’re gonna break the cup.
It’s not about the money.
You just have to blow it up,
So blow it up.


Now you are the master of a field full of debris.
There’s carnage and destruction just as far as you can see.
Blow it up.
Cause you build it to destroy it.
Blow it up.
Got one tool and you employ it.
You’re sure that what you’re doing
Leads you to some Martian plain.
Whatever you are brewing,
I won’t stand for this again.
Blow it up.

(Bridge)
You’ve always got to take control.
You’ve got to cast me in a role
That I was never meant to play
Leaving me one line to say:
Blow it up.

I’m not here to be tested when we’re here or we’re apart.
I’m not going to be bested, I’m a human with a heart.
Blow it up.
What we’ve got is overrated.
Blow it up.
I don’t have to tolerate it.
You think you are developing
Some new and perfect love,
But soon you’ll be enveloped in
The fire from above.
Blow it up.

(Chorus twice)
Blow it up.
Blow it up.
Blow it up.