Nobody Cares if Nobody Likes You

All right, you asked for it. Here's the first cut I've managed to work out.

Park your bike and walk into the old bar
Breaking bread with brothers over brew,
Some politician's up there on the TV
Thinks he's gonna tell us what to do.

Hey! Nobody cares if nobody likes you,
You want no guns, no booze, and lots of tax?
We don't know you, and we do not like you
Free men don't have to heed, and that's a fact.
Yeah, nobody cares, if nobody likes you.

Now some guy comes round and wants to butt in
And you know, I think that you just won't.
You're loud and proud and you are uninvited,
So why not remove yourself so that we don't?

Yeah, nobody cares, if nobody likes you.
I did not come here to make new friends.
We don't know you, and we do not like you,
So best that you accept that's how it ends.
Cause nobody cares if nobody likes you.

Now that guy goes down to hit on women,
And down the bar it looks the same as well.
They're too polite to say, else too frightened,
But you can see that they wish he'd go to hell.

Buddy! Nobody cares if nobody likes you.
Those women don't owe you any time.
They don't know you, and they do not like you.
Back off of them and let them drink their wine.
Yeah, nobody cares if nobody likes you.

You know not all those ladies really like me either,
Some do not approve of knives and bikes;
They're free to pick, but I did not ask them,
I live my life exactly how I like.

I don't really care if no one likes us.
We don't ask advice from those who don't;
You're free to disapprove, it's just not for you.
Don't try to make us change, because we won't.
And nobody cares if we do not like you.

It's a big old country, and we don't have to be friends;
We can just leave one another be.
You go your way, my road will take me onward,
There's room for each of us to go on free.

So nobody cares if nobody likes you,
You'll have to earn whatever friends you trust.
It's no one's problem if you don't prove worthy,
You'll have to make that right just how you must.
Nobody cares if nobody likes you.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that I should tell you how to sing it. This is my first attempt at writing a song that wasn't meant to entertain children (or to amuse a girl, when I was younger). I set it to David Allan Coe's basic approach, but it's not a straight theft of his tune; in my head different parts of the song are employed in different lines. Here's the song again.



You'll notice there are four-line verses and a five-line chorus. The chorus is meant to be sung to the part of the DAC tune that begins "My long hair just can't cover up my red neck." The four-line verses are meant to be sung to the part of the tune that opens it, "Country DJs all think I'm an outlaw..." but it's shorter, so you just swap to the chorus part when you get there. Definitely imagine a steel guitar twanging in the background.

As a side note, the DAC tune is deceptively sophisticated. There are about six things going on there musically, even though on the surface it's just a song about 'bikers staring at cowboys, who are laughing at the hippies, who are praying they'll get out of here alive.' Supposedly it's a song about an unsophisticated redneck, and DAC clearly scared the other Outlaw Country singers with his approach to life, but in fact the tune shows a great deal of skill. I do feel better that he admits having stolen part of the tune himself, in that recording, from Tom T. Hall. I first heard it in a dive bar near Tampa called Mauhuffers, which was the perfect place for this particular song.