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Am I the only one who didn't know this?

In the John Prine article "Big Ol Goofy World" in Acoustic Guitar magazine John talks alot about songwriting. He was asked about the first song he ever wrote with somebody else and he answered Steve Goodman and the first song was You Never Even Call Me By My Name. Now I for sure knew that this is a Stevie Goodman song and not as a lot of people think a David Allen Coe song (a notion that DAC has never done a lot to disavow), but I have never heard that JP had a hand in it. Matter of fact, according to the article, John came up with the lines that became the song's title, "You don't have to call me darlin, darlin, You never even call me by my name". Funny thing is he didn't like the song, he thought it was a joke and when Steve recorded it JP told Steve not to put his name on it.

Eddie (you learn something new everyday) W.

BTW Wes, that No Depression article was a great one too.

a1aara wrote:a lot of people think a David Allen Coe song (a notion that DAC has never done a lot to disavow)

Not sure how you get that impression. Before going into the final verse, he credits Steve with the song. I don't too many recorded songs that mention the song writer IN the song.

WELL, A FRIEND OF MINE NAMED STEVE GOODMAN WROTE THAT SONG AND HE TOLD ME IT WAS THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG. I WROTE HIM BACK A LETTER AND I TOLD HIM IT WAS NOT THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG BECAUSE HE HADN'T SAID ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT MAMA, OR TRAINS, OR TRUCKS, OR PRISON, OR GETTIN' DRUNK. WELL HE SAT DOWN AND WROTE ANOTHER VERSE TO THE SONG AND HE SENT IT TO ME, AND AFTER READING IT, I REALIZED THAT MY FRIEND HAD WRITTEN THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG. AND I FELT OBLIGED TO INCLUDE IT ON THIS ALBUM. THE LAST VERSE GOES LIKE THIS HERE:

Sorry for the caps. It was that way on the lyrics page I pasted from.

land_shark3 wrote:

a1aara wrote:a lot of people think a David Allen Coe song (a notion that DAC has never done a lot to disavow)

Not sure how you get that impression. Before going into the final verse, he credits Steve with the song. I don't too many recorded songs that mention the song writer IN the song.

WELL, A FRIEND OF MINE NAMED STEVE GOODMAN WROTE THAT SONG AND HE TOLD ME IT WAS THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG. I WROTE HIM BACK A LETTER AND I TOLD HIM IT WAS NOT THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG BECAUSE HE HADN'T SAID ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT MAMA, OR TRAINS, OR TRUCKS, OR PRISON, OR GETTIN' DRUNK. WELL HE SAT DOWN AND WROTE ANOTHER VERSE TO THE SONG AND HE SENT IT TO ME, AND AFTER READING IT, I REALIZED THAT MY FRIEND HAD WRITTEN THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG. AND I FELT OBLIGED TO INCLUDE IT ON THIS ALBUM. THE LAST VERSE GOES LIKE THIS HERE:

Sorry for the caps. It was that way on the lyrics page I pasted from.

I hear you. I didn't write it just borrowed it from another site. Sorry for the confussion.

If you listen to the live track on Steve Goodman Anthology No Big Surprise...Steve says at the beginning of You never Even Call Me By My Name...

"John Prine and I wrote this. We tried to put into one song everything that had ever been in any country songs we had ever heard."

Also from the booklet with No Big Surprise...

"You Never Even Call Me By My Name," written by Steve and John went Top 5. Because Prine refused his writer credit, (he thought the song was "goofy") Goodman repaid Prine with a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox. (There is a photo of Steve and John with the jukebox.)

John Prine

The final performer was John Prine. John kicked it into hi gear as soon as he set foot on the stage. He palyed four numbers. The first two were his own numbers, "Promise" and ???. Suffice it to say both of his own songs were great.

His first cover song of Steve's was, "You Never Even Call Me By My Name"

He started the song by telling the story about the hotel room, jumping on the bed with a imaginary fiddle and tearing apart some sappy song Steve was writing. when he got to the part where Steve says "We left out a bunch of Stuff" John inserted the following.

"I figured the song was over by this point. We couldn't think of anything else to say and I just forgot about it. About a month later I got the telephone call from Steve and he says:


'I finished it'
'Finished What'
'The Song'
'What Song'
'The song from the Hotel'
Well I thought we had finished it but then he says we forgot dogs, David Allan Coe, Mama, prisons, Christmas, farms, and purple pickups. And then David recorded it and it went number one...

The last verse went like so:

"Ever since the dog died and mama and David Allan Coe went to prison,
Seems nothin' round this farm looks the same
But then when mama and David broke out last Christmas
They drove the damn purple pickup right into a train"
He was a little more up-tempo than Steve and didn't quite make the song as much of a parody as Steve does. But who really could? John did a great job. He followed it with "My Old Man"

the last verse goes like this, well at least on DAC's version:

Well I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pick up truck
she got runned over by a damned old train

But I like Prine's live version of this verse

conched wrote:Also from the booklet with No Big Surprise...

"You Never Even Call Me By My Name," written by Steve and John went Top 5. Because Prine refused his writer credit, (he thought the song was "goofy") Goodman repaid Prine with a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox. (There is a photo of Steve and John with the jukebox.)

I'm mentioned this here on numerous occasions but didn't know of it myself until I read the liner notes to No Big Surprise several years ago.