Panama Red

Lyrics

Tunes recorded by other artists

DANCE HALL GALS
by Panama Red
(also included on 'Homegrown')

When you are down to your last cent
Them Dance Hall Gals will take you in
Cause they can be the best of pals
I thank the Lord for Dance Hall Gals

Thank the Lord for that good ol booze
It's pretty safe an it's easy to use
An ev'ry time I get the blues
I thank the Lord for that good ol booze

Thank the Lord for them good ol songs
So damn right you can't sing 'em wrong
Them sweet refrains last all night long
I thank the Lord for them good ol songs

Thank the Lord No questions asked
For all the gold beneath the brass
Cause they can be the best of pals
I thank the Lord for Dance Hall Gals

Dance Hall Gals

I sang this song for the late legendary storyteller and performer Gamble Rogers while sitting on a beach in Florida with him and Peppermint Patty in 1974 or so. Later that same year he told me that he had taken to performing it and that "they love it in Chicago." This was really a compliment and source of pride to me, that Gamble liked this straightforward little tune enough that it had become an occasional part of his act.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Gamble's longtime friend and business associate, Mr. Charles Steadham, who has been steadily releasing Gamble Rogers recordings on Oklawaha Records since Gamble's heroic and
untimely death in 1991.

Charles revealed to me that not only had Gamble performed the song live, but that he had recorded a version of it, a fact of which I'd had no knowledge. The CD, called "Good Causes - The Southern Gothic Art Songs of Gamble Rogers" (OK1006), will be released on May 1, 2003, the starting day of this year's annual Gamble Rogers Festival in St Augustine, Florida. A streaming version of Gamble's cut of the tune is available on the website maintained in his honor and memory: http://www.gamblerogers.com

Whether or not you are familiar with Gamble Rogers and his work, please go to the foundation's website and read about this remarkable performer and consummate Southern gentleman.

Thanks
Panama

MAMA BABY MAMA
(LET ME JUMP IN YOUR PAJAMAS)
by Roger Friedman/Kinky Friedman/Panama Red

Mama Baby Mama Let me jump in your pajamas ay-ee
Mama Baby Mama Ah-ooh yo gettin warmer ay-ee
Mama Baby Kiss me Mama Baby Hug me
Mama Baby Mama lemme drive your baby buggy ay-ee

Mama Baby Mama I come from Alabama ay-ee
Mama Baby Mama wontcha let me strum your banjo on my knee
Mama gonna rock ya Mama gonna roll ya
Mama gonna hol ya like yo mama never tole ya ay-ee

I'm not totally sure about the lineup on this cut. I'm merely going by the roster of the TJB's during that time. It may be that I'm not even on the cut... although the solo in the middle is the one I worked out for the tune, and I'm pretty sure that's me playing it. There's some other nice guitar stuff there on the end that is definitely NOT my style. The player is probably the estimable Tom 'Wichita' Culpepper.
I believe that the origin of this download is one of the Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys Fruit of the Tune albums.
Panama

Personnel:
Kinky Friedman, vocals
Panama Red, vocals and lead guitar
Thomas "Wichita" Culpepper, guitar
Brian "Skycap" Adams, Bass
Jeff "Little Jewford" Shelby, organ
Randy "Rainbow" Cullers, Drums
Ken "Snakebite" Jacobs, vocals and horn

DOWNLOAD MP3
(for maximum effect, we
recommend a very high volume.)

Recorded somewhere in 1975

BOTTOM DOLLAR
by Billy Joe Shaver/Danny Finley (Panama Red)

Bottom Dollar It looks like the end
Oh how I hate to see you go
Bottom Dollar We been the best of friends
We musta counted on each other a hundred times or more
Oh and my, oh my How those eagles fly
Goodbye Bottom Dollar goodbye

Bottom Dollar All your friends are gone
They been blown on dance hall girls and wine
Bottom Dollar if the truth were known
You've been the bestest friend I'll ever find
Oh and my oh my how those eagles fly
Goodbye Bottom Dollar goodbye

Fred Neil

Bottom Dollar, which I wrote with Billy Joe Shaver, has been recorded by a lot of people, Billy Joe himself, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bobby Bare, Mike Auldridge, some people I can't remember right now and some others I don't know about I'm sure. It is always a good feeling when someone likes your song enough to record it. Of all the recordings of Bottom Dollar, though, I'm most honored with this version by Fred Neil. Fred Neil was a songwriter's songwriter. And though most people do not recognize his name, believe me, EVERYBODY you ever put on a turntable knows who he was. He told me that he chose the tune to cut not knowing it was mine, and, coming from Freddy, I was honored and humbled at the same time. He was a vessel, and he was a Master. He left us a couple of records. You should check him out.
Red

