There is, however, a song that plays regularly on Boot Liquor that I find a bit...uh...ironic, shall we say. It's a song by Elton John called Texan Love Song. I would have guessed it was on Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy - and yes, all because of the word cowboy in the title. I'd be wrong, Texan Love Song is actually from Elton's Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player album, and yes, I still call them albums. Deal with it.
So where does the irony come in? Well, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player was released in 1973, Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy, in 1975. What's my point? Okay, okay already...my point is that Elton hadn't come out then. If he had, one might seriously wonder what kind of cowboy wanted...well, brown dirt in his moniker. I'm just saying.
For the record, I like Elton John. I think he's a phenomenal talent and the songs of his that I like, I like a lot. I've never been a fan of his onstage wear - even when I was a kid and didn't know enough to suspect that something might be up with that, I didn't like it. I thought it was a bit Liberace-esque, but perhaps that was/is the point. I have to say that whenever it was he donned a flippin' Donald Duck costume and went onstage, that was way, way over the line of my tolerance, out or not. Nothing about Donald Duck is rock and roll, it's Disney, nothing about Disney is rock and roll. Therefore, Donald Duck is not rock and roll. Just so you know, I also don't care to see Michael Jackson playing his best tunes in a stadium full of fans and him being dressed as Snow White, and have seven eight year old boy backup dancers dressed as the seven dwarfs...
But I digress. I'm just saying that every time I hear Texan Love Song on Boot Liquor, before or after some seriously kick-ass country stuff, I find it both amusing and ironic. I'm not about to post the lyrics to Texan Love Song in their entirety, but I will cite some lines that I think illustrate both the humor and the irony of this tune, which I like, being tossed into the mix on what has become my favorite radio station.
In the first verse, there's the line:
Well you'd better stay clear I might start acting rough
hmm...I'm guessing that your idea of rough, and an honest-to-God-Texan's are two entirely different things - maybe even three. In the second verse, there's the line that inspired me to write this post:
We're tough and we're Texan with necks good and red
Cracker, PLEASE!! You're Nancies and you're British and your necks, well...never mind. Then in the third verse, there are two lines that really stand out - but only because it's well documented that Sir Elton is out, and again, when this song is thrown in with the likes of Hank Williams, it is somewhat amusing fodder for what I hope is at least a mildly amusing post. The first line in the third verse is as follows:
So it's ki yi yippie yi yi
I beg your pardon? How many brown dirt westerns did you watch to come up with that line? Then there's the line about kids still respecting the President's name - uhm, yeah, not so much these days, but I don't want to get political.
The forth verse ends with Goddamit you're all gonna die - well yes, but so are you, The Brown Dirt Cowboy, anyone and everyone else you can think of. Some day we're all gonna die. Now the fifth verse is the verse that I kind of take offense to each and every line of:
How dare you sit there and drink all our beer
Forgive me Sir Elton, I don't mean to be all inhospitable and all- did you an' the Brown Dirt Cowboy wanna beer? Hell it ain't nothin' for me to holler at the missus and have her brang each of you's a can of Lonestar...beer, however, is not for everyone:
Oh it's made for us workers who sweat spit and swear - ya don't say! Wait, it gets so much better:
the minds of our daughters are poisoned by you/With your communistic politics and them negro blues
Damn near blasphemy if you ask me. And there ain't a damn thing wrong with them negro blues son - you oughta git yourself a good dose of them. Am I supposed to not find it amusing that this stuff is thrown into the mix with some music that for me at least, has some real substance?
Now the first two lines from the final verse will finish us off - so to speak, as it were:
Well I'm gonna quit and take action now/Run all you fairies clean out of this town
Hot damn! I don't know that I'd call this a love song by any stretch of the imagination - I mean it smacks of outright bigotry and narrow-mindedness don't you think? The basic premise of the song is that the singer is pissed off that someone who ain't from these parts is messin' around with a woman he's taken a shine to. Can you imagine? Who are you? "Boys I'm here to tell you that I'm Captain FANtastic, and this here's The Brown Dirt Cowboy - any of you boys wanna mess with me? No? I didn't think so." So we basically have us an ass-whoppin' Texan love song written by two....Non-Texans! Look, I think this is a great tune and I like a fair amount of Sir Elton's music and I recognize the fact that The Brown Dirt Cowboy is an incredible lyricist - truly I do. Whatever their social lives are, it works for them and I'm fine with that. I'm just saying.
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