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Six O'Clock News Lyrics
Wanda had a baby in nineteen fifty one.
The father was a stranger, and a stranger was the son.
Call that child James Lewis, call these rooms a home.
Changing all them diapers, polish all that chrome.
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
All around the schoolyard, playing all the games
Running, laughing back and forth with the kid with two first names
Stranger in the closet, lock the diary
The past is running faster singing harmony
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
"God bless this kitchen," said the knick-knack shelf
"Well dinner's almost ready, go and wash yourself"
Jimmy's growing up now, and Wanda's growing old
The days are growin' shorter, the nights are long and cold
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
Sneaking in the closet and through the diary
Now, don't you know all he saw was all there was to see
The whole town saw Jimmy on the six o'clock news
His brains were on the sidewalk and blood was on his shoes
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
The father was a stranger, and a stranger was the son.
Call that child James Lewis, call these rooms a home.
Changing all them diapers, polish all that chrome.
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
All around the schoolyard, playing all the games
Running, laughing back and forth with the kid with two first names
Stranger in the closet, lock the diary
The past is running faster singing harmony
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
"God bless this kitchen," said the knick-knack shelf
"Well dinner's almost ready, go and wash yourself"
Jimmy's growing up now, and Wanda's growing old
The days are growin' shorter, the nights are long and cold
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
Sneaking in the closet and through the diary
Now, don't you know all he saw was all there was to see
The whole town saw Jimmy on the six o'clock news
His brains were on the sidewalk and blood was on his shoes
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
C'mon, baby, spend the night with me
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6 O'clock News is about a boy who finds out that he is a result of the incestual relationship his mother had with her father. The truth is locked away in the diary which is locked away in the closet.
Jimmy as he grows, finds the truth in the diary and commits suicide.
"C'mon Baby, spend the night with me", would be Wanda's father speaking to her.
And I've always assumed Jimmy jumped to his death.
I've assumed this was the story behind this tragic song and have found multiple references to it on the web.
Actually...I got to investigating it a bit and found this quote from John himself from the liner notes of the album.
"As a child, a neighborhood kid who was always in trouble chose me for a friend. His brothers pushed him around a lot, and his mother generally ignored him. Years later as a teenager, still always in trouble, he ended up in Juvenile Court and the prosecutor decided to tell the court and my friend, that his father was his father, but his mother was his oldest sister. No wonder he was always in trouble". ~John Prine
Wanda is a whore. Jimmy grows up in a whore house “calls these rooms a home” He reads her diary. He kills his mother “blood on his shoes” before killing himself.
this song is so sad it makes me cry. its about a kid that grows up not knowing his father, and gets into "trouble" for it. it ends up with him going out and being killed, but could also be taken that he went out to find the dad who abandoned him and actually murdered him. i love the way john repeats the line "c'mon baby, spend the night with me" which i believe is the father of the child to the mother. it is a constant reminder us all what can happen as a result of a one night stand and premature relationship. jp is sooo gr8!
The song is about a lady that spends her life sleeping with strange men looking for love (or money) and then she gets pregnant and has a baby. She doesn't know who the real father is and that's why she gave the boy two first names. "Polish all that chrome" refers to one of the sexual acts Wanda performs on the men. When James Lewis is old enough to read, he finds his mother's diary and reads about where he really came from. He is so distraught he commits suicide by jumping out a window (his brains were on the...
The song is about a lady that spends her life sleeping with strange men looking for love (or money) and then she gets pregnant and has a baby. She doesn't know who the real father is and that's why she gave the boy two first names. "Polish all that chrome" refers to one of the sexual acts Wanda performs on the men. When James Lewis is old enough to read, he finds his mother's diary and reads about where he really came from. He is so distraught he commits suicide by jumping out a window (his brains were on the sidewalk and blood was on his shoes" and it ends up on the 6:00 news. (The repeated line "come on baby..." signifies the mother going home with strange men.) The only hting I'm unsure of is whether Wanda was a prostitute or if she slept around to make up for a loveless existence.
I love this tragic story of a boy who finds out the secret of who his father is and winds up killing himself. And then you have his lonely, love-seeking mother.... pure hurt.
Now, imagine that the person telling this story (narrator, if you wish) is Wanda - speaking of herself in the third person. Spine-chilling....
John Prine stated that the song was based on a childhood friend who was the product of an incestuous relationship between his eldest sister and his father. In the song, a teenage James finds his mother's diary and when he realizes the truth about his parents, jumps to his death.
On "Concert John Prine - Live From Sessions At West 54th", released in 2001, John introduces the song with: "We're gonna sing some old songs, some new ones off the new record. This is a song I wrote quite a while ago. I don't know what I was thinkin' when I wrote this. I think I was trying to write somethin' so sad that it would be pretty."
I wondered about this song meaning when I first heard and played the song at an open mic. While I am sure the liner notes are definitive, I felt that it was better to keep it a mystery for everyone to solve.
My guess was that James was the product of a one night stand, and James found out that his mother resented him and wished he was never born. When he learned that he blew his brains out.
Small point, If he jumped, I don’t think blood would be on his shoes. He must have been upright and suffered a wound to his head.
Next puzzle. Who was the stranger? Perhaps his mother was raped. So very sad.
The song is about a boy who grows up estranged from his father. He struggles with feelings of homosexuality, but loses the struggle and commits suicide. John Prine offers to have slept with him if that is what it would have taken to prevent the suicide.