Perhaps the most troubling song on Newman’s 12 Songs, in that the lyrics are too superficially benign to be on an album populated with stalkers, women being run over by beach sweepers, racists, rednecks, mama’s boys and lonely gas station attendants. Not to mention Uncle Bob, who decides to tie up a goat in his front yard for all his “so-called friends to see”. Yet in the midst of all this is Rosemary, a plea from the narrator to the title character to take a walk with him in a park. Is it simply a portrait of a randy teenager? Is the narrator another demented stalker like the narrator of Suzanne? Does he wish to take the girl to “a place where it’s nice and dark” for sex or something more sinister? In the context of any other album, one would not think twice about what the lyrics mean. In the context of 12 Songs, it’s downright menacing.
Perhaps the most troubling song on Newman’s 12 Songs, in that the lyrics are too superficially benign to be on an album populated with stalkers, women being run over by beach sweepers, racists, rednecks, mama’s boys and lonely gas station attendants. Not to mention Uncle Bob, who decides to tie up a goat in his front yard for all his “so-called friends to see”. Yet in the midst of all this is Rosemary, a plea from the narrator to the title character to take a walk with him in a park. Is it simply a portrait of a randy teenager? Is the narrator another demented stalker like the narrator of Suzanne? Does he wish to take the girl to “a place where it’s nice and dark” for sex or something more sinister? In the context of any other album, one would not think twice about what the lyrics mean. In the context of 12 Songs, it’s downright menacing.