It's Jimmy Carter Time!

Get ready.

This goes out to all you hard workers, travelers, pleasers, and boozers.

It's Jimmy Carter Time. I will post as many Jimmy Carter related novelty records as I can find. Just a warning: get your ears on straight. A majority of the country has been trained to hate on Jimmy since at least late 1980. But an undercurrent of love remains. I will show the records of love and hate. Tim Tuten of the Hideout, if you are out there, I would like you to write a testimonial about President Carter.

Mitchell's Shoe Peg

A classic can of corn.

I will say that I object to the inclusion of "sugar" in the ingredients. If the corn is of enough quality, no sugar is necessary.

Too Late To Make A Will

I'm getting up early a couple days a week to go to a Trusts & Estates class where we will talk a lot about wills.

Here's a sad song about the perception of diminished testamentary capacity. This is another little Mississippi record. The man singing the song sounds absolutely lucid ... but is that really his voice singing, or are we hearing his inner voice? Like in a Johnny's Got His Gun situation? His body reduced to rubber and string.

The children, just in the next room, rudely argue over the old man's estate, disputing share percentages. Tommy wishes to have immediate access to the estate.

"Through these veins cold water flows."

The band, recorded in an iron lung down the hall, performs the duty of playing sounds while the man is singing.

BARNEY HUGHES

...the sticker

Life moves fast. My blog moves slow.

A guy over on waxidermy just scored "Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck" with a sticker. I'm impressed. Thinking of options - places that sticker would look really good.

Rather than spending the time or money to seek out the sticker, I'm considering just getting the words "Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck" printed on novelty business cards - the kind you can't tear in half. A sure conversation piece at the counter of a Flying J diner near you.

Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck

This is a peculiar novelty on the theme of truckers keeping it real. First, consider: when was the last time you were offered "Duck Under Glass"? Second: I don't think this is the same Ray Parker that sang "Ghostbusters" or "A Woman Needs Love". This Ray Parker sounds kind of like the Cleveland character from Family Guy. (He's about to get his own spinoff show.)

The banjo patterns push this song along, suggesting a steady roll on a sunny midwestern highway. The key changes are idiosyncratic, but the lead guitarist makes taste, not waste, when finessing the leaps. The on-cue backup singer zombie ladies somehow legitimize the whole project.

I like how this particular tune is on Rush Street Records. I think if you were driving an 18-wheeler thru Chicago, Rush Street and the Mag Mile is the very last place you would park your rig and look for a diner.

Imagine a techno remix with the Aflac duck shredding.

May You Rest In Peace

In keeping with the bones-in-a-hole theme, here is a song a wife sings to her still living but effectively dead husband: "For here lies a man who wanted nothing but to watch TV."

A piney plea from the middle of a miserable marriage, the song relates a woman's attempts to use special effects, such as lingerie or wine, to rekindle lost flames of passion.

The thing is, Liz sounds a little ... burly here. If not burly, then thick of neck, wiry and tough. Alright, she sounds kind of like a dude.

The 25 cent price tag is damn near welded on to the label, I couldn't get it off. Under that it says "api" - the full name of the record label is api ATTEIRAM. You'll notice that "atteiram" is the word Marietta, backwards. And that's pretty much what this record is, a backwards masked married-with-children Marietta chick shoveling woo.

The Atteiram label is known mostly for Bluegrass releases. The label was later sold to that voracious and prolific Nashville reissue record monster, Gusto / Starday.

Enough talk.

Liz, tell em what you did:

The Hole That Holds The Bones

Here's a lost song that may really test your mettle. Fight your way to the end to hear the microphone-shattering Elvis-in-Vegas style climactic apex. Diaphragm!

This sounds like it could be a Song Poem, but Phil Milstein's fabulous Song Poem Archives site yields no info on the label, singer, or song. The whole shebang appears to be ungoogleable. I did find one record dealer offering a copy for $3.

Who is this Simon Smith, who sings like the best male singer in your suburban church choir? A week spent at his grueling engineering job results in some oddities in diction and phrasing, but on Sunday he really lets it fly. (just my imagination)

Also you'll notice the song uses the outdated and questionable device of telling you what the "yellow man" and the "red man" have done. Still, I am proud of my purchase. With a title like this, would you have left it in the store?