song lyric...

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corsair
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song lyric...

Post by corsair »

I know... I know - this is for tabs but I can't see a lyric thread anyplace!! Anyway I have a lyric that's been bugging me for about 15 years and I cannot find it anywhere, or indeed anyone that knows the song so you blokes are my last great white hope....

Song is "The cat was a junkie" by Ronnie Milsap and the lyric that I've always just fudged over onstage is at 1.38 - 1.42, and starts, "Rufus Thomas on the ??"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ibDUBbr98[/youtube]

Any of you guys help; it's like an itch you can't scratch, eh!!
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Re: song lyric...

Post by JD »

On the sm....for smack possibly?
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Re: song lyric...

Post by corsair »

Well... my better half came and had a listen and reckons the line is "Rufus Thomas on the FM", so I Googled Rufus Thomas and he was a blues muso - amongst other things - quite popular on the radio in the mid 70's when FM was just starting to catch on, so there's another possibility!!

Thanks, man!
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Re: song lyric...

Post by Rog »

I heard it as Rufus Thomas, all the others ~ everyone has gone and left him helpless ... although on the airwaves make sense too, since RT was a DJ.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by Some Bozo »

I vote "on the FM". Here's another version that predates Milsap and it's a little clearer. It sounds like both versions are fudging the pronunciation of "F.M" to make it sort-of-rhyme with "left him". Also these guys seem to be singing "in a coma" not "in a corner"
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDL_OcAkQJk[/youtube]
Last edited by Some Bozo on Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by willow13 »

sounds a bit like "Rufus Thomas on the airfare".....but "on the FM" sounds more logically right

Maybe ask on his facebook page???

first time I have ever heard of Ronnie Milsap, but I liked it a lot

EDIT*some bozo's link to me confirms "on the FM"
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Re: song lyric...

Post by NZRS-Dave »

I thought it was 'on the advent'

But seeing the offering of 'on the FM' seems much better.

However, how old is this song and when did FM radio become popular? I remember only AM stations as a boy and this song seems older than that.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by Rog »

The song was written by Roy Orbison apparently.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by willow13 »

NZRS-Dave wrote:I thought it was 'on the advent'

But seeing the offering of 'on the FM' seems much better.

However, how old is this song and when did FM radio become popular? I remember only AM stations as a boy and this song seems older than that.
FM radio has been around since the late 30's, don't know when it became "popular" but reference to it can mean a number of things
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Re: song lyric...

Post by JD »

I also heard it as "On the FM" and thought ok, maybe the music reference but then looked up drug references and thought ok, maybe sm since there seems to be no FM references in drug slang.

It doesn't sound sibilant enough for an "s", so yeah, could be FM.
I had a search of google just like you probably did and turned up nothing.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by Slowy »

Yeah. FM.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by Some Bozo »

willow13 wrote:
NZRS-Dave wrote:I thought it was 'on the advent'

But seeing the offering of 'on the FM' seems much better.

However, how old is this song and when did FM radio become popular? I remember only AM stations as a boy and this song seems older than that.
FM radio has been around since the late 30's, don't know when it became "popular" but reference to it can mean a number of things
I think the deal with FM in the U.S. is it started to take off in the sixties and 70s when the AM frequencies were already filled up with long-established mainstream stations, and because it ws a niche market because you had to buy a fancy new radio to pick up it, FM stations tended to be less popular left-field stuff, so listenign to FM probably had a vaguely "underground" connotation when this song was written, the kind of wacky "out there" thing you'd associate with junkies :lol: . But I'd guess the main reason for "FM" is it has the right number of syllables.
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Re: song lyric...

Post by corsair »

Thanks, fellas - Milsaps' version came out in 1974 and I remember hearing it a couple of times on 4XO in Dunedin and thinking "Wow; this is a great song!!" back then; enough to actually listen for the DJ to tell me who the singer was and the track name!

The version SB posted was 1970; I thought these two wrote it, so the Roy Orbison thing is new to me - thanks Rog!!
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