The year 1996 was one of my most prolific, in terms of both songwriting and general creativity. The band I had co-founded the year before would soon add a drummer and move from a sparsely albeit inventively instrumentalized trio into a full-fledged rock ensemble. Desperate to have more songs on which I would sing, and thus not have to play any instruments, I spent the summer of ’96 in a songwriting tizzy.

My general style at the time was to think of a cool title first, and then come up with lyrics and a melody later. The lyrics would usually be strings of non sequiturs linked together only by an imagined relationship to the title of the song. The melody would often come out naturally as I was writing the words down. I was able to write many songs this way. I only had trouble finishing songs when I tried to make them about an actual subject.

(Nowadays when I write songs, which is rare, I usually think of a melody or riff first, then try to write words around it, and then spend a long time thinking about what it should be called. This is probably a more normal method of songwriting.)

I wrote Mr. Claim-the-Credit that summer. I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of WHIO-TV, where I had an internship. I had just returned from my lunch break, but still had some time left, and I didn’t want to go back inside until I absolutely had to. It was that kind of internship. And as I sat there in my turned-off car in the summer heat, the song appeared fully-formed in my head.

Sometime after that, I recorded this demo. My brother Tim is on bass, trumpet, and baritone; Chuck Hague on guitar; Brian McKinney on drums. The arrangement you hear is their collective interpretation of my melody.

Ultimately, my band decided not to add it to our playlist. I seem to remember an outright rejection of any song whose title started with “Mister”. Unwilling to compromise my title (and thus my artistic principles also), I let it go.

Mr. Claim-the-Credit [MP3, 3.8MB]

Mr. Claim-the-Credit
He takes all the credit
He makes it hard for you and me
To pick up any notice

He is such a bastard
Taking all the credit
Can you believe this guy,
I mean he’s really just a schmoe

Mr. Claim-the-Credit rides his bicycle to work
He parks it in the parking space allotted for his car
He only drives on Thursdays, that’s when he sees his mistress
And then he parks in my space cause it’s closer to the door

He’s always trying to get the office pool to do him favors
They turn him down and he has people firebomb their cars
When cops come in to question him, they always see his logic
He’s hailed as a hero and he gets another raise

Mr. Claim-the-Credit
He takes all the credit
He makes it hard for you and me
To pick up any notice

He is such a bastard
Taking all the credit
Can you believe this guy,
I mean he’s really just a schmoe

Mr. Claim-the-Credit took the NBA to court
Framed for double suicide, he made his lawyers pay
Awarded fifteen dollars on a charge of excess postage,
He forged a path of corpses as he ambled to the door

He tried on his wife’s wedding dress, indeed it fit quite neatly
And she put on his tux and then they had a little fun
And then he thought of putting blades inside my vacuum cleaner
He swept the rug and mowed the lawn and got another raise

Mr. Claim-the-Credit
He takes all the credit
He makes it hard for you and me
To pick up any notice

He is such a bastard
Taking all the credit
Can you believe this guy,
I mean he’s really just a schmoe

Mister, mister
Claim the credit
He’s a bastard
He’s a schmoe

Mister, mister
Claim the credit
He’s a bastard
He’s a schmoe

He makes off with my secretary, cookies, and mail
He holds the patent on the wide-mouth man
He’s always stealing atoms, ideas, and such
He is no smarter than you or I

Mister Claim-the-Credit
He takes all the credit
He makes it hard for you and me
To pick up any notice

He is such a bastard
Taking all the credit
Can you believe this guy,
I mean he’s really just a bastard

Mister Claim-the-Credit
He takes all the credit
He makes it hard for you and me
To pick up any notice

He is such a bastard
Taking all the credit
Can you believe this guy,
I mean he’s really just a schmoe