Frank and Delores: "What's it all mean?"

3 August 1998

Folks,

Here's the long-avoided response to the great "Frank and Delores" question, raised by the inimicable L.Jack and her wounded paws:

• The Lyrics
• Their Meaning
• The MP3 Download

First: The Lyrics

FRANK AND DELORES

Written by:  Michael G. Greaves,
The Best Country Singer from Northern England

Covered by The Beautiful South on COUTC "B" and
the Good as Gold Single #2

Frank loved the blue
Big open skies
Played an old concertina
Singing loo-lullabies

Frank loved an angel
With black Spanish eyes
And a smile to remind him of heaven

Frank's been missing since Delores telephoned
Scared of his shadow he's bleached to the bone
Washed in the tears for a love that lays dying
Wings have a habit of flying

Singer and waitress he worked in saloons
Between big red sunsets and big yellow moons
Tears in his eyes stones in his shoes
Howling Wolf in his blues

Frank's been missing since Delores telephoned
Scared of his shadow he's bleached to the bone
Washed in the tears for a love that lays dying
Wings have a habit of flying

Oooh tears in his eyes stones in his shoes
Howling Wolf in his blues

Second:  What does it all mean?

What's obvious -- Frank is a bar pianista (pianisto) much like Billy Joel in the Piano Man, except older and sadder

Delores is the ravishing raven haired, dark eyed beauty who's swept up his heart with a flash of her dark lashes ... think Salma Hayek in the   TV Movie version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", except this time she's a waitress, not a gypsy dancer, and there's no hunchback ... or evil guy ...

Anyway

Delores leaves. Did she love him? Did she ever love him? The first time he hears she's leaving is a phone call to the bar when he's working and she's not.

She definitely used him, let him use his tip money to buy her little things ... but guess what?

They never even kissed.

The whole relationship was a fantasy of his.

The phone call? Wasn't even to him, it was to the manager telling him she was quitting and leaving town.

Frank's "stones in his shoes" had prevented him from ever telling her how he felt, and now it was too late.

Life sucks doesn't it.

Seize the day, you Franks. The real bitch is that we all think we're Delores, footloose and fancy free, flitting through life, until  we find out that we're actually Frank, and we've let the things we deem to be important slip out of our grasp because we're too busy dreaming of the "blue, big open skies"

Play it, Sam, play it again.

Third: The MP3 Download

If you don't have the two disc version of "Carry On Up the Charts" or "Good as Gold" (or any of the pirated discs, you can download Frank and Delores right here in MP3 format.

What are you thoughts?