 I wrote lyrics and music.  Robert Thames plays the guitar and produced it, Jim Unger plays the violin.  Leslie Sazillo-Schmidt and To The Moon published it.

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND HIS DEEP BLUE EYES

You're just 'round the corner
I know where you are
But you might as well be on a distant star
You're telling him our troubles
He seems to sympathize
You're somewhere 'tween the devil
and his deep blue eyes
And now I lay me down to sleep alone

I'll say it was my fault
Although I was right
But only if you'll come back home
tonight
If you aren't home by morning
I'll send all my goodbyes
Somewhere 'tween the devil
and his deep blue eyes

And now I lay me down to sleep alone
And you won't even call me on the phone

You're just 'round the corner
But so is sunrise
When you'll be far as truth is from your lies
I hear the shuffling milkman
The rooster's morning cries
You're somewhere 'tween the devil
and his deep blue eyes
And now I lay me down to sleep alone
And you won't even call me on the phone
And a heart that was once yours
is now my own.

****************************************************
Robert Thames - Guitar. Jim Unger - Violin. . Dusty cassette from years ago. Demo producer Robert Thames. (Thanks Robert) Published by Leslie Salzillo-Schmidt, To The Moon Music. (she can be found on Facebook)

His deep blue eyes

Another dusty cassette I found in that shoebox today.  It sounds like it's from a field recording of the 1930s.  Copyright 1985 by Steve Meigs.

Standing on the median, both thumbs held up high.
I don't care which way I go.
I just gotta have a ride.
Goodbye to you.
You reckless cruel, cackling freckled fool.
I'm leavin' you.

It's not that I didn't love you
but love could not survive
You got a face that makes the hens stop laying 
And a body that's barely alive

Goodbye to you
You reckless cruel, cackling freckled fool
I'm leavin' you.

If I get run over
It'll be 'cause of you
You made my future look so black
I'd give a dollar for the blues

Maybe this time you'll realize
Maybe this time you'll see
You treated your hound dogs better
Than you ever treated me

Goodbye to you
You reckless cruel, cackling freckled fool
I'm leaving you
You reckless cruel, cackling freckled fool.
Goodbye, I'm gone.

I'm Leaving You

Another song found on that same dusty cassette mentioned elsewhere.  

by Steve Meigs
Copyright 1985

Some people say I'm a ladies man
I guess that's true.
That's what I am.
My hound dog looks never fret me.
It makes women wanna take me home and pet me.

I got a roman nose
and roamin' hands
and a rovin' eye
I'm a ladies man.
In the good looks race
I'm an also ran
But that don't bother me
I'm a ladies man.

Got one good suit
Got a beat up car
Got my girlfriends
Than a movie star
Some I'm happy and
some I'm blue with
Got more girls than
I know what to do with.

(chorus)

The secret is
a simple one
Make 'em feel 
like number one
You'll give a lady what she's missin'
If when she talks you will listen

(chorus)

Roman Nose

This song was on the same cassette as the others.  I had read a novel about immigrants coming to America.  The novel, I think, was titled The Immigrants.   That's where the idea came from.  For a while I made this song private, because really  I'm not sure what I think about it.  I love the line "hide in the hollow of your laugh" and the folk song quality of it is pleasant, but the hook itself is kinda creepy.  Hunger is your master?  Factories are all filling fast?  Machinery's grinding on?  But here it is.  It was originally written with guitar in a G tuning for a sort of drone sound.  Not a particularly good choice for a wedding, hmm?

HUNGER
Copyright 1980 Steve Meigs

If they go and try to break your spirit
You're gonna have to break their rules.
You might just learn some lessons
You never learned in school.

Hunger is your master.
It's best to get along.
The factories they're all filling fast.
Machinery's grinding on.

La, la, la, la....

So hide in the hollow of your laugh
The dreams that you believe
Your push-me-pullies and your Narnias
Yeah, keep those up your sleeve.

(Chorus)

Hunger

by Steve Meigs
Copyright 1990

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND HER DEEP BLUE EYES

You're just 'round the corner
I know where you are
But you might as well be on a distant star
You're telling her our troubles
And you're both getting high
You're somewhere 'tween the devil 
and her deep blue eyes
And now I lay me down to sleep alone

I'll say it was my fault
Although I was right
But only if you'll come back home
tonight
If you aren't home by morning
A setting sun will rise
Somewhere 'tween the devil
and her deep blue eyes

And now I lay me down to sleep alone
And you won't even call me on the phone

You're just 'round the corner
But so is sunrise
When you'll be far as truth is from your lies
I hear the shuffling milkman
The rooster's morning cries
You're somewhere 'tween the devil
and her deep blue eyes
And now I lay me down to sleep alone
And you won't even call me on the phone
And a heart that was once yours
is now my own.

****************************************************
Robert Thames - Guitar.  Jim Unger - Violin.  Mary --- female demo singer.  Dusty cassette from years ago.  Demo producer Robert Thames.  (Thanks Robert) Published by Leslie Salzillo-Schmidt, To The Moon Music.  

