Scott Cooley Playlist

Used To Be Good Looking

A modern state song for the state of Michigan written and recorded by Scott Cooley.  
Copyright © ℗ 2014 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.
Composer/Lyricist:  Scott Richard Cooley (U.S. citizen, born 1967, CAE/IPI No. 345.88.02.44).
LYRICS:
Verse 1
The sun sets on one side, and on the other it rises
Painting pretty pictures on watery horizons
The Native Americans, the French, then all the rest
Have settled in to make our state the best

Verse 2
Kalkaska sand, a rare soil in this land
The state that is shaped like a mitten on your hand
The Painted Turtle wanders this fertile ground
Where state parks and forests can always be found

Verse 3
White Pines in straight lines, planted long ago with care
In the sky they rise over a hundred feet in the air
The Apple Blossom flowers are pretty in pink
And we never run out of fresh water to drink

Chorus:
I’m smitten with the mitten, it’s our happy home
With great lakes and great times, in cars and boats we roam
If our insect was the love bug, then surely I've been bitten
I’m a Michigander, ‘cause I’m smitten… with the mitten

Verse 4
The Greenstone gem from Isle Royale
Is the crown jewel of an island unspoiled
The Petoskey stone, its namesake it’s home
Can be found on its beaches when carefully combed

Verse 5
With islands and waterfalls and rocky shores so nice
It’s a water winter wonderland, a true paradise
The great lakes are awesome, surrounding us all
Lighthouses lead ships in from the  squalls	

Verse 6
In our woods are wild turkey and white tailed deer 
Wildlife is plentiful and protected here 
Where mastodons once roamed, and wolverines called home 
The Dwarf Lake Iris, grows wild near limestone 

Chorus:
I’m smitten with the mitten, it’s our happy home
With great lakes and great times, in cars and boats we roam
If our insect was the love bug, then surely I've been bitten
I’m a Michigander, ‘cause I’m smitten… with the mitten

Verse 7
The Robin’s striking beauty is a site we all treasure
Just like the fall colors, both seasonal pleasures
The Brook Trout swim about throughout the state
A fisherman’s paradise in streams, rivers and lakes

Verse 8
When it comes to automobiles, our state is the hub
Their wheels bring prosperity, passion and love
Our peninsulas can be seen from up high on a ridge
Joined by the mighty Mackinaw Bridge

Verse 9
From the song of Hiawatha to the Motown sound
Up the Porcupine mountains to the Lake of the Clouds
When northwinds blow cold, we get lake effect snow
Skiing, snowmobiling, and sledding we go

Chorus:
I’m smitten with the mitten, it’s our happy home
With great lakes and great times, in cars and boats we roam
If our insect was the love bug, then surely I've been bitten
I’m a Michigander, ‘cause I’m smitten… with the mitten




Smitten With The Mitten

A folk rocker about a Midwesterner's yearning to return to the Rocky Mountains where the skiing and lifestyle is far better.  Track #2 on the 2022 Scott Cooley Records label studio album release "Bluebird Days II" by solo artist Scott Cooley.

Bluebird Days II

Mountain Time

A sea shanty featuring accordion with an old-timey feel about sailors returning from sea and the women who love them.  Track #13 from the "Bluebird Days II" studio album by Scott Cooley released in 2022 on the Scott Cooley Records label, featuring phenomenal accordion playing by Lenore Cooley who made a guest appearance.

Any Port In A Storm

A unique phenomenon experienced by those from the Flint Michigan area who know it well and by a single word, delivered with an old-timey feel.

Rest Assured

Coney

from the 2004 album Moon Dreams.  This one is just a fun jam - a toe-tapper.  It might even be danceable.  Makes you want to move around all wild and crazy-like when you hear it.  It was super difficult to play though because it has guitar-unfriendly chords that are hand-killers.  This is one of the few re-records I've released - a cleaner and higher quality recording than the original.  I have no idea what it's about though.  Seriously, I don't remember at all.  Derive your own meaning and enjoy.

Moon Dreams

Watchin' The World Go By

From the 2008 Scott Cooley album, Drive Time Companion.  A little country-ish or country-tinged, but not overtly, so it might be Americana?  Willing to welcome a past love back into your life, acknowledging it was wrong to break up, but not ruling out the possibility of reunion, questioning whether she was the one who got away or whether it was never meant to be, or whether or not she is thinking the same way about you as you are about her.

