ORDINARY MAN
14 original pop/rock songs

Ordinary Man

Musical Compositions, Arrangements, and Performances by Bob McCarroll

Special thanks to Sandi Kay for backing vocals on I Miss You and You Just See Yourself.

Song List

Ordinary Man - 03:01 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
Call Me - 03:33 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
Something I Can't Be - 03:41 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
I Miss You - 03:29 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
You Can't Catch Me - 03:15 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
You Just See Yourself - 02:47 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
No More Sunshine - 4:23 - Bob McCarroll ©2019 BMI
How Do You Look So Good - 04:22 - Bob McCarroll ©1985 BMI
Get Away From Me - 05:22 - Bob McCarroll ©2017 BMI
You're the One - 05:07 - Bob McCarroll ©2019 BMI
All I Wanna Do - 04:42 - Bob McCarroll ©2020 BMI
This Is - 01:59 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
There's No Me if There's No You - 03:08 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI
When I'm Gone - 03:05 - Bob McCarroll ©2023 BMI

All songs composed, arranged, and performed by Bob McCarroll .

Produced, recorded, mixed, mastered and graphic design by OneStop.Studio, Phoenix, AZ (www.onestop.studio)

A Little Background on This Project:

This musical project started out to be many things. First, I was planning on doing a follow up to my "Songs for Emily" CD—only, this time using my own poetry rather than Emily Dickinson's. While I got a good start on the project, which I'd titled "The Blinded Eye," I decided (for no particular reason), that the project should take a back seat for now and I would revisit it at a later date.

My next idea for a new project was to draw inspiration from the Beatles' early catalog of songs, i.e., with a very "pop-oriented" song structure and feel. Several songs I composed with this thought in mind did make it onto this project, like: Ordinary Man, Call Me, You Can't Catch Me, and All I Wanna Do. While I wrote several other songs in this "Beatles" style I didn't include them as I was never completely satisfied with them—again, shelving them for some future project.

My third project idea was for a more "rock" styled approach. While I've always wanted to do something a bit more heavier—and had written several songs in the past few years towards that goal, I'd never really did anything with them. Hence, I thought, why not use them in this new project? So I did! I even went as far back as pulling an old song I wrote in 1985—How Do You Look So Good—and re-recorded it for this project.

The songs Ordinary Man, Something I Can't Be, I Miss You, You Just See Yourself, There's No Me If There's No You, and This Is, are all new songs written specifically for this more "rock" project—although a few of them might not qualify as true "rock" songs. In fact, while I composed I Miss You for this project I actually released a slightly different arrangement of it for my 2022 jazz instrumental CD Subtle Moments.

The song Get Away From Me, which I definitely wanted to include in this project, was a song I wrote around 2015 and tackles the delicate topic of child abuse.

Whether for good or bad, the song There's No Me If There's No You was kind of a last-minute addition. While totally in the style of Tom Waits—vocally, as well—it didn't start that way. Funny enough, I had trouble singing this song in my "usual" voice and decided to try something a little different.

Two of the songs, No More Sunshine and You're the One are pulled from a past project I produced called Autonomous. My original plan for Autonomous was to release these initial two songs—which I did—and then add more songs to it at later dates. For one reason or another that never really happened. Still, I liked these two songs enough that I wanted to reintroduce them on Ordinary Man. Since this project was already very eclectic—style-wise—I thought, what the heck, throw them in there. :)

Finally, the song When I'm Gone was actually one of the songs written from my planned "Songs for Emily" follow up project, "The Blinded Eye.". This song is basically an epitaph with a bit of a riddle.

While I know I'm all over the place, style-wise, and this project turned out to be a kind of musical stew, I hope that you might judge each song on its own merit—if not as a body of work—and hopefully like something here.

Most of all, thanks for giving this project a wee listen.

Sincerely, Bob McCarroll.