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According to US
Ooh, I have such a love-hate relationship with this song. This one reminds me a lot of "Bruce", and that fact alone puts it on the love side of my list of all time favorite Rick songs. I don't know if it's Rick's use once again of referring to himself as Richard, or that the song comes off as coming from the third person. However, the words and/or lyrics are just so bad....that I hesitate to keep it in the love column. One check mark for the hate side. I find it interesting that Rick is just credited with the words for this one and not the music. Knowing that just makes me want to wince.
It's a catchy little number, and one that has a good beat that you can tap your toe to. I'll give it props for that. He seems to be telling a story here, and I just love them story songs. So if I don't pick apart this one, or really listen to what Rick is singing - I'll be okay.
But that's just not me.
The song starts off okay, and pretty much in Springfield form. The words are flowing with the music and then wham! "But he just felt kinda stupid so he shut up." Screeching halt right there. That statement doesn't even come out smoothly saying it, let alone carrying a tune with it. The lyrics go downhill from here. It's like someone else took control of Rick's brain and decided that rather than make sense, we'll just make it rhyme.
I'm not even sure I should attempt a statement on the line, "I'm so nervous I just might shoot you." That is so not what I'm hearing, and I've been appalled at myself for years for thinking what my ears are hearing at this one. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?
The other part of the song that really bugs me is the "c c c c cold" - the stuttering of the world cold. Either just spit it out, or put another word there. It gives me a visual of Rick trying to imitate Eddie Money in the song "Shakin" or David Bowie in "Changes". Yeah, both of those songs irritate me as well.
- Michelle P.
OH I love this song!!!! This is one of my very favorites off of this album. Maybe even one of my favorite songs by Rick period. :D I really like the story-telling songs, and especially if it gives me a more personal glimpse of Rick's life and what he was "up to" when he wrote it! (kind of like the song My Depression and how he chronicles what was going on). I especially like how he starts off with "he just turned 17 when the moment came." So he is going back some years, remembering how he got into a pattern of having cold feet when it came to commitment. And from the last verse (and the year this was written) I gather he was about 28 when he wrote these lyrics. He spans nearly a ten year period in one song. (all in 3:38) Cool!
I think it's neat how there is very little guitar at the beginning & then he jumps right into the story, like it's one that HAS to be told. No long introductions! I can totally visualize a young, (wet…"in the pouring rain") insecure Rick in this song: Scared of women, heart flying out of his chest, wanting to lose his virginity ("thinking at last his time had come") {or so that is what I can gather from that verse}, yet terrified with the thought. (!) This is kind of humorous to me too. It's just fun that he was able to write a song about it, and not afraid to admit his fears. Brutal honesty as always! I love it!
This classy (MARRIED!) woman pulls up and wants to take him home. {ok…who wouldn't whip off the side of the road for a man like Rick??!! Especially if he's hanging out in the rain…poor guy.} Anyway, he is obviously tongue-tied! Cute cute lyrics "but he just felt kinda stupid so he shut up." LOL! I giggle every time I hear that. He still chatters or whatever when he gets nervous! So I can totally see this happening. Then my favorite vocal part of the entire song would be where he says, "but his fevered little brow it was getting hot." Yow! I love how he growls out the word "hot." Ok so then he is thrilled he's going home with the woman after all…but I suppose when she tells him she has a husband who will "be gone all day," he loses it. Uh…yeah Rick…you may have gotten shot! :O That's call for cold feet in my opinion. Good move Rick, even if he "couldn't believe it when he heard himself say…I'm getting cold feet." =D>
I really love the sound of the verses where he says…."lady don't you hear me talking to you, hey there's something that you can do." Or "mama" don't you hear me talking to you, that's good too! He has an anxiousness or determination maybe in his voice on those lines. It just adds to the feel of the story.
So life goes on for Ricky…and he's been unlucky in love, due to his insecurities & whatever else. He says he "met a girl not too long ago, she thought she could change him but it wasn't so." I wonder if it may have been the same woman he was with when he wrote the song "Why?" (he is saying in that song "why is it so hard to be yourself." Was someone trying to change him? It sure sounds that way to me). "Terminal cold feet!" I like the use of the word terminal….but obviously that didn't last forever. He just thought it would be terminal!
Wow, he goes on to say that he treated women mean, "he was low-down & dirty"…he DID have issues with long-term romance. (yeah he must have, because he SAYS--"it was some kind of a complex you understand.") So he was playing the heartbreaker, leaving a "trail of broken hearts," keeping his heart at a very safe distance. It's interesting to me how the general theme of this song, and his attitude at the time he wrote it, kind of shows up in many of his other songs either before or after this song was written.
So now he's nearly 30, and he gets a revelation from God (who calls him by his full name--Richard) that he better shape up. Well that is good! I suppose he came to a point where he knew he'd better let himself love, even if it does involve some pain, or he'd grow old by himself. "Nearly 30," just a young pup he was! ;) But I think he saw that life was passing him by, and he needed to make some serious choices for himself. I love how he adds a bit of humor here by writing the lyrics from God's perspective (as if God is looking down on him in disapproval over his wild ways)…"I'd like to let your life run it's course, but you'd understand me having second thoughts." LOL! Did Rick have a guilty conscious or what?! Well, probably so…I feel he has a bigger heart than that, and he is a kind soul, so yeah it was probably eating at him by this point. Even with his love for women, he saw that he couldn't go on hurting them. He throws in the word frigid near the end too. Is that one of those words he meant to have a double meaning? Frigid as in having a cold heart, and/or frigid as another way of saying cold. Either way makes sense to me.
This seems like a simple song on the surface, but to me it's really not. It dives deep into some of the personal issues he was having during those years of "looking for the one." (another song reference!) I adore this song, and hope he will continue to write these "life-story" songs. This is one Rick tune that will never grow old for me.
- Kelley Pearson
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