b Papa Dog's Blog: In the Neighbourhood

Papa Dog's Blog

A Thing Wherein I Infrequently Write Some Stuff

Monday, May 07, 2007

In the Neighbourhood

One of Baby Dog’s current night time songs is “In the Neighbourhood,” by Tom Waits. If you don’t know it, it goes:

Well, the eggs chase the bacon round the fryin' pan
and the whining dog pigeons by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails over last night
and there's always construction work bothering you
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood

Friday's the funeral and Saturday's the bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter delivered no more
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood

Well big Mambo's kicking his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream 'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags blow down the lane
and the goddamn flatbed's got me pinned in again
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood

There's a couple Filipino girl's giggling by the church
and the window is busted and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's digging up the sidewalks again
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood

The thing that’s funny about this is that back when Mama Dog and I were first together, I had this tradition of playing that song just before I left for work every day. I was pretending it was the theme song of my sitcom or something, and as I went out to walk through my neighbourhood on the way to BART, Tom would be growling along in accompaniment. Or something like that. Anyway, like most of my silly obsessions it fell by the wayside after a while, but Mama Dog sure must feel like something’s come around again every time she hears me singing Baby Dog to sleep.

Also, in full disclosure – when I sing the song to Baby Dog, I edit three things. I change “goddamn” to a weaselly “gosh-darn,” just because I don’t want her volunteering opinions about the goddamn delivery trucks at daycare. Secondly, I change “Filipino girls” to “Filipina girls,” because, you know, they’re girls. And lastly, I say “we don’t get our butter delivered anymore,” because I just can’t bear the thought of her employing double negatives at such a tender age.

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