This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Dis empowered, the scattering flock
Dances in a fever at the castle rock
Dust-devil cypress and ripening fruit
Ascending quick into the author's bathroom
Fawn, Jo and Tootsie are out on a wire
Lettuce-toothed junkies all full of desire
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
And there's nothing I can say to you
I've got a lot of work to do
I guess I'll leave it up to you
Uninvited, we'll stay if we want
Searching through your closets for your grandfather's gun
We will swim in your kidney, kidney-shaped pool
Scratching at the bottom for another clue, yeah
Fawn, Jo and Tootsie are out on a wire
Lettuce-toothed junkies all full of desire
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
(Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude)
And there's nothing I can say to you
(Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude)
And there's nothing I can do
And there's nothing I can say to you
I've got a lot of work to do
I guess I'll leave it up to you
Dances in a fever at the castle rock
Dust-devil cypress and ripening fruit
Ascending quick into the author's bathroom
Fawn, Jo and Tootsie are out on a wire
Lettuce-toothed junkies all full of desire
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
And there's nothing I can say to you
I've got a lot of work to do
I guess I'll leave it up to you
Uninvited, we'll stay if we want
Searching through your closets for your grandfather's gun
We will swim in your kidney, kidney-shaped pool
Scratching at the bottom for another clue, yeah
Fawn, Jo and Tootsie are out on a wire
Lettuce-toothed junkies all full of desire
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude
And there's nothing I can do
(Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude)
And there's nothing I can say to you
(Meanwhile, Rick James takes her nude)
And there's nothing I can do
And there's nothing I can say to you
I've got a lot of work to do
I guess I'll leave it up to you
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I think you have to sit with this for a while to get it, but I might be wrong about that...
Cake is super ironic, sometimes cynical, but always underneath it's because John McCrea is really sensitive... you get kind of sarcastic when you care in life and you get pissed on. Welcome to humanity.
Anyway, I think there's a few things that are just thrown in there as either un-knowable references, or things to throw you off from the main plot. But overall, I think the plot is this: Guy goes out dancing with a group of friends, one of whom he's in love with. She meets another dude (probably black), and goes with him.
Now before you jump to a bunch of conclusions, try it on. Fawn, Jo, and Tootsie are out on a wire: these 3 friends are wired, i.e., on a drug bender... Lettuce-toothed junkies all full of desire... they get stoned, and then want to screw the next random dude (ever met anyone like that? nah, never).
So, to end the whole discussion about whether it's "Rick James takes her new" vs. "takes her nude", it's nude. You can't hear it in the first chorus, but you can clearly hear it in the second, and there's even emphasis on the "d" sound in the second one. And it's intended, as so often with Cake songs, to be heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. Here's this bouncy melody, la di da, oh and by the way, here's my girlfriend fucking some random dude. Maximum impact, classic Cake. (I love that.)
And there's nothing I can do. And there's nothing I can say to you. I've got a lot of work to do? Hmm. I think she's his girlfriend, he's more in love than she is, and she's mad at him for something he's done (or failed to do), so to punish him she's gone off with some random dude. He, having an inferiority complex as he does, takes all the responsibility on himself -- he's got a lot of work to do in order to gain her love. He guesses he'll leave it up to her. As any weenie would.
As to why Rick James, I don't think it's literal, I just think that's a derogatory reference to the random dude that his girlfriend just went off with.