"You say that you love me
But I say not much
You say that you love me
But you get me in dutch."
If this chorus sounds unfamiliar to Buddy Holly fans, it's because the unpublished lyric spent years hanging on a wall. And while Madonna's digitized "American Pie" is a higher profile tribute on the anniversary of the day the music died, former Violent Femmes drummer Victor DeLorenzo has done a greater service for the late Buddy Holly. Taking a cue from the Billy Bragg/Wilco tribute to Woody Guthrie, DeLorenzo has breathed new life into some lost lyrics by Buddy Holly, whose plane went down forty-one years ago today.
DeLorenzo and Holly's "collaboration" began in 1996, when the Milwaukee musician was visiting friend and record exec Howard Thompson and noticed a notebook page framed on the wall. Within the frame was a page from "a gospel notebook," featuring Holly's near-illegible scrawl, that Thompson purchased for $3000 at a Sotheby's auction.
Upon a subsequent visit, DeLorenzo asked his friend if he could pull the artifact down from the wall. "I started trying to decipher some of Buddy's handwriting, which looked like chicken scratch," he says. "With the aid of a pseudo-rhyming scheme of what he was writing, I figured out most of the things that were written. There was one line I couldn't figure out because I couldn't understand the scrawl. So I figured, because of what was written in the previous lines, that it must be 'dutch.' 'In dutch' was the old-time phrase for someone being in a lot of trouble, so that actually became the chorus."
With the lyrics translated, DeLorenzo sat down to put music to the words. "I didn't add any words, I just kind of tidied up what was there," he says. "Then I came back to my studio in Milwaukee and I was sitting around the table with my acoustic guitar and I'll be damned, within ten minutes this melody and these chords came out."
Though DeLorenzo has recorded the song, which he also titled "In Dutch," he has no intention of releasing it. "Other than just publishing those lyrics I don't really have any other plans," he says. "I don't know where I stand legally in regard to all this, and I certainly don't want to get in any trouble." But those who catch DeLorenzo performing live will be treated to the new tune. In an eerie coincidence, a number of the Midwestern theaters that DeLorenzo will play in support of his new solo album, Blessed Faustina, were visited by the ill-fated Holly/Valens/Bopper Winter Dance Party Tour.
For updates on Delorenzo's tour, visit www.victordelorenzo.com.
ANDREW DANSBY
(February 3, 2000)