April 26, 2008

• Did you ever wake up with bullfrogs on your mind?

   

  

  You know how some music is just like a good old friend who always makes you feel better?

  Today, I am listening to precisely that kind of music.  Namely, a great live album by the multi-talented, and totally underrated David Bromberg, a Philadelphia area favorite since the early 70′s — who you can still catch live now and then.  His shows are legendary, you never knew what you would hear, or who would show up on stage.  And his lyrics, well, they are just brilliant! People of a ‘certain age’ might remember him well, and those of you who have never heard of him — do youself a favor some lazy saturday afternoon and seek out some of his music on the ‘net.  I guarantee it will make you smile.

  Following are the lyrics to one of his masterpieces — a long, rambling, old-style ‘talking blues’ number called “Bullfrog Blues” — it never failed to bring the house down ‘back in the day’ — enjoy!

  Hey did you ever wake up with, bullfrogs on your, bullfrogs on your, I mean mind?
  Folks did you ever wake up, with bullfrogs on your mind?
  Now that’s a sure sign good people you got, you got bullfrogs on your mind…
  I’m gonna tell ya it’s hard, folks it’s hard when the woman your in love with loves your best friend.
  I’m gonna tell ya it’s harder still, when she moves in with the dude. Thats’s right.
  But it’s extra special hard, when you and him are room mates.
  I mean you look over at the pillow where your sweet darlin’ used to lay and still does.
  There’s only one thing for you to do, you go down to the pawnshop and you, you speak to the man behind the man behind the Nikons and stilettos and stolen Martin Guitars and compasses and hair dryers…
  And you say, “oh Mr. Pawn broker, what do those 3 balls mean on your wall?”
  “What do those 3 balls mean on your wall?”
  He says: “That means it’s 2 to 1 buddy, you’ll never get you’re shit back outta here at all!”
  You say “Mr. Pawn Broker – hey wont you sell me a .38?”
  “Oh please, just one little old .38?”
  “Yes I used to take a .44, but lately I been losin’ weight.”
  …So you buy yourself, you buy yourself a little 38 pearl-handled revolver and a double-breasted pin-striped suit, so you’re dressed to kill, so-to-speak.
  You head back to your best friends house and you, you get a little high-chair-stool kinda thing and you, you peek over the transom into your best friends room…
  And in that room you see
  A one hundred percent mohair rug, a lizardskin Barcalounger with Magic Fingers. A Garard Turntable with a Pickering Cartridge, Bogen Amplifier, Jensen Speakers, Revox Tape Recorder and a Stromberg-Carlson AM FM Tuner.
  A leather-bound five-year collection of playboy magazine, featuring the entire Playboy Philosophy by Hugh M. Heffner.
  Schmuck.
  A copy of The Whole Earth Catalogue, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Trilogy of the Rings, all four volumes of the teachings of Don Juan and the fifth in manuscript.
  The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran…autographed.
  Some Spiderman and Fantastic Four comic books – featuring !Dr. Doom!
  Some Zap comic books with the pages stuck together.
  Some extra-wide cigarette papers featuring the visage of a former vice president of the United States.
  Some very suspicious looking Baggies.
  And a great big… Olympic sized… thermally heated… el mondo grosso waterbed…
  with satin sheets, pink pillowcases,
  and…and a fur bed spread.
  And on that bed - twistin’and turnin’, rollin’ and tumblin’, shoutin’ and groanin’, jumpin’ and pumpin’, uttering wordless moans and unnamable exclamations, you see your baby and your best friend and good people,
  I wish to tell you, its hard…
  no, I mean its hard baby. Its hard cause you always thought your best friend was kind of a square and you see him in there doing things that would make Dr. Kinsey wanna cross his legs ya know.
  So you get down from that stool you make a few quick notes, stick diagrams to indicate motion.
  And you knock at the door.
  ‘Course you don’t get no answer.
  So you knock again, you still get no answer,
  so you knock again,
  no answer,so you charge at that door with all you might and mean, just at the moment that your room mate dressed in a green and yellow polka dot Cannon towel opens up the door and you go flying across the hundred percent mohair carpet, stumble into the  lizardskin Barcalounger with Magic Fingers, tumble over the Garard Turntable with a Pickering Cartridge, Bogen Amplifier, Jensen Speakers, Revox Tape Recorder and a Stromberg-Carlson AM FM goddamn Tuner!!
