by Shel Silverstein
Silverstein's voice resembles the sound of a locomotive making an emergency stop, and his lyrics-are often profane and tasteless. But he does write hilarious songs (just as he draws funny Playboy cartoons). Shel's material has been profitably picked up by Johnny Cash (A Boy Named Sue), Loretta Lynn (One's on the Way) and the Irish Rovers (The Unicorn), among others. His own albums have met with limited enthusiasm—the New York Times referred to one as "this repugnant LP." But in this LP Silverstein entertainingly captures and parodies the tone of pop-country music. In So Good to So Bad, he sings, "It started with words like forever/Then went to always from sometime to never." Yes, Mr. Rogers, presumably aimed at the TV children's show host, begins, "I'm living in sin with your daughter/ No, Mr. Rogers, we do not have separate rooms." The title song is about a Key West tourist train whose guide points out "where Tennessee did you know what to you know who that night."
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