To one who stowed away inside my head

I have been thinking lately about the people who most influence us, the ones who really get under our skin, the ones who crawl inside our head and stow away.

I've been thinking about this because I've been singing to myself a song I wrote about such a person in my life. A rough mix of a recording of the song, "Argentina," recently resurfaced in Nashville. We rejected it for the next Eleanor Roosevelt record, but it's worth sharing here, I think.

And it sure has made me think a lot about somebody I used to know very well.

The lyrics are based on a story she once told me, when we used to spend many of our days together, in her apartment in a dangerous little pocket of the near South Side of St. Louis. It is also infused with the insecure and obsessive tinge to my feelings about her back then.

I'd crawl right up your leg
I'd crawl into your head
I'd crawl inside your bed
But you know know that
without it being said

You went to Argentina with
your trust friend and your best friend
But I did not get on the list
of those deserving a goodbye kiss

I'm always sending postcards
though I'm never far from home
See, it makes me feel
like I've been far away

I'd crawl inside your suitcase
I'd be your stowaway
But I'm afraid the dope dogs would drag me away
And you'd probably never even unpack me anyway

You went to Argentina with
a coke spoon and a bunch of poltoons
shooting dope with dignitary's son's son
Tell me, how did you like
your first taste of that?
Tell me, how did you like
your ride on the wild horse?
How did you like your first taste of smack?

Cork inside the bottle
Oh, but you'll suck it out
You got the brie cheese jammed
down in your orthodontal teeth

Getting drunk in the tropics
with a dictator's daughter
while I'm reading books back home
about the Latin American slaughter

You went to Argentina
I still recall the clothes you wore
to the dirty war
But I did not get on the list
I was on nobody's death list
And not on your list of love

I'd crawl right up your leg
I'd crawl inside your head
I'd crawl inside your bed
But you know know that
without it being said

I'm not sure that I ever outgrew those feelings. But I moved away, then she moved away, then she got married, and I got married, then one of us had a kid, and the other one of us had a kid. You end up too busy, pulled in too many different directions, for the old obsessions to matter very much anymore.

But still, you are alone in the car on the drive to work. And in the car, alone on the drive to work, you sing to yourself, and you pay brief visits to the people who have stowed away inside your head.

Free mp3

"Argentina"
(Chris King)
Eleanor Roosevelt

Chris King: vocals, guitar. Dave Melson, bass. John Minkoff, electric guitar. Billy Teague, drums.

Recorded in the old Undertow Studio in Downtown St. Louis. Produced and roughly mixed by Lij.

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Stowaway image from The Mariner's Museum.