Continuing right along in the slow boil, passive aggressive vein… This one goes back to August 1990.
There’s not a lot of meat on this song’s bones but it always seemed to go over pretty well in my shows. Maybe it was just from getting through some of the tongue-twisting lyrics — when I did.
His or Mine
how come you love me
how come you hate me
how come you just won’t leave me a alone
did you ever have the notion
you ain’t gotta monopoply on emotion
honey can’t you tell my pain is real
honey come here put your hand on my heart there’s a world of feelings trapped inside look in my eyes and tell me once and for all honey make your mind up are you his or mine
how come you love me
how come you hate me
how come I can’t tell them apart
where was your conscience
when your mind told my body
to make sure that your soul
had my heart
honey come here put your hand on my heart there’s a world of feelings trapped inside look in my eyes and tell me once and for all honey make your mind up are you his or mine
Not sure, really, why the lyrics of this 1994 tune came to me.
I wasn’t in a relationship at the time and I wasn’t thinking of any specific relationship from the past. Still, the situation talked to me. In a sullen, passive-aggressive way, of course.
Though it comes off here as a kind of mutant bossa, I initially conceived of the music as a European tango. I’m not a big fan of European tango, with its cliche rhythm and the cartoonish dance styles associated with it, but I thought that very baggage suited the style to the lyrics.
(I go on at length, because I am a big fan of the modern Argentine tango of Astor Piazzolla. I saw him in performance in 1987 at UCLA, and it was an amazingly deep musical evening. No cliches in Piazzola’s tango.)
When You Look Through Me
You ask me where I’ve been
I wonder what it matters
I wonder why you should care at all
I wonder what you see
when you look thru me
I feel like a ghost in my own home
Oh but weren’t the old days grand our lives together like love letters in the sand raise a glass to the past but don’t look through to a time when you loved me and I loved you
I go out walking
you stay home talking
those people on the phone know more about me than I do
I hear your laughter
I don’t hear what you say after
but I hear that I’m a joke in my home town
Oh but weren’t the old days grand our lives together like love letters in the sand raise a glass to the past but don’t look through to a time when you loved me and I loved you
This song started with me dropping my head into my hands, addressing a friend who was not present but who was being talked about by a pair of caring but exasperated friends, saying, “Sheena… no… Sheena.”
You probably get the drift.
But no vexation is so troubling — or irritating — that it can’t be turned into art. Well, maybe not art, exactly, in this case. But something trapped in the no man’s land between edification and amusement, yet somehow probably failing both.
Sheena eventually quit her wild ways, grew up, settled down, and, last time I checked was a happy suburban soccer mom.
She was lucky.
Sheena No Sheena (No Sheena No)
Sheena was a spy
for the FBI
her contact never showed
and she never wondered why
but the saucer people came
and the hours just disappeared
the dreams began again
and the eyes behind the mirrors
Sheena no Sheena no Sheena no
the house began to talk
and the giant spiders came
she went out for a walk
she was gone for seven days
Sheena no Sheena no Sheena no
in the morning she was fine
her eyes were bright and clear
I’ve got two left she cooed to me
and dropped one in her beer
There was one thing on my mind when I wrote this song.
I wanted to get in the line, “Get down, baby, get out tonight” — in something that couldn’t be mistaken for a party song.
And I think I nailed that aspect. No one will party to this song and if they do, well, I’m not responsible.
I was thinking about this song after the fact and realized that it fits nicely into my plans to re-invent myself as a bitter old has been. As opposed, you know, to a bitter old never was. It’s probably a minor distinction to most folks, I suppose, but I think my brothers and sisters in the music biz will appreciate it. At any rate, I have a song, Tell All the Kids, that’s specifically about my fall from grace. Or the fall from grace I never had. But, anyhow, that ain’t this song.
So, as this song spilled out not quite a decade ago, I realized I was telling its story from the point of view of some imaginary, long-suffering rockstar, addressing, for what he evidently hopes is the last time, his histrionic, soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend as she pursues a theatrically anguished voguing session attop the retaining wall of his penthouse terrace.
Get down, baby.
AYoS acoustic version:
produced version:
Paperback
AKA Get Down Baby (Get Out Tonight)
Everywhere it sez you love me
but ya never read the truth
’cause when I look into your eyes
I can see who’s getting screwed
Get down, baby. Get packed,
get out tonight.
You’re gone, baby,
that’s right you heard me right.
A secret’s not a secret
unless it has been told
our private life’s not really ours
until all the rights are sold.
Get down, baby…
you will get some mileage
from that small town trollop trip
but the journey’s strictly one way, babe
and heavenward ain’t it
Get down, baby…
history will tell us
all about the truth
until that time I’ll do fine
your quickie paperback will do
Get down, baby… get packed, get out tonight you’re gone baby that’s right
you heard me right
Continuing right along in the slow boil, passive aggressive vein… This one goes back to August 1990.
