randulo’s unblog

Gotcha, didn't I?
 
Listen to the song Girls, Please, Girls while you read this note.
 
It features some very classy playing by Freddy Roulette on lap steel guitar, Victor (Balco) Conte on bass and Nat Ginsberg on piano, both of whom played in the Herbie Hancock Monster Band, Victor played with Tower of Power as well, along with drummer Ronnie Beck.
 
Because of the (innocent to me) title of the song, the server it was on was brought to its knees by horny guys - ew the image- trying to see women get together and please each other. The title actually refers, in fact, to my plea as a band member to the wives and girlfriends sitting at the front tables night after night in bar we played in. That was in my single days of course. Anyone I wanted to be with had to pass the test with the other women at those tables. No wonder I like Sons of Anarchy so much! Bands are like motorcycle clubs without the chains.

Late one night I was walking near Notre Dame. Crossing the bridge to the Île Saint-Louis, something caught my eye down on the quais. It looked like a young blonde woman lying naked on the damp rough stone-paved section just near the water, which was lapping up. I walked down the stairs and while my view was blocked, heard a splash and then the footsteps of someone running away. There was no trace of the woman, but I had a Frank Black Millenium flash of what went down there. My mind melded with the killer's and and his victim's. The guy had met her in a bar, bought drugs and realized she had cheated him. He although the doorman of the hotel said she'd left, he went looking for her, knowing she'd be hiding on the quais.
 
 
Listen to Temptation
 
I was drinking whiskey
She asked for soda water
I was pushing fifty
She could have been my daughter
Temptation, You're a terrible thing
If you can't resist it
You might just wind up losing
Everything.
 
It was a nickel for a quarter
I never got her name
When I asked the old night porter
She was gone... or so he claimed
Temptation, Temptation got me in a bind
If I can't overcome it
I'm surely going to lose my mind
 
(solo)
 
They got my wallet where they found her
They dragged her body out of the Seine
Somebody's gone and drowned her
I just couldn't stand the pain
Or Temptation
Temptation pushed me around the bend
If you let it get the best of you
You're gonna wind up paying
In the end
Yeah, I let get the best of me
I know that I'll be paying
In the end
 
Until I was able to record Temptation, I didn't sleep a wink. The drummer and bass player are from Tom Waits' group of time of the recording, sometime in 1993.