baby I’ve been alone for such a long time
this loneliness tearin’ me apart
I got pain in my head and a fire in my loins
and a whole lot of empty in my heart
If you had a thought in your pretty little head Then maybe we could talk today we’re alive tomorrow we’re dead so I think right now we’d better rock
I look in your eyes and I wonder what
is going on in your mind
Are you really where you are
or where you’ll be tomorrow night?
your leg touches mine beneath the table
I feel your hand slide up my thigh
I feel kinda dizzy I feel kinda high
I feel like I’m gonna die
If you had a thought in your pretty little head Then maybe we could talk today we’re alive tomorrow we’re dead so I think right now we’d better rock
Just about every time I ever sang this song in front of people I know, someone has laughed out loud at the line, “I work all day and I sweat in the sun”…
Fair enough. The song is certainly not autobiographical.
And there’s certainly more than a little whimsy.
But, you know… there’s just a little bit of truth in it. Maybe it does take a real man to tell his girl no.
Heh.
[Warning: there are some technical difficulties with this recording… but the performance was so breathtaking… no, that’s a lie. It’s a typical slapdash performance. It was just that the clock was ticking and I needed to get this up and get on with life.]
Head Full of Crazy, Heart Full of Fire
When I see you
and I look in your eyes
I get a head full of crazy
and a heart full of fire
but I cant talk about it
and I cant act on it
and I couldnt really stop it
even if I wanted
I’m tellin you so that you understand
that’s what it’s like to be a man
I work all day and
I sweat in the sun
I’ll work all by life
and I’ll die when it’s done
but if I had you
to sleep by my side
if I had you
to be my bride
if I had you
I’d be glad to be a man
Now I know that you
would really like to stay
but I have responsiblities
that must come into play
I must think of what’s right
— what’s right for you
When his girl loses her head
— a man’s gotta think for two
but that’s what it’s like
that’s what its like to be a man
Artistic, romantic types (like us singer-songwriters, yo) often seem to fall in love with goddesses and ghosts. Those conversant in the literature of myth and legend are probably familiar with the deeply troubled relationships that grow when man and immortal become romantically entwined.
I wrote this song in 1974 when I was involved with a goddess — and a ghost. The goddess was a ringer for 30’s screen diva, Carole Lombard, and, by society’s then-outmoded standards, was technically otherwise entangled. But I knew it was me she loved, even though she told me she didn’t have the courage to be free…
For a young man, a young artist, in that position, deeply torn but deeply in love, intoxicated with the heroic tragicness of the situation, there was little recourse, then, but to lose myself in the arduous work of seducing one of my best friends, a pretty, serious-minded strawberry blond with — I firmly believe in retrospect — absolutely no romantic or sexual interest in me — but who, in her own way, lusted for a sort of platonic but passionate friendship and who seemed to show up, unbidden, on my doorstep at the strangest times.
[UPDATE: I just listened to this again… and, my gosh, it’s sloppy — even by the extraordinarily loose standards of AYoS. Mercy.]
WITHOUT WARNING
You came without warning
on a Monday morning
the day was all shot through
by shadows from the past
afterimages of the last
time that I was with you
and it didn’t take nothing
to see that you were something
that I just had to do
Well it mighta been right
on a Monday night
to release a little energy with you
In the end it came down to you
Now I didn’t mean maybe
when I put it to you baby
There’s just time space and nothing more
But instead of pain
we could have pleasure again
just like before you heard about the fall
So when you come come
come come come around me
please take some form
please take some from I can see
Well ghosts are fine
but I like some flesh on mine
you can’t steal my love
you can’t have my love for free
you can’t steal my love
you can’t have my love for free
Not quite written on a bet, this song was an ‘assignment’ in a songwriter’s workshop some pals and I had going for a few meetings.
And it probably shows some wrenchmarks… lacking any emotional inspiration, whatsoever, I fell back on the eternal pop music subject, lust. What I lacked in emotional investment, I probably tried to compensate for with attempted cleverness. And, as any man of the world knows, cleverness and lust are problematic collaborators.
Tell It to Me in a Language That I’ll Understand
Tell it to me baby
in a language that I’ll understand
I don’t speak french italian
hollandaise or hindustan
you look like a straight talkin’ woman
why don’t ya give it to me like a man
don’t put it between the lines
I won’t get the inference
don’t get into that dialectical material
let’s just split the difference
Why don’t ya come right out and say it
and then let’s see the evidence
I know ya got something to say to me doll
don’t bother putting it in words
I think I know what you’re thinking
only I think I thought of it first
I guess the question is
Can we fall in love right now
or do we gotta talk all night first?
