As much as I mentally resist writing songs about the pandemic experience, this one just happened. It’s a true story, and thankfully it is not the really heartbreaking song that may still occur, that already has for so many.
I’m not going to defend my off key singing and unclear diction. I think that could be much improved. But like many an old white guy, I have a compunction to write reggae songs, and this is one of them. I always feel as if it the same regurgitated song I come up with, partly because I think I am reformulating some idealized reggae in my brain, but oh well, that’s how all new music is in most respects, isn’t it? The question is is it enjoyable? Can it maintain your interest to the end? Does it somehow manage to stand out as its own original song? I don’t know.
There’s a lot of wordplay, and in the story I hope I touch on some bigger ideas.
Power Out Another Hour by Steve Bancroft
Just a Tuesday afternoon and we’re home self isolating
I am in the bathroom and you’re in the kitchen baking
It’s our daughter’s birthday and her cake was in the oven
When with a flicker I’m sitting in the dark all of a sudden
I hear you shouting through the door in total consternation
So I know the lights went out in the house and I feel your exasperation
She couldn’t have a party and we sympathized with her frustration
Even though it was the same for all throughout the nation
So you report our outage immediately to the power company
And we wait for them to text you back with good news hopefully
The oven doesn’t heat up when there’s no electricity
So we sit there doing nothing waiting powerlessly
And they text you back in no time flat, before we’re even bored
The estimated time when our service will be restored
Only 200 houses are out they say, we should be up by five o’clock
And so the cake half baked can only wait, postponed by an act of god
Meanwhile I pass the time on my laptop writing a song on battery power
Until I calculate the wait’s nearly over, the power will be out another hour
The power out another hour
Power out another hour
Sometimes it’s not that you’re so inspired as much as having nothing else to do
You’re just fooling around with the only game in town and hoping something comes to you
It isn’t a recommended recipe for inspiration much like the cake in the oven that won’t bake
But I begin to believe I’m getting somewhere when without warning the screen goes black
Now the wait is nearly over, our return to normality is on the brink
When you get another update that says 7 o’clock and now it’s later than we think
Too late for the cake and the meal you had planned, and so we just go with the flow
So I pick up my phone and order pizza, wings and brownies for delivery by Domino’s
And everybody’s happy, it’s pizza after all, no way emotions can turn sour
And it arrives with contactless delivery by a driver in PPE with the power out another hour
Power out another hour
Ooooh
The Power Outage Blues and the Salami Savior. 
