“Green Earrings”—first song, side two of The Royal Scam (1976)

This is one of those songs that always confused me because there are so many, to me, contradictory elements going on. It starts out sounding like a corny jingle, but then a groove part kicks in, which is undeniable, but keeps getting interrupted by little corny breaks, which I suppose are essential, but whatever those chords are, they make me think of the sound of certain guitar jazz that puts me off. But whenever that groove part is going, the drums, the bass—just so heavy-duty—I kind of want just drums and bass, and maybe whatever that clavinet sounding keyboard is. I can imagine a live version of this where it just goes on and on, without the little breaks, for about 20 minutes, until people in the audience start passing out. There's also guitar all over the place, but it's so flashy it makes me feel like it's show-offy (though, I have to point out, not your typical rock guitar solos—the two in this song are pretty jaw-dropping). But it kind of points out the difference between the show-offy bass and drums, where they're just in a groove, sweating, but they are their own best audience—and the kind of show-offy solo, like the guitar solos in this song, where the guitarist may or may not sweat, but then maybe bows and gets showered with roses.

There are almost no lyrics—I'd like to say you could dispense with them and call the voice, singing these one word lines, another instrument, which it is, of course. Maybe these are just words that work in the structure of the song and also sound like they have meaning, but really don't. But I would never do that—say that. I've searched high and low (no I haven't) for the “green earrings” cultural reference—I mean, why are the earrings green? Are they old, or are there emeralds? The thought occurred to me that what if this whole song, all four minutes, was the title song of an hour TV show called “Green Earrings” that was kind of like The Fugitive (1963), where a guy (or better, in this case, a woman) is on the run, trying to find these elusive green earrings that will, for reasons we don't know, fix everything. This song could be that. The Green Earrings, then, are the classic MacGuffin. Most likely, though, it's some kind of sordid, jazzbo, insiderish, hipster sexual reference—maybe something we don't really want to know. Not nice. Even reprehensible. Maybe best to just leave it a mystery.

—Randy Russell 12.8.19