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Plead for Mercy

by Thom as Fred

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about

I suffered a pretty severe injury in 2015 - not life threatening, thankfully - that put me in a position of not being able to play music professionally for about 6 months. Before this time I was already playing more guitar and learning to sing but the injury, once I recovered a little, was the catalyst for writing music that could be termed roots, singer-songwriter or blues (a term I don’t like for its appropriative implications but I don’t really have a better word for music that involves resonators and pentatonic-based riffs). Plead for Mercy was one of the first out of this stew. I was inspired by many acts at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival that year. One early evening I rushed home and recorded this tune almost in its entirety - from thinking about it on the hill to committing it to GarageBand in about 12 hours. I think it was the fact that I was volunteering as perimeter security at the folk fest that year that allowed me the time and space for my imagination to build this song out of the inspiration I was hearing on the hill - also the inspiration of seeing many friends I hadn’t seen for years. I edited it a little and put it on our family Christmas/Seasonal album for that year. Then kind of forgot about it. As I was going back a few years in my song and idea catalogue in 2020 I rolled across this one again and had the thought: “I should re-record this!” When I actually got back to give it a good listen I realized a couple things. One was that my voice has changed significantly since then (maybe this is why I still feel like a teenager?!?!) and another was the original recording was made in my family’s first home, in the room where one of my kids was born and with the first resonator guitar I bought that I now no longer have. It got me thinking about time and place and how you can’t change your past, only your present and maybe your future. Recordings are like a snapshot in this way. With these thoughts floating in my head I went to work remixing the original, making some very minor edits and trying to get the song to sound as I thought I envisioned it half a decade ago. My voice isn’t as strong as it is now but I like how I worked within those limitations to make the vocals sound the way I wanted them to. The guitar playing is surprisingly confident and patient to me now. Hope you get a kick out of it.

lyrics

Plead for mercy
For all of your sins

Just remember
God laughs
At all your plans

Plead for mercy
Just to see it begin

Plead for mercy
Say it again

Plead for mercy
Hide behind a screen

Just remember
It's only
An economic dream

Plead for mercy
Do it while you still can

Plead for mercy
In the valley of man

Plead for mercy
Lemmings on the rise

Just remember
To club it
Right between the eyes

Plead for mercy
To remain in the shade

Plead for mercy
For all things man made

Plead for mercy

Plead for mercy

Plead for mercy

Plead for mercy

credits

released August 6, 2021
Thom as Fred - Vocals, Resonator Guitar, Hand Claps

Cover art: "A slave is flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails while a woman is kneeling and pleading for mercy nearby. Wood engraving." is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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Thom as Fred Edmonton, Alberta

Thom as Fred is Thom Golub's songwriting project. He's released three albums and numerous singles. There is always a roots and acoustic element to his sound. Topically he likes to write personal songs from a philosophical vantage point.

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