You've heard the old joke: Be a lert; the country needs more lerts. That's all this song started out to be, a joke song. One of the lines in the song is "I checked the dictionary and loof just cain't be found," and it is imperative to the song (and the joke) that there's no such word as "loof" in the dictionary. And sure enough, it's not in my favorite dictionary, Winston's Simplified Dictionary, the 1932 Advanced Edition. It doesn't have modern words in it, but it has almost all of the words I want to look up. But wouldn't you know it, the Millennials (or whoever runs the internet) sabotaged my song and my joke by coming up with a definition for "loof" in their Urban Dictionary. Go ahead, look it up if you dare.
Gavin O'Keefe added some viola to an already busy song. As usual, I need somebody who can really sing the blues to handle the vocals on my R&R songs. The MP3 version is the typical noisy Calhoon recording, while the video shows Knees as if he were performing in an intimate bar with all kinds of Ramble House books on the wall.
When I was a young boy
An old man sez to me
Get yo self on ovah hyar
An hop up on mah knee
I’m gonna tell you a secret, kid
An I swear it’s the gospel troof,
You gotta be cool when them girls come ’round
Don’t be a fool — be aloof.
Be aloof.
Let em know yo interested
With a quick and easy smile
Then don’t let em see it again
Not for a long long while
Ya gotta keep em guessin
I swear it ain’t no spoof
You gotta be cool when them girls come around
Don’t be a fool — be aloof.
Be aloof.
So I checked the dictionary
An loof just caint be found
And that just gets me thinkin,
He’s givin me the run-around.
So I axed that ol man
As I hopped down off his knee
If yo such a big loof
What you doin here wif me?
He say well it worked wif yo mama
An yo’re the livin proof
You gotta be cool when them girls come around
Don’t be a fool — be aloof.
Be aloof.
BONUS COVER!
To go along with the ultimate Knees Calhoon song, I have chosen a classic Dylan song first recorded by The Band. Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity's version was used as the theme song of Absolutely Fabulous. I don't know what the song means but this countdown sure has been fun!
