We had quite a severe extremist problem at the vineyard this year.

Related point: WTF is up with all the chords in this song? I've got to learn it for a retirement party in a couple weeks, and it's surprisingly convoluted for such a crappy-sounding song.

Taylor always had a unique brand of bittersweet folk rock.

I'd assume he's using an open tuning of some kind, most of those guys did.

It's probably one of those things like all of the credence songs that seem surprisingly complicated until you realize Fogerty was tuned down to like C and could play most of the song by just wiggling one finger.

Could be. I'm learning it on piano, and finding it to not be particularly suited for that instrument, but perhaps it's simple to play on guitar?

Bonus stars for the notion of EvilHomer playing "You've got a friend" for a room full of elderly killlers.

Can you PLEASE record this thing and post it?

No, on account of HIPAA. I'm still planning on recording some stuff at home, one of these days, when I stop being lazy, but we're not allowed to film anything at the VA.

Cool. I used to work up at the VA for the NCRAR and I'd periodically take my lunch breaks (there were a lot of those) and record in one of the empty soundproof booths with my little casiotone. Not sure if I was supposed to do that or not, but nobody seemed to mind.

It's a patient privacy thing. You're not supposed to take pictures or make recordings anyplace where a patient is present; recording yourself, alone, in a soundproof booth, would probably be fine, but recording at a retirement party is right out. And anyways, it wouldn't be all that funny, since the doctor who is retiring is a head therapist and she's big on promoting a sense of caring community, hence the unironic request for "You've Got a Friend". (personally I think YGAF is corny, hokey, and maybe even a little demeaning, but old folks seem to genuinely like this song, so maybe it's a generational thing?)

However, I do sometimes play Pantera and Slayer to entertain the geriatric ward lunches, which I guess might be sort of funny. Everyone really digs "Cemetery Gates"!

Yeah totally. My job was 95% loafing around. I was in charge of researching non-local presenters and then helping to set up their powerpoint presentations and that was it. This was back in 2002 so the "research" part must've taken all day for folks not familiar with the internet, but I was usually done in 30 minutes to an hour with a couple of calls and e-mails and had seven hours to kill. What sucks is I wanted to do more work but all those things were out of my jurisdiction so I just hung out with veterans and took really long walks, anything to get to 5PM. Even if I WAS done I couldn't clock out early.. bureaucracies gotta love 'em sometimes. I still miss that job, but not the bike commute. When I said "up to" I was referring to the one I worked at (unless all VA hospitals are on hills) and fuck was that a steep ride, but at least it was a summer job and the ride down the hill was total "WHEEE!!!!" A couple years later when I came back into town they built one of those gondolas from the base all the way up to the top. Goddamnit! I've thought about getting my old job back up there, but I'm happy with my current one.

If you're comparing him to a corpse, sure he looks ok.