On one of my trips to Louisiana to visit my mother (or maybe on the way back) i was mulling over ideas for my next song. It had been a while since i had written “The Ivory Tower Blues”, and i felt it was time for another. This was the first time that i actively sought a topic for a song; previously i had just waited until something occurred to me. Anyway, two things in my early life flitted through my mind — an early bad experience eating canned spinach because that’s what Popeye ate (i actually did this twice because i couldn’t believe that it did not make me strong like it did Popeye), and my adoration of movie cowboy Randolph Scott, despite the fact that i always found his movies boring.
These memories led me to the decision to write a song about things highly anticipated that turned out to be disappointing when they finally occurred. A third example from my life came quickly as i remembered my disappointment in seeing (barely) Halley’s comet when it returned, an event that i had eagerly awaited for many years. I don’t remember whether i came up with a fourth example during that trip, or after i got home and had written the first, second, and fourth verses. At any rate, the experience mentioned in the third verse is totally made up; my attraction to girls/women has always been primarily to their intelligence, and only secondarily to their looks.