Drive Time Companion

There Is A Road (Road To Me)

Road To Me

From the 2010 album Sense Of Belonging, Find My Way Back Home is a song about a lost guy in a strange land who is far away from home and missing his true love.  Although he can't help keeping her in his thoughts, which motivated him to start a return, it is those same thoughts that help him stay focused during the hardships of his travel back.  You don't know what you have 'till it's gone, and sometimes realization of love can be an afterthought, but even with the knowledge it may not be returned, it can help one to get through tough times.  Again, as an afterthought, the traveler might realize that upon arrival at the destination it was home and family after all that was the most important thing being sought.  We've all been there in some way or another.

Sense Of Belonging

Find My Way Back Home

From the 2012 album, Cherchez La Femme.  Written on a scrap of notebook paper from back in the early 90s when I used to frequent various restaurant/bars that featured 10-cent wing specials on certain nights, and groups of guys would show up together and sort of compete with each other for quantity and speed before reaching for the mug of beer.  Good times.  Kind of a macho thing, but chicks who would also partake were "hot" for doing so.  The fact that you could get a natural "high" of sorts from spicy pepper sauce on food was somewhat a novelty to people at the time, and the choices were few-Tabasco or Franks, before this became a popular thing.  This was way before the whole concept took off popularity-wise and you saw a majority of such establishments offer these or entire specialty chains like Hooters and Buffalo Wild Wings.  It was a new thing to me at the time, and somehow in your early 20s and bar-hopping days, it seemed like a pretty cool experience to have.

Cherchez La Femme

Hot Sauce

A tale of the plight of America's environment since the arrival of Europeans, inspired by a 70s anti-pollution TV commercial w/ a Native American vibe.

Where There's Smoke

Words and Music by Scott Cooley.  Copyright © 2006 by Scott Cooley.  Sound Recording published ℗ 2006 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.  Mackinac Island is one of the "hits" from my 2006 album Lakeside Landing, and is apparently now "going viral" six years later! These things take time.  Enjoy...

Lyrics:

Mackinac Island (HS&F)
words and music by Scott Cooley
Copyright © by Scott R. Cooley.  All Rights Reserved.

Verse 1
We took a ferry boat to Mackinac Island
We stayed where the Jamaicans work
It was a grand hotel, but what a funky smell
Enough to make us go berzerk

Chorus
Horseshit and fudge, horseshit and fudge
There’s no place like it in the world
Horseshit and fudge, horseshit and fudge
Fun for every boy and girl

Verse 2
We rode all the way around the island
On a bicycle built for two
Saw a rock formation, but what a stinky vacation
A combination of candy and poo

	Repeat CH

Verse 3
We saw a fort up high on the island
Saw some sailors drinkin’ their rum
We resisted the urge to buy moccasins
But the stench we couldn’t overcome

	Repeat CH

Bridge
Somewhere in time, you’ll notice something in the air
A blend of two things that look alike
But if you see some chocolate in the middle of the street
Before you pick it up and eat it think twice

	Repeat Chorus
	Instrumental break (marimba solo)
	Bridge
	Out Chorus


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Mackinac Island

A somewhat sarcastic look from the outside in at the lifestyles of the rich and famous, in the form of a mento ballad with uke, marimba solo that conveys the having a lot of money does not always lead to happiness.

Missing The Boat

Your Own Private Island

A really happy-sounding, mid-tempo Hawaiian-ish rocker w/ marimba solo that slides its way to delivering a totally pessimistic yet blatantly realistic outlook on the future with its contrasting lyrical message.

It's Not Gonna Be OK

Words, music & sound recording Copyright © ℗ 2018 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved. From the 2020 album "Bluebird Days".  Ski bum lingo is used to prove that "no friends on a powder day" is a myth in a song about ritualistic ceremonies to appease the gods of snow in this steady rhythmic marimba/ukulele hybrid ballad of hope.  Scott Cooley - vocals, ukulele, piano, bass, drums, percussion, marimba.

