“Red Shoes” was written in November 2006. I’d had a rough day with a first world problem, trying to settle on my first property purchase and it made everything feel out of whack: Would it happen? When would I be able to move out of where I was living?
I remember seeing a guy with fantastic red shoes – this was long before the recent trend of crazy bright-coloured trainers – and the song came to me, pretty much right away: a cry for help (“take away my blues”) but at the same time making fun of my drama and melancholy.
Who knows how quickly it came to me the analogy of Dorothy clicking the heels of her ruby slippers together to take her home? It certainly makes the song more, ahem, gay.
I think it’s a sweet little song, and perfectly appropriate to be the first song in a long time to post a video of. Hopefully, another one will be forthcoming in not too long a time. I’ve wanted for ages to put up new videos of my backlog of unrecorded songs. What a difference today’s technology makes. The iPhone camera video is of so much better quality than what I used in the past. I can edit videos easily with iMovie and integrate the video into a blog post. Easy peasy.
So, no excuses. I don’t need them to be perfect, but on the other hand, I’ll need to practise them up and… memorize them, as in previous videos, I find it terribly distracting that my eyes are switching back and forth between the lyrics and the video.
In the meantime, here are the lyrics for “Red Shoes” below.
Give me some red shoes, take away my blues Give me a clear sky, Give me an alibi Take away gravity, give me some levity Give me a top hat, give me some of that Whether’s it’s cheap or quite costly I will freely share If I took something that is not mine I will put it back there Give me some red shoes, give me a long snooze, Give me a benediction, loan me an electrician Grant me a safe passage, toss me a red cabbage Give me a rough average… of your sums I’ve been trying to not keep count How many heavy days I’ve had enough experience To know we go through phases Of how many things can go wrong How many stones in the road How many bends, how many curves and detours Can this way hold? If there are too many types of the devil, Will my patience fold? Give me some red shoes, take away my blues Give me a clear sky, Give me an alibi Take away gravity, give me some levity Give me a top hat, give me some of that Give me some red shoes…red shoes… red shoes…