Stereo

I’ve been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met

Yes, another mid-90s era track, but this is a classic. Caught it playing over the radio this morning and I couldn’t resist to repeat it on my playlist now.

With one of the longest song name title I can remember and with an ultra cool band name, Primitive Radio Gods hit it big with B.B. King’s How Blue Can You Get sampled single Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth with Money in My Hand from the album Rocket in 1996. The track also appeared in Jim Carrey’s The Cable Guy soundtrack, which includes Silverchair, Cypress Hill, Filter, Ruby, Cracker, Porno for Pyros and Pearl Jam-affiliated $10,000 Gold Chain (both did Lou Reed covers) to name a few. Alice in Chain’s guitarist Jerry Cantrell also performed a solo track.

Phonebooth gave Primitive Radio Gods cult status for a while, before the evil-do of the recording industry dropped the Gods whilst still working on a next record. In the own words of singer/song-writer Jerry O’Connor, “It was like, ‘It’s fine if we fail, if we make a second record and there’s no hits and nobody likes it,’ but don’t we even get a chance to fail?”.

Bummer.

Download: Primitive Radio Gods - Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth… (MP3 format)

Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth With Money in My Hand
by Primitive Radio Gods
from Rocket (1996)

Jan lays down and wrestles in her sleep
Moonlight spills on comic books
And superstars in magazines

An old friend calls and tells us where to meet
Her plane takes off from Baltimore
And touches down on Bourbon Street

We sit outside and argue all night long
About a god we’ve never seen
But never fails to side with me

Sunday comes and all the papers say
Ma Theresa’s joined the mob
And happy with her full time job

Am I alive or thoughts that drift away?
Does summer come for everyone?
Can humans do what prophets say?

And if I die before I learn to speak
Can money pay for all the days I lived awake
But half asleep?

A life is time, they teach you growing up
The seconds ticking killed us all
A million years before the fall

You ride the waves but don’t ask where they go
You swim like lions through the crest
And bathe yourself in zebra flesh

I’ve been downhearted baby
Ever since the day we met