Monday, March 21, 2011

Cherchez La Vache

From his 1997 album Girls N' Cows, please enjoy singer/songwriter Richard Goldman -- a young man who I suspect has several Beatles CDs in his collection -- and his "Prettiest Girl at the Funeral," a charmingly melodic yet sardonic track that more than lives up to one of the most outrageous song titles in pop music history.




Wow, that's good -- like Revolver-era Fab Four but with French cabaret accordion. I should add that if I ever play live in a band again, I desperately want to cover this but with really loud guitars, just to make the song's provenance a little more explicit.

I should also add that although I've listened to it countless times since the album first came out, I'm still not sure if the titular girl of the song is in the casket or not.

5 comments:

Faze said...

I think the line "She was colder than the stiff that we were passin' by ..." establishes that the "prettiest girl" is not the deceased. I look forward to hearing the rest of the album. But you're right that it could rock a little harder. Goldman had to sacrifice some oomph to keep the lyrics up front.

steve simels said...

Well, that's certainly an indicator. But that begs the question of who she is -- the deceased's wife? The lover of the singer of the song? The funeral singer that the preacher has the woody for?

It's all a little ambiguous....

TMink said...

Great jangle.

Trey

pete said...

I love the tune. Wouldn't change a thing.

Anonymous said...

Richard was part of the radio trio "Three guys from Hollywood" and wrote "Frozen embryos" among other satiric songs.

Alf in Oslo