Devil And Her Deep Blue Eyes (female voice) by Steve Meigs

POPCORN AND SWEAT
The first verse was written in about 1975.  The 2nd verse was written about 30 years later.  Copyright 2012 by Steve Meigs

I don't remember what was playing but it was rated X.
The marquee said something about sex, sex, sex, 
and what we were doing was simple
but explaining it's complex.
When I came back with the popcorn,
she said 'the feature's next'.
Oh that sneaky Susie.
I thought she was talkin'  'bout the movie.

It was a hot night at the Bijou
I couldn't turn on the lights
I was scared to.
She's the nicest girl I've met.
And what a funny feeling,
popcorn and sweat.
Popcorn and Sweat.

There was popcorn on the back seat 
and popcorn down my jeans
There was popcorn everywhere
that summer I was seventeen.
I had a foolish grin on my face.
The drive in was my favorite place.
What played there, I dunno.
I never saw the picture show.

It was some hot nights at the Bijou
I couldn't turn on the lights
I was scared to.
She's the nicest girl I've met.
And what a funny feeling,
popcorn and sweat.
Popcorn and Sweat.

Popcorn, popcorn, popcorn and sweat.

I called her Freeway Susie
With no curves she took me there.
She called me the scuba diver
Cause I never came up for air.
She went off to business college.
I went off to Uncle Sam.
Time passed like a river
rushing o'er a broken dam.

(Chorus)

Popcorn, popcorn, popcorn and sweat.

Well, they closed down that ol drive in
And hold swap meets there each week
I went back out of curiosity
Just to take a peek
To my surprise I saw Susie
Running the sign up stand
She says she owns the drive in now
And she's looking for a man

We're getting married at the Bijou
And you're invited, hope you come to.
She's the nicest girl I've met
And what a funny feeling
popcorn and sweat
popcorn and sweat

Popcorn, popcorn, popcorn and sweat (etc.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
If I were to perform this today I'd probably change the lyric to say "flea mart" instead of "swap meet", but honestly back in the hills where I come from, that's what they called them.

Popcorn & Sweat by Steve Meigs

Raw, raw, raw  SissBoom bah.
Old cassette I found in a drawer
Copyright 1970.  by Steve Meigs.

Bad things go on at the Midnight Café
A kid can go in
It takes a man to stay
And late at night
When the jukebox plays
Don't show your face in that evil place cause brother
even if you're smiling you're cruising for a bruising

The waitress' name is Yankee Doodle
The manager is Robert Ealy
Their relatives fought at Shiloh
And the fightin's never ceased
He talks the way they do in 'Bama
She talks Brooklynese
He says "I need sum hep ovah heah"
She says "So whaddya want from me?"

Chorus

The bartender will be your friend
You can even call him Ray
People say he's a hitman, an agent for the CIA.
People dance on all the tables
Everybody's drunk and gone
If somebody's missing from your party too long
They mighta passed out in the John

Chorus


Midnight Cafe

My grandmother and Ginnie B. Griffith told me how, and then showed me.  I tried to forget it, but I couldn't, so I wrote this song.  

Recorded at Note-Orious Sound Recording in Elizabethton (Tony Romminger).

This version, copyright 2012
by Steve Meigs

My name is Chuck Tucker
I'm a chicken plucker and I live just down the road
It's worse than corn shuckin'
You known chicken pluckin'
is pretty darn boring don't ya know.

One thing ya gotta understand,
in most kinda things I'm a normal kinda man
but dontcha ask me to your kitchen
if you're cooking fried chicken.

Cause I pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck all those birds
I pluck, pluck, pluck, 'em until my fingers hurt

First ya take a chicken
That's squawking like the dickens
and you hold him by the head
then ya swing it around and around and around 
and ya make sure it is dead
Then ya get your water real hot,
stick it in, guess what you got!?
Ya got a dead, wet, chicken.

Then you pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck at that bird
You pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck 'em until your fingers hurt.

My name is Chuck Tucker
I'm a chicken plucker
but I won't be plucking long
I'm not like those other pluckers
In my heart I got a song
I'm goin' up north come fowl weather
Never gonna pluck another chicken feather
Gonna play gitar on the Gran' ol' Opry

Then I'll pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck my gitar
I'll pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck it till I am a star

Like this!

Chuck Tucker the Chicken Plucker

The following ditties I wrote by myself and mostly for laughs.  Yes, I live way out in the country in Tennessee.  Bees, garden, deer.  I play on the back porch, my only spotlight the sun.  

I speak 3 languages:  American, Redneck, and Ik hoop dat u geniet van mijn liedjes, y'all (Dutch).

My first ambition was to play the lead guitar.  However, the solos in "Louie, Louie" and "You Really Got Me" cured me of that.

For my more professional work, ballads as well as novelties, track down Paul Horner's Cypress Tree Music,  and there will be some of the lyrics I supplied for English American songwriter Paul Horner, a Broadway and pop composer (Regina Spektor, Peggy Lee Broadway Show, Michael Feinstein, etc). 


SteveInTennessee

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