Why Don't You Take It Off?

Here's a song from Jambox Tape A, a Maxell tape about thirty years old, maybe more, that we used to record ourselves back when I live in Homer Townsley's P-Funk Playpen on Victor.

In our neighborhood in the summertime we would all sit in front of our turn-of-the-century red brick building as the shadow crept across the tiny hill of weeds with our shirts off, drinking beers. The stoop steps were nice and cool to the touch; I think they may have been marble under the dried-blood-red and cape cod green paint that flecked off to reveal flecks of white beneath. All the other hoosiers up and down the block would do the same thing as us - there was no air conditioning for miles around us. We always had our afternoons free because we worked the lunch shifts at restuarants in the Central West End: cooking, bussing tables, washing dishes. The smell of rotting bus pans would waft up from our caked and faded blue jeans.

This was the way we sounded when we were practising. This song is interesting to the two or three fans of Jambox - mainly me and maybe Rico De Bool only - because it shows we tried to arrange our songs a little bit and it certainly showcases Joe's bass playing, raw but ambitious, like our singing. Another nice thing is you can hear De Bool singin with Patrick and I. This is a song I'd almost forgotten for many years.

The lyrics were my idea of silly seduction lines. I had a bunch of them, all offensive, never used.

Say, isn't that a tear there?
Bare flesh showing through everywhere.
Shame, a tear in that skirt there.

Why don't you take it off? It's only proper, dear.
No need to show fear.

Whaddaya mean you can't see it?
That don't mean that it's not there.

It's right over here where you can't see it, right here.

Download "Why Don't You Take It Off?"