The Silver-Tongued Devil and I Lyrics
A damned travesty that there are only a handful of comments on the collection here of one of the greatest lyricist of all time.
This is a story about treating women poorly and the remorse he feels about it. Almost a Jekyll and Hyde bit. A tongue-in-cheek excuse for his scoundrel ways.
One of my favorites...and a great explanation. I think the lack of comments is because Kris seldom leaves you wondering about what his songs are about.
Ah, the good old days... the late 60's and early 70's before the days when an STD could kill you.
This is largely about a good looking but shy man, as Kris was, who needs to get a good buzz going to release his charms and get beyond the prim, proper and shyness that's been pounded into his being his whole life in order to approach someone with the sole intent to get laid. The other side of the coin is there were plenty of women who with new found freedom from Birth Control Pills and the resulting sexual revolution were just out for No Strings Attached sex at certain points of their life. Still, most women didn't want to appear ‘easy'. {Hence, the ‘controversial’ Rush Limbaugh comment that most guys knew there were times when ‘no’ really meant ‘yes’ if you didn’t automatically give up the first time you heard it or did not get “NO slapped” rang true with many of us who came of age during this era} So investing several hours getting slowly drunk then leaving together come closing time was a protocol many of we young people adopted as OK. Sometimes the one nighter would turn into something more {Jackson Browne's "Ready or Not" is about one such encounter} but if it didn't it was nothing to be crushed over. That is not the case with TSD&I As a former bartender back then in a hip, young people place I saw plenty of what's in this song come to fruition and did the same thing many times when I was on the other side of the bar .... walk in, see a good looking young lady with an empty stool beside her and sit down, start drinking and turning on the charm. Well, actually there were two of us on those occasions ... ah, ha, ha, ha. ... The silver tongued devil and I, who was merely along for the ride. ; )