Tag: Jackrabbit Slim

I won this single at the county fair. From the title, I didn’t know what it was until  I played it. It was a hit single at the time. It’s a well-constructed song that never gets old to me. The song peaked at #11 in the Billboard 100, #8 in Canada, and #21 in New Zealand in 1979-80. It came off the great Jackrabbit Slim album.

I liked that album and also Alive on Arrival released a year before this one. Sometimes I hear songs and think…man I wish I could have wrote that song. This is one of them. It’s a pop song but a pop song that fits together perfectly. It has great hooks and the verses flow perfectly.

Steve has had a nice career but I really thought he would have been more known. He was one of the many who got stuck with the “New Bob Dylan” tag. I met him one afternoon. He is a nice guy…he sat behind me at a Rolling Stones concert in Vanderbilt Stadium on the Bridges to Babylon tour on Oct. 26, 1997. He was almost 20 years older but still had that boyish face. It surprised me because I was thinking…wait…he is Steve Forbert…why doesn’t he have better seats?

According to the Jackrabbit Slim album sleeve, the song was dedicated to the memory of the late Supreme, Florence Ballard, who died in 1976. Forbert actually wrote the song about a girl from his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, rather than the Supremes singer.

John Simon produced this song/album. His credits include The Band’s Music from Big Pink and Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills. The song and album were recorded in Quadraphonic Sound studios, Nashville, Tennessee.

One tidbit I picked up that I would have never guessed. Steve was in Cyndi Lauper’s video “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” I only halfway believed it but sure enough he plays Cyndi’s boyfriend in a tuxedo at the end.

Steve Forbert on Ballard: “that seemed like such bad news to me and such sad news. She wasn’t really taken care of by the music business, which is not a new story.”

Steve Forbert on being compared with Dylan: “You can’t pay any attention to that. It was just a cliché back then, and it’s nothing I take seriously. I’m off the hook – I don’t have to be smarter than everybody else and know all the answers like Bob Dylan.”

Romeo’s Tune

Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Bring me southern kisses from your room
Meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Let me smell the moon in your perfume

Oh, Gods and years will rise and fall
And there’s always something more
It’s lost in talk, I waste my time
And it’s all been said before
While further down behind the masquerade the tears are there
I don’t ask for all that much I just want someone to care
That’s right now

Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Come on out beneath the shining sun

Meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Sneak on out beneath the stars and run

Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah, oh yeah

It’s king and queen and we must go down now beyond the chandelier
Where I won’t have to speak my mind and you won’t have to hear
Shreds of news and afterthoughts and complicated scenes
We’ll huddle down behind the light and fade like magazines

Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Bring me southern kisses from your room

Hey hey, meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Let me smell the moon in your perfume

Oh now, meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Let me see you smiling back at me

Hey, meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Hold me tight and love and loving’s free

Whoa yeah