Meet Steve Goodman Via David Allan Coe

While this post features a performance by David Allan Coe, its primary purpose is to introduce Steve Goodman, an extraordinarily talented and witty folk singer from Chicago, who wrote “You Never Even Called Me By My Name.”  More about Goodman in later posts.

The Perfect Country And Western Song

In spoken dialogue before the final verse of  “You Never Even Called Me By My Name,” Coe explains that “a friend of mine named Steve Goodman” wrote this song and described it as “the perfect country and western song.” Coe goes on to tell Goodman he was wrong; that no song could be “the perfect country and western song” without mention of “mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or getting drunk.” Consequently, Goodman added a final verse, which incorporated all five cliches, whereupon Coe proclaimed it now to be “the perfect country-and-western song.”
 

 

Photo by Matthew Woitunski – originally posted to Flickr as David Allen Coe, CC BY 2.0, via Wikipedia