You First: You Can Leave Your Hat On

art by Michele Hyacynth

Randy Newman: You Can Leave Your Hat On

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Joe Cocker: You Can Leave Your Hat On

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Tom Jones: You Can Leave Your Hat On

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Marc Broussard: You Can Leave Your Hat On

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Let's call this post "Four Decades of Soft-Core Sexual Suggestion."

Got your attention now?

I'm going to declare Randy Newman the King of Intellectual Musical Wit (the heir-apparent, though, might be Steely Dan). Here's a test for our clearly above-average Star Maker Machine reader: did you get all OMG offended! at his epic song 'Short People' and lobby your state legislature to make playing it on the radio a crime (as Maryland attempted), or did you see it as the anti-prejudicial statement it really was? In other words, do you get Randy Newman?

'You Can Leave Your Hat On' is another in Newman's wink-wink-nudge-nudge repertoire. The title phrase seems to be the only item of clothing the narrator doesn't want removed. Newman released his version in 1972 (on 'Sail Away'); it was picked up in a big way by English blues rocker Joe Cocker in 1986 and featured in a strip scene in the film '9½ Weeks'. Tom Jones, the Welsh crooner, did the same favor in 1997 for the film 'The Full Monty'. (And he sang it live in 2002 at 'Party at the Palace', a pop concert at Buckingham Palace honoring Queen Elizabeth's 50 years on the throne. Somehow imaging Queen Liz shaking her booty to this tune keeps crawling into my brain. Bad! Bad!) Finally, blues-rock artist Marc Broussard paid homage to it on the 2006 Newman tribute album, 'Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman'.

You give me reason to live…You give me reason to live…You give me reason to live…

Clothes: You Can Leave Your Hat On

Randy Newman: You Can Leave Your Hat On

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Apparently, there's a rich subset of headgear to be mined in this week's theme. But Randy Newman's classic isn't just about hats. Quite the opposite, in fact: it's about everything one could wear coming off sultry and slow, followed by a series of puppetmaster striptease chessmoves from a narrator obsessed with an unidentified, objectified stripper of some sort. I don't usually go for full-bore lyrics, but these read so perfectly like the mind of a dirty old man they just have to be shared:

Baby, take off your coat...(real slow)
Baby, take off your shoes...(here, I'll take your shoes)
Baby, take off your dress
Yes, yes, yes
You can leave your hat on...

Go on over there and turn on the light...no, all the lights
Now come back here and stand on this chair...that's right
Raise your arms up in to the air...shake 'em
You give me a reason to live
You give me a reason to live...

Suspicious minds are talking
Trying to tear us apart
They say that my love is wrong
They don't know what love is...

I know what love is

As a bonus, here's some great covers, from the slightly gawky adolescent fumbling of Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule to Marc Broussard's sexiest, funkiest Randy Newman cover ever. And, then, of course, there's Tom Jones, being Tom Jones. Not my bag, but apparently old ladies still throw their panties at him.

Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule: You Can Leave Your Hat On
[five free albums of covers]

Marc Broussard: You Can Leave Your Hat On
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Tom Jones: You Can Leave Your Hat On
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