Alan, I wrote bad poetry in high school (I did obituaries for all my friends, and of course a lot of stuff for my girlfriend). I learned guitar to impress the girlfriend (the guitar and I ended up being together a lot longer than the girlfriend and I), and it was a short step from writing bad poetry to writing her a bad folksong. (Yes, I still remember it, word for word and note for note. And no, no one's ever going to hear it again.)

Just kinda fell into the writing, I guess--parodies first, then things that had "independent" melodies. What convinced me I could do it was a parody of a parody I'd heard, of "The Wreck of the Old 97," probably one of the most-parodied bluegrass songs ever (because it's really not a very good song). The Kingston Trio had done the famous one, of course, about the guy who gets stuck on the Boston subway at election time. But my baby sister had a boyfriend who was from Japan, who had written his own parody of *that*, about the Tokyo subway system, and it wasn't half-bad, either. And I said, "Hey, if he can do it, I can do it, too." Portland, Oregon, where I was living at the time, didn't have a subway, but they had a bus district--that had just implemented a rate increase in very stupid fashion.

After the band happened (another of those things I just fell into), "The Tri-Met Bus Song" became one of The Dodson Drifters' hits. And I guess you could say it was all downhill from there.

Interesting stories, everybody.

Joe
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