#2 Greatest Felice Brothers song (so Far)- Don't Wake the Scarecrow

The tragic tale of a junkie and a hooker wrapped up in the setting of L Frank Baum's classic Wonderful Wizard of OZ, written and sung by Simone Felice, is as Uncut magazine called it, "one of the best songs written in the past twenty years". Its really a miracle, one that can so shake the listener, that the characters become part of our day. Is it a true tale of Simone's life? not sure. James, once said that Simone told him it was true, Simone once said, its true, but he only observed it. That said i have never heard a song that conjured up such vivid mental images, that i keep expecting the film version of this song to be released.
The line in the song that really connects these characters to world of the living is;
"I'd find you there in the bath
We'd cook up your shit in a tin can
And you started calling me Tin Man
And we started making plans to begin again
Begin again"

Neil McCormick of the London Telegraph says of Simone, "
But when he tells stories from his own life, as he did on the Felice Brothers remarkable 'Scarecrow' (which I think is lyrically the greatest song of recent years, with its incredible internal rhyming scheme, bold metaphor and powerful emotion) he goes to places few artists ever touch. "

I included both versions of this song, Felice Brothers and Duke and the King

full lyrics


Would you love me
If I told you I was born upstream
If I told you I come from money
White money
Would you love me
Would you love me

Well, I was born down
By a bad little river in a poor town
Where an indian-giver put a board out
It said "Boarding House"
Call him Scarecrow
He kept whores around

And I'd go there
I'd wait my turn on the broke stairs
And get me the girl with the gold hair
Aw yeah, leave your clothes there
On the folding chair

In that cold room
our breath would twist just like ghosts do
You said, "Call me Dorothy in red shoes"
And the bed moved
The bed moved
The bed moved

Tracy, don't you wake that scarecrow tonight

Well, the man would come in
It's hard living right giving head when
The sad days of winter have set in
And the medicine for an mannequin is heroin

I'd find you there in the bath
We'd cook up your shit in a tin can
And you started calling me Tin Man
And we started making plans to begin again
Begin again

You saved a C note
Told me you felt like a seagull
Told me to meet at the depot
With the needle, then maybe we'd go
To Reno

Where you'd be my desert dove
And we'd find a way to make better love
Said, "Baby, that's how the West was won"
And the blood-red sun
Yeah, the blood-red sun
And the blood-red sun

Tracy, don't you wake that scarecrow tonight

Well, the man cries,
"Who gives a damn when a tramp dies?"
But I loved you there in the lamp light
With your bare thighs
And the halo of your hair line

And all my lifelong
I'll never shake off your siren song
And all of your talk about dying young
With an iron lung and that crazy way

You said, "Simone,
I think I might stay here with Scarecrow tonight
Simone, I think I'm gonna stay here with Scarecrow tonight."








Don't Wake the Scarecrow (The Duke and the King)