One of the Yazoo albums I bought during my year in New York was an anthology of bawdy blues called Please Warm My Weiner — the title of a Bo Carter song — which naturally caught my attention as a teenage boy. (I similarly acquired Stash Records’ Copulating Blues anthology, and their LPs of drug songs.) The Yazoo had a cover by R. Crumb that I found (and still find) offensive for all sorts of reasons, but which now apparently gets good prices on Ebay…
Anyway, I only learned one song off that album, and it is significant only because it sparked my first attempt at songwriting. An extremely obscure duo named James Cole and Tommie Bradley had a track called “Adam and Eve,” with some nice rowdy fiddling, the standard 16-bar ragtime blues progression most of us associated with “Alice’s Restaurant,” and the irresistible verse:
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden surely must have shook that thing.
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden surely must have shook that thing.
‘Cause Adam said to Eve, “You think you’re so cute,
But you wouldn’t give me none of your forbidden fruit.”
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden surely must have shook that thing.
The problem was that there was only one other verse, and it was pretty nondescript… so, inspired by Dave Van Ronk’s example of writing new verses to old songs when he thought they were needed, I concocted three further variations on the theme and had my own semi-original full-length hokum blues number.
I worked it over till I was satisfied, then proudly sang it for Dave. He listened with his most practiced poker face until I finished and looked up at him, eagerly awaiting his approbation.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding, “We used to play things like that.”