Week 4: Snatch & The Poontangs - Two Time Slim.wmv

Written by Johnny Otis who introduced Snatch & The Poontangs on the scene, the lyrics are far out, very coarse_ the type you wouldn’t find in today’s rap which just goes to prove commercial rap needs to mature and actually become what it claims to be. Gay too, the lyrics I mean, and that’s another thing I didn’t expect from 1969 (no pun intended). 

Old South feeling, definitely… Two seconds into the songs and miserable, and proud to be so, scenes are popping into your head. Very early, without noticing, you find yourself singing along the guitar. Then, you’re reminded of the singer by his intonation and you try to mimic his crazy accent. You fail, of course, because you’re too much in awe, slightly shy, cheeks turning browner or redder, whichever. The vocals are a long, weird talk and just when you’re convinced you wouldn’t wanna meet this Two Time Slim anywhere on the street, you’re even gladder you get to listen to him. Eyebrows are raised by now, eyes wide open, for the song is a progressive moral downfall_ an iconic one.
But, wait! The guy is going on and the lyrics are becoming nastier. You just don’t know how to choose what to pay attention to, running between that perfect pure perfection of a guitar, his accent on a flawless diction, and the nasty words, back and forth, back and forth. Now you’ve realised this song is just perfect, awful of course, but perfect.
Tein nein nein nein, nein nein! That blues guitar sings. No, it does more: it complains, it tells a story, it contradicts, it mocks you even; it’s the star of the song; it’s caressing, violent and sensual in one stroke. It is Two Time Slim.
Now, too late perhaps, you stop everything else, you’ve gotta close your eyes and just listen. Just listen.
It’s power. 

P.S. It’s cut in two at some point as if they had glued two different recording sessions. That just makes it more iconic, really the imprint of an era.

From lyrics.com
http://www.lyrics.com/two-time-slim-lyrics-johnny-otis.html  

Yeah
Say, baby
D'you know who I am?
I'm Bam Bim
Two Time Slim
The High Sheriff said
From Hell

I'm the motherfucker that rode zigzag lightnin'
Down the middle of the Panama Canal
I'm known from the coast of Maine to the coast of Spain
You can look on the Golden Gate Bridge
And see my goddamn name

I was converted with two .45s on my side
And baptised in a barrel of butcher knives
The stains of all those whip cane mark my hide
A rattlesnake bit me
And that motherfucker crawled off and died

I hunt trouble every day of my life
Of peace and quiet, I do despise

You see, baby
I'm 48 inches across my chest
And don't fear a goddamn thing between life and death

I'm the baddest motherfucker you've ever seen
I'm worse than a bucket nightmare in a midnight dream

You see,
Everything that I do is wrong
If I go to the store I stay too long
If I bring back butter, I should have got lard
When I get ready to fuck
My dick ain't hard

But don’t play me cheap ‘cause I’m skinnin’ and grinnin’
And doing my little laugh
‘Cause I’m the kinda cocksucker to start
An uprisin’ in a motherfucker’s ass

Yeah

I might as well get shitty
Right down to the bone
You know, I beat three murder cases
‘Fore I was grown

I carry a .38 special built on a .45 frame
It shoots tombstone bullets, ball and chain
I sing graveyard songs and I ain’t lyin’
I’m a bad motherfucker and I don’t mind dyin’

I bolted down lightnin’ and captured thunder
I’ve done some shit that made the whole world wonder

During the war, the army laid down their guns
And I won the fight
I’ve been known to eat a wild gorilla
From asshole to appetite

Among the ‘hos you might hear my name ring
But a bitch with a head shaped like a four way cold tablet
Liable to say any goddamn thing

You know, when I go home
I have to walk 44 miles of barbed wire
When I go out
I wear a cobra snake for a necktie

My house is high on a cliff and it hangs over the edge
And it’s made out of human skulls
And if I don’t start some shit and kick 20 bad asses ‘fore noon
My whole day seems kinda dull

Yeah

The drink I like best is hydrochloric acid
And I keep me some around
I pissed next to a fireproof bomb shelter
And burnt that motherfucker down

But I want you to excuse me
For being so bold
But I’m the type of son-of-a-bitch
That crawl over fifty good pussies
To get to one fat boy’s asshole

You see, when I was young
And in my prime
I could catch a ‘ho any old time
Now I’m old and grey and very cold
And I can’t get a bitch to save my soul

So up to it, down to it
Damn the man that won’t do it
But he’ll run his nasty hands through it
Ought to be tied to it and made to do it
‘Cause he ain’t used to it

I’m Bam Bim
Two Time Slim

From lyrics.com
http://www.lyrics.com/two-time-slim-lyrics-johnny-otis.html  



P.S. Interesting to note that the lyrics from You know when I go home to human skulls are partly borrowed from Bo Diddley's song, "Who do you love?" (1956):

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of a human skull,

From lyricsmode:  http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/bo_diddley/who_do_you_love.html