  People, I mean to say you go on by the leather bound 5-year collection of playboy magazine, featuring the entire playboy philosophy by Hugh M. Heffner.
  (audience: Schmuck) thank you
  You go on past Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Trilogy of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Whole Earth Catalogue, The complete teachings of Don Juan,
  You go on by The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran, with all the significant passages underlined – every word in the book is underlined.
  You stumble on by the Spiderman and Fantastic Four comic books featuring Dr. Doom.
  You pass by the Zap comic books with the pages stuck together.
  You tumble past the extra wide rolling papers bearing the visage of a former American Vice President and those suspicious looking baggies (copping one or two as you fly by…Shouldn’t be a total loss then.)
  And you land in a little shapeless heap, right beside that great big, Olympic sized, thermally heated, el mondo grosso waterbed,
  with the satin sheets, pink pillowcases, and the fur bed spread.
  And as you pick yourself up off the floor you stop for a moment and you look around you and as you look around for the first time in the whole affair, you start to wonder,
  you hear me folks? You start to wonder.
  I don’t mean you just kinda wonder I mean you wu…uhhh…uhhhh….under baby!
  I mean you wo, you wonder how the hell he got enough money to pay for all that shit in the first place is what you wonder!
  Right about this time your sweetheart noticed the gun in your hand, and she come ups to you, she looks up at you, she says:
  “don’t do anything self destructive now”.
  Bitch
  She looks up at you she says: “Johnny don’t point that that might be, Johnny don’t, oh Johnny no, Johnny don’t, oh no Johnny, no Johnny, oh God Johnny,oh Johnny, no, oh God, oh God!!
  ……………She knows your name is David.
  And while she is talking to you, you see a, you see a great big tear form in the, left hand corner of her right hand eye.
  For the first time in your whole relationship a genuine salt water tear.
  You see that tear and it moves you, it moves you, heart and soul mind and body liver and spleen, the Islands of Langerhans and Medulla ala Longatta.
  Folks I mean to say you see that thing and it moves you,
  it, most of all it moves your hand holding the pistol so you got a dead bead on that lousy little tear going out the left hand corner of her right hand eye, that’s what it really moves!
  And just as you’re, just as you’re about to pull the trigger.
  Just as your about to squeeze out her life with the action and mechanism your about to perform,
  just as your about to snuff out her entire existence, just as you’re about to do one thing you know can never ever undue, just as you’re about to send her on to the great beyond here after from which there is no return, henceforth hitherto whereas why for at all,
  just as you’re about to kill the broad.
  She looks up at you with those, weird eyes, and she says something to you at that moment, that stops you cold,
  I mean she looks up at you and she says something to you at that moment that freezes your finger on the trigger, turns your knees to water and your brain to jelly, your toes to cupcakes.
  It’s a pretty heavy thing she lays on ya.
  She looks up at you at that moment, and she says…
  gotta understand she knows she’s gonna die.
  This girl is so close to death…
  she looks up at you and, she says…
  she’s so close to death she can read the caliber number and brand of the bullet that’s about to go through her brain that’s how close.
  She looks up at you at that moment with those weird eyes, and she says…and those are weird eyes too I wanna tell you. This girl, no listen, this girl has weird eyes one of em’s red the others green. Used to be goin’ out with her she’d be blinking at me, stop, go, go stop ya know like that?
  She looks up at you that moment and she says…
  I’ll tell you what she says, just second, she says….
  Ok next time I’ll tell you.
  She looks up at you at that moment,
  she cocks and eye at you, you cock an eye at her,
  the two of you just stand there cockeyed for a half an hour.
  And she says…she says…
  ”Hey, did you ever wake up, bullfrogs on your, bullfrogs on your, I mean mind, did you ever wake up…………?”

  

   

  • 5:24 pm
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