You’ve Been On My Mind
Mental depression can bring about not just a sense of despondency but also a mental fog that confuses thought and makes taking remedial action even more difficult. It must be like that with the protagonist of this song. It’s obvious he’s down in the dumps, but sometimes it’s hard to know what he’s going on about.
Here’s a little number for those who like to dance, or more likely drink, to despondent ditties and lugubrious lays. The songwriter must never shirk from exploring painful emotions. Like many another song, You’ve Been On My Mind seems to be exploring the pleasurable narcissistic anguish of self-pity.
The Music
The nice thing about very slow songs is that you don’t have to write too many notes for each second of music, so the composition gets done faster and you have time to do something useful as well on the same day.
Verse 1
(Verse intro)
Eb Cm Fm9 Bb13 Eb
Eb
I have been up and down,
Bb7
I have been round and round,
Eb Cm
I’ve looked in every corner,
Fm9 Bb13
But nothing have I found,
Eb
You have been on my mind,
Bb7
You have been on my mind,
Eb Cm
All the way down the highway
Fm9 Bb13 Eb
You’ve been on my mind.
Verse 2
(Verse intro)
Eb Cm Fm9 Bb13 Eb
I have been high and low,
But everywhere I go
The more that people tell me,
The less I seem to know,
They say fate is kind,
They say love is blind,
They say you can’t get something for nothing,
But you’ve been on my mind.
Instrumental Bridge (2nd half of verse)
Eb Bb7 Eb Cm
Fm9 Bb13 Eb
Verse 3
You’ve got your dancing shoes,
I’ve got my walking blues,
I never could explain to you
The things I stand to lose,
They say time’s a wheel,
They say lies are real,
They say you’d better just take what they give you
But you’ve been on my mind.
Verse 4
(First four lines instrumental only)
Eb Bb7 Eb Cm Fm9 Bb13
You have been on my mind,
You have been on my mind,
They say you’d better just stay where we put you
But you’ve been on my mind.
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