Bluebird Days

Together Now

Copyright © ℗ 2020 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.  From the 2020 album "Bluebird Days".  An up-tempo tune about an office worker fantasizing about skiing in the powder snow he sees coming down outside his window with unplugged guitar riffs and a solo that together mimic the adrenaline rush.  Scott Cooley - vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussion, acoustic solo

Big Air

Words and Music by Scott Cooley.  Copyright © 2004 by Scott Cooley.  Sound Recording published ℗ 2004 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.  This is a song that I wrote very quickly.  It was one of those that felt like it just flowed through me, and afterward, it was hard to believe I actually wrote it.  It sounds like a song that was already a song, like one you think you might've heard before somewhere.  If it actually is just like some other existing song someone else wrote, let me know - maybe I subconsciously wrote it to sound like like a song I'd heard sometime in my past by accident, but I seriously doubt it.  Geez, I hope not - that would be a bummer.  Anyway, I consider this to be quite a beautiful sounding ballad, if I do say so myself.  Keep in mind this is coming from someone who is usually known to be self-deprecating, for what it's worth.  This is going to be funny to admit, but since launching my website, I've done some ego surfing - googling myself to see where I fall in the search results - and there's always this other Scott Cooley who works for a company called Morning Star who comes up first in the page rankings or whatever those are called, so I actually started this song by coming up with the title first, thinking that if I published a song with a similar name, somehow that would alleviate this little annoyance.  Very strange, I know, but it produced a good song.

Morning Star

Words and Music by Scott Cooley.  Copyright © 2006 by Scott Cooley.  Sound Recording published ℗ 2006 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.  Shoreline Miles is one of my best ever songs I've written.  It fired on more cylinders than usual, and just effortlessly came in to being that way.  Not much tweaking or rewriting at all to get to the finished product, and it didn't require many takes to record it.  My lovely wife Lenore played the awesome marimba solo for the instrumental break.  The story is self-explanatory, but isn't based on a real story.  I've just generally heard enough stories throughout my life about men getting boats, spending too much time on those boats, paying less attention to the woman in their lives because of the boat, and scaring the women on the boat and things like that which often lead to a breakup.  The moral is don't buy a sailboat if you also want to maintain a good relationship with your wife or girlfriend.

Shoreline Miles

Words and Music by Scott Cooley.  Copyright © 2008 by Scott Cooley.  Sound Recording published ℗ 2008 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.This was pretty much the second country-ish song I wrote, but the first serious one.  Puttin' Up A Pole Barn was a country parody, but this one I wrote because I discovered that the best market for non-performing songwriters to sell their songs to famous recording artists to record and release was this genre.  I took a stab at it, and I guess just wanted it to have the feel of a Clint Eastwood western somehow.  I'm not even sure it qualifies as country, but what the hey.  You've got to understand I grew up in a time and place where it was not cool to like country, and there was a stereotype it was for white trash, rednecks, etc.  Later in life, I realized some of the old artists like Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Lefty Frizzell, and Willie Nelson (to name a few) wrote some pretty cool songs.  I have no idea if this one is anything like those, but anyway, see if you can picture Randy Travis or George Strait singing it.  I think it might work well.


Torn In Two

Words and Music by Scott Cooley.  Copyright © 2010 by Scott Cooley.  Sound Recording published ℗ 2010 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.This is a simple song about contemplation of leaving a legacy.  As a living will of sorts, it's at the same time an indirect expression of my desire for my songs to reach a wider audience.  An important part of my legacy might be the songs I've written.  I'm proud of them, and this is one of my best.  It just worked.  I don't even really know how to play harmonica, but it works on this one.  The music is catchy and the message is emotion-evoking.  It explores the concept of possibly having some sort of influence over the living after you die and hooking up those you sympathize with.


Forever A Memory

Words and Music by Scott Cooley.  Copyright © 2012 by Scott Cooley.  Sound Recording published ℗ 2012 by Scott Cooley. All rights reserved.This is one of my best-ever songs, and it seriously has commercial potential, both literally and figuratively.  Ever since I wrote it, I've contemplated contacting the FTD marketing department about it, since it would lend itself well to an actual commercial - that is, if recorded by real pros.  This I consider pitch-worthy, even in my standard rudimentary demo state.  It's probably near the top of the list of songs I'd hire pros to record fully-produced demos of for the purposes of pitching to famous major-label artists to consider recording/releasing.  My folk-rockish version might not reflect it so much, but I believe it could easily be cut by a country artist just as it could as more of a rock/pop/adult contemporary thing.  This might best be described as an advice song, and it is based on my own real-life research and lessons learned.

No Reason Flowers

Welcome!  Here are 2 songs from each of my first 11 released studio albums you can stream for free to get you started.  For more information, see https://www.scottcooley.com