I wrote this song in L.A, obviously, since that is the only place where the phrase Red Hot Mama really makes sense. Where else do men like women so done up they look like drag queens? Where else do blonds with savage tans roller skate down the street in fluorescent pink thongs? Where else can you pay your rent by agreeing to dance for your landlord in pantyhose every month (as a friend of mine did)? I suppose these things happen in other places, but somehow, in L.A. they seemed normal- almost wholesome.
I wrote this song while I was living in Los Angeles. I remember writing it- inspired by the colors red and white- while walking up a steep sidewalk to visit a friend who worked at a hotel. People say that Los Angeles is a car city, but I found getting around on foot to be relatively easy, especially since the weather was so nice.
For a while, my daily routine was to walk to the mall where I would get some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and browse the stores. I would frequently write songs while walking, since being outside gave my head more room to think.
I suppose this song is about the pain of having an emotional attachment to someone who doesn’t have a functioning heart. Many people are in this situation, with family members, boyfriends, etc. Do you end the relationship- which can be extremely painful and have practical repercussions- or stay in the relationship and try to fix the person’s heart so they will stop hurting you?
People always say that you can’t change anyone, and that seems to be true. The superficial layers of the personality are like plants, which grow and adapt over weeks and years, but the deeper elements are like rock formations- they change too- but it probably won’t be during this lifetime.
I wrote this song while living in Egg Nest, Beverly Hills. At the time, I was attempting to support myself by selling paintings, which was a reasonable idea, since I had sold many of them, especially portraits, over the last couple years. Except that something about the IQ mashing euphoria of southern California had gone to my head, causing me to think it would be a good idea to multiply all my prices by one hundred. That way, I’d be a hundred times richer, right?
Needless to say, having prices that started at $20,000 made paintings difficult to sell, and being the owner of a twenty million dollar art collection was of little comfort once my food supply dwindled to candy bought with street quarters and online dating sites.
I wrote this song in Los Angeles while living under the the grip of multiple “reverse spiral” relationships. Reverse spiral relationships are those where the more you give, the more you end up magically indebted to the other person, causing you to give even more, and so on.
Feeling too guilty and afraid to consider ending these relationships, the only solution I could envision was the possibility of a furry beast living on a deserted island, who could seduce these people into her sweet smelling, muscular arms and never let them go. A win-win situation for everyone (except maybe the beast.)
I wrote this song while I was living in L.A…. What is the gold time? I guess it is a time of fulfillment and completion, when all the trials a person has been through begin to pay off and their meaning is revealed. It is the idea that everything, given enough time, eventually becomes something of great value. Gold is also the color of permanence… a person searches and searches, but when they finally find what they have been looking for, that is the gold time.
