I’m probably the only person apart from Jonathan Adler’s mom who enjoys the Volokh Conspiracy’s Sunday Song Lyric feature.  This ain’t no music blog, but we all have to start somewhere.

The song presently stuck in my head is “Crazy Man” by the duo of Catherine Irwin and Janet Bean, working together as Freakwater.  The song comes from the 1993 album “Feels Like The Third Time”.

Freakwater got lost in the shuffle of alt country in the 1990s, perhaps because they were a little too “alt” to appeal to much of the crowd that listens to Wilco today.  Perhaps they were a bit too rustic.  Perhaps because they were women, and most alt country fans are sexist pigs.  Even the women.  Or perhaps because while their music was all sweetness and light, their lyrics read like the unpublished poetry of Edgar Allen Poe.  Witness: Crazy Man.

I heard that your daddy was a crazy man
Left your mama standing with a dishrag in her hand
Snuck out through the back way, let the screen door slam
It’s hard to find the words to say, you don’t give a damn!

You said that you never saw your mama cry
Maybe she was sneakin’ around with another man on the sly
I have met your mama and she’s crazy too
You got more from her than just your eyes of blue!

All the words have been spoken
All the bridges have been burned and the promises broken
It’s not hard just to have a little baby!
And I won’t have far to go when I go crazy

All the words have been spoken
All the bridges have been burned and the promises broken
It’s not hard just to have a little baby
And I won’t have far to go when I go crazy

I look into your eyes and I think I see
Picture of me smiling, with a baby on my knee!
There in that old photograph you never change
Like the last time that I saw you when you looked so strange

All the words have been spoken
All the bridges have been burned and the promises broken
It’s not hard just to have a little baby
And I won’t have far to go when I go crazy

And here’s a video of Freakwater performing the song, recorded in 2008.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

• "There Are No Second Acts In American Lives." - February 9th, 2010
• "It Is A Barren Wasteland, Riddled With Fire, Ash, And Dust. The Very Air You Breathe Is A Poisonous Fume." - February 3rd, 2010
• Dear CNN, Reuters, New York Times, Fox, Et. Al. - January 29th, 2010
• State Of The Union - January 27th, 2010
• Read The Whole Thing - January 26th, 2010