DOWNLOAD MP3
of Fred Neil singing
Bottom Dollar

SOMETHIN'S WRONG WITH THE BEAVER
by Kinky Friedman/Panama Red

She climbed the stairs that mornin' Found him rather pale
His eyes they were the color of half-drunk ginger ale
Faithful as a Magnavox, Hung up on a song
She called down to the breakfast nook
Ward, There's somethin' wrong

Somethin's wrong with the beaver
Somethin's wrong with the beaver
Somethin's wrong with the beaver
The beaver I believe is gone

Beaver was a dreamer, never got it right
He died in living color, lived in black an white
Faithful as a Magnavox, Hung up on a song
She called down to the breakfast nook
Ward, There's somethin' wrong

Somethin's wrong with the beaver
Somethin's wrong with the beaver
Somethin's wrong with the beaver
The beaver I believe is gone

TEXAS SAND
by Billy Joe Shaver/Danny Finley(Panama Red)

I've seen your mountains, walked across your burnin' sand
Bent down and touched you and held you in my hand
I've known your women, been down all your backwood roads
Straight Texas born and raised to carry my own loads
CHORUS:
God how it grabs me just to know I'm born a man
Grit dirt and gravel shirt straight from that Texas Sand

My words, Lady Bird, good ol LBJ
Sent down from Heaven on the smell of new-mown hay

NEGRO (WHITE BOY BLUES)
by Panama Red

Negro
Feel just like a nigger too
Negro
Sho nuff got the White Boy Blues

Afro
Feel just like some ol Zulu
Afro
Black would surely suit my mood

Negro
White man hurtin more than just you
Negro
White man hurtin white man too

I performed this song a lot back in the late seventies. It was, as I performed it, a very angry, scary piece. In the key of A minor. I played it to a standing ovation from a totally black audience in Washington, DC. Felix heard it in Fort Lauderdale, where I first met him, and wanted to do it for a record ("I'm Alright Ma") he was working on. Naturally I was thrilled. Well, it's a funny thing: the band Fee was working with at Criteria Studios at the time were the New York 'A' team: Eric Gale, Bernard Purdy, Richard Tee, et al, in other words, black guys, Negroes.
And the cut came out okay for everybody else, I guess, except that the spin these guys had on the tune was so Major, so...white, that I was devastated...it just seemed like a little romp on a white boy's song. Maybe that's the way that Bernard, who produced the album, heard it. The lyrics were sanitized, too: the 'n' word doesn't appear in Felix's version. Even the title on the album cut was changed from Negro to White Boy Blues. But the lyrics are presented here as I originally intended: a reaching out to my black brothers to say that social and economic injustice was a CLASS thing, not a race thing. And they still are.

Felix Pappalardi

THE BOOGIE MAN
by Kinky Friedman/Panama Red

Oh the boogie man, gonna get you an'
Snatch you up and whip you off to Boogie land
If you don't watch out He'll make you scream and shout
He's gonna have them ants crawlin' in your pants
With them creatures in your seat
you're gonna get up on your feet
You know you gotta dance
To the Boogie Man He the Boogie Man

Well the boogie man got a little piece of land
Got a mean ol lady keep him gentle as a lamb
Got a dog named Frog and a VW van
An the neighbors all think he's a insurance man
But when the stars come out, the kids all shout
Hey bring him out, bring him out
He picks up his guitar and there's a change inside
From the good Doctor Jekyll to the B-A-D Mr Hyde

HOMO ERECTUS
by Kinky Friedman/Panama Red

Well, I left barber college searchin for knowledge
Went to the University
I must confess, sir this lady professor
Turned me on to Anthropology

CHORUS
Now I'm a Homo Erectus, got to connect this
Bone that I discovered yesterday
Tyrannosaurus Lived in the forest
Died because his heart got in the way

Dear Doctor Howard, come down from your tower
And join me for lunch at the 'Y'
Although yore thirty I still think yore purty
Let's give it that good ol college try (rah rah)

Hey Jomo Kenyatta Oh no no you're not a
Australopithecine boogie man
It's took us a jillion but we're all here still, been
Boogie-in' since boogie-in' began

AUTOGRAPHS
by Kinky Friedman/Panama Red

Ain't you the golden boy of the silver screen
Your mama's pride an joy, some promoter's dream
With no time for Autographs Or sailin' ships or trains
No time for dreams to last
You gotta catch that plane

One magic midnight show she taught you how it feels
Once oh so long ago that RocknRoll was real
Turn on your radio the words you hear are mine
I would have told you long ago but I never had the time