The Lord Showed Her How To Make A Thousand Dollars A Night
One Song + One Mic = Substack Sessions SS0041
Have you heard this story?
Last Thursday I told you about how strange song lyrics can be when I released my Substack Sessions Song - Joytown.
A song is like a short story or a miniature mystery novel with two or three verses and in the case of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan more like five or even seven verses.
It’s a kind of magic when the words gather together to build that perfect line of lyrics. It happened to me on several occasions. Somehow you get a feeling of - did I write these lines? - when you look and listen to the finished song. A good example is my song - It Ain’t Over.
Today’s song has a great backstory:
Back in 1997/1998 I performed weekly with my trio in a small bar in Vaduz / Liechtenstein when to our surprise Robert Cray’s bass player Richard Cousins walked in. A great friendship developed out of this one night at that bar in Vaduz with us and I played several New Orleans-style gigs in our region with him. Later I visited him where he was staying in Liechtenstein and he played me Paul Thorn’s album - Hammer & Nail - with a bunch of great songs on it. Sure enough I went and got myself a copy of it as well. I popped in the album and let it rock the room while I was changing strings, repair some gear or had lunch. After all the ten official songs of the album were done and a gap of about one minute of silence passed this strange song started:
Joanie The Jehovah Witness Stripper - Apple Music | YouTube Music.
It was a so-called ghost track without any notes or info on the album sleeve itself. You can guess why. To this day I haven’t found that version digitally on the usual online music platforms. Right now just this live version is available.
The story of the song is as good as the title and has even a punchline - enjoy.
Here’s the good morning version from my ‘Start Your Day With A Song’-series on my YouTube channel.
Substack Sessions SS0041 - Joanie The Jehovah Witness Stripper
Joanie The Jehovah Witness Stripper - will be released on Spotify | YouTube Music and other platforms in October 2025.
Previous Substack Session Songs
SS0001 - Waiting In Vain
SS0002 - Big Yellow Taxi
SS0003 - Green-Tinted Sixties Mind
SS0004 - Testing My Temper
SS0005 - Use Somebody
SS0006 - Walking In Memphis
SS0007 - I Han Es Zündhölzli azündt
SS0008 - Enjoy The Silence
SS0009 - Blue Door
SS0010 - The Way You Make Me Feel
SS0011 - The Ballad Of Jenny Ledge
SS0012 - Tomorrow Never Dies
SS0013 - Casual Conversations
SS0014 - It’s My Life
SS0015 - In Your Eyes
SS0016 - If I Ain’t Got You
SS0017 - Time & Again
SS0018 - Appreciate
SS0019 - Roll To Me
SS0020 - Home
SS0021 - Things Have Changed
SS0022 - Old Time’s Sake
SS0023 - Hand It Over
SS0024 - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
SS0025 - Until You Come Back To Me
SS0026 - Stop This Train
SS0027 - Somewhere Tonight
SS0028 - I Will
(will be released tomorrow July 11th 2025 on Spotify, YouTube Music and other platforms)
SS0029 - Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)
SS0030 - Drop A Line
SS0031 - Susie Q
SS0032 - God Only Knows
SS0033 - Everybody Be Yo’self
SS0034 - Precious
SS0035 - Calm After The Storm
SS0036 - Save Tonight
SS0037 - I Wish
SS0038 - It Ain’t Over
SS0039 - Naturally
SS0040 - Joytown
Thank you very much for supporting my music, photos and stories!
A country tune, very cool. I haven’t been able to catch your warmups. You are six hours ahead of me which means it’s usually ten-ish where you are and four-ish here.