On Singing Your Friends' Songs
or, the mixed blessing of a tote bag
And we’ll fill up that tote bag with organic groceries
From the co-op we joined when we moved to this house
With its miniature kitchen and cat we adopted
Who I said I didn’t want, and now I can’t live without
- Christian Rutledge, “Fundraising Drive (The Tote Bag Song)”
Christian Rutledge wrote “Fundraising Drive (The Tote Bag Song)” with the self-consciously hip Brooklynite in mind. The lyrics are littered with Brooklyn stereotypes. In the above verse alone: organic groceries, a co-op, a tiny kitchen, a rescued pet, a male narrator whose reluctance to adopt a pet has to do with facing emotions he’s ultimately relieved to face, and, of course, the titular tote bag.
Elsewhere in the song, Christian references a certain radio station that conducts annual fundraising drives, a certain magazine that’s known as much for its totes as its ride-or-die commitment to the umlaut (it would have wanted to write “co-op” as “coöp”), biodynamic wine, and the sheer glut of tote bags amassing like rabbits: “I don’t know how we got all these tote bags/I swear it seems like they’re reproducing.”
For best results, have a listen to the full song:
Check out Christian’s Instagram →
Last month, I played a set consisting exclusively of covers of my friends’ songs. There were eight songs, each by a different artist, all in slightly different styles. “Fundraising Drive” stuck out to me for two key reasons: 1) It sounds eerily like a song John Prine would have written if he’d been raised a Brooklynite, and 2) When I told Christian what I got out of it, it wasn’t what he’d intended.
Christian wrote it as “a lighthearted jab at folks like me and my community,” as he phrased it via text — a send-up of the self-consciously hip, people who are so committed to Brooklyn mores that their lives become a mountain of cliches. You won’t be surprised to hear that Christian is a Brooklynite — and by his own admission, the Brooklynite in question, the one whose closet is overflowing with tote bags and who dutifully donates to NPR every year.
It’s important to note something here: Christian is married, and has been for 2 years. His relationship is “a source of love, support, and strength,” in his words, but it’s also normal, something he’s used to.
I, on the other hand, am neither married nor in a relationship. I’ve had my opportunities and experiments over the years, but something has always called me back to singleness, even when I protest. It’s a subject of great frustration and confusion for me, and the older I get, the more I long for a companion with whom to share the burden of life.
Between listening to it and practicing it, I probably ran through “Fundraising Drive” three dozen times. The more I absorbed it, the clearer it was to me that, Brooklyn identifiers notwithstanding, the song is about a rich life.
The speaker has a home, a pet, a life, a culture, and most saliently of all to me, a partner. The speaker isn’t wandering lost through a cloud of loneliness; he’s enmeshed in a very specific and well-populated milieu. The stuff of his scene encumbers him, but it’s in the same way that the stuff of any scene would. The nature of a scene is to saddle its members with stuff; Santa’s elves probably scoff at all the eggnog and gift wrap.
“Your performance and delivery exposed certain parts of the song in unexpected ways,” Christian told me. “I loved that you made it your own.”
That Christian didn’t put “gratitude for a rich life” in the song on purpose doesn’t mean it’s not there. What it means to me is that it’s easier to focus only on what we don’t have or what’s embarrassing about what we do have. Because it’s his life, Christian takes a critical eye to it. Also because it’s his life, I look to it for all that’s missing in mine.
There are some obvious morals to the story here, so I won’t bother spelling them out. But I will say this: If you’re a musician, cover your friends’ songs. It will give you a chance to see the intention behind what they wrote, it will show you how much care they put into crafting it, and it will teach you at least one newsletter-worthy lesson.
Thanks for the song, Christian.
Where to find me over the next month:
Sunday, 11/9 | The Scratcher Sessions | Scratcher Bar 209 E 5th St, Manhattan | 7:15 PM RSVP
Wednesday, 11/22 | Groove | 125 MacDougal St, Manhattan | 7:00 PM RSVP
Saturday, 11/25 | Private Event | Westport, CT
Wednesday, 11/29 | Jalopy Tavern | 317 Columbia St, Brooklyn | 9:00 PM RSVP
Friday, 12/2 | Songwriter Night | Jalopy Tavern | 317 Columbia St, Brooklyn | 9:00 PM RSVP
Wednesday, 12/6 | Ruckus Fest | Jalopy Theater | 315 Columbia St, Brooklyn | 9:00 PM RSVP
Friday, 12/8 | Windjammer | 552 Grandview Ave, Queens | 8:00 PM RSVP
Saturday, 12/16 | House Party Cafe & Lounge | 1178 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn | 8:00 PM RSVP