TRACK 1: "Cook Yer Enchiladas"

I hope this made Mount Rushmore smile!

New Mexico green chile enchiladas, as God intended. This was taken at the old Zafarano Posa’s back in 2009 ,

Got chased out of South Dakota from this little drugstore town

The specific circumstances even made Mt. Rushmore frown

Got so drunk last week in old Juarez, I passed out on the floor

As they drug me cross the border all I did was scream for more

CHORUS:

But if you cook yer enchiladas I will play you my guitar

Trust me I won't tell the neighbors if you should go a bit too far

I've never known no woman who can baffle me like you do

But if you cook yer enchiladas I will sing a song for you

xxxx

I've sung the songs and lived the legends as I've stumbled down the path

Of Sam Cooke and Mickey Mantle, Baba Ram Dass and Sylvia Plath

Farting winos, screaming puppets, lone assassins and their guns

Everybody has a noise to make, strange deeds that must be done

(Repeat Chorus)

And in confidence and anger I can rise above defeat

I love life when it's sour I suspect it when it's sweet

And I don't care if you break my heart and do this poor boy wrong

I'll cry for about five minutes, then I'll roast you in a song

(Repeat Chorus)

copyright Sidhe Gorm Music (BMI)

Written 1974-1976

This song, the lead-off tune on Picnic Time For Potatoheads, was my warning shot for the world.

It was my way of announcing my arrival as an important new recording artist.

Grandiose? Delusional?

Sure. But hell, I was in my early 20s when I wrote the damned thing, and still in my 20s when I recorded and released it in 1981. At that age there’s a thin line between optimism and self-deception.

“Enchiladas” is heavily influenced not only by local Chicano culture, but by Waylon Jennings. Note Mike Roybal’s bass line, a common one in outlaw country and country rock that some have called the “eat-shit” bass line.

The most obvious example of the Chicano influence is the guitar solo following the second verse. It was played by longtime Santa Fe guitar whiz David Borrego, who at the time was a member of the influential Santa Fe band Lumbre del Sol.

But it was inspired by another local friend named David, an old college roommate David Vigil. He and I used to show up, mostly un-invited, to parties with our guitars in hand, playing an instrumental (David on lead, me on rhythm).

And most of those parties we were not asked to leave.

David Vigil contemplates the cosmos with a Pearl Light, circa 1979

I have to credit David — as well as beer — for helping me to get up the courage to play music outside of our apartment or small gatherings in friends” places. My confidence undoubtedly was boosted by David’s suggestion that we embellish “Cook Yer Enchiadas” with a little melody I’d frequently heard on local Spanish radio.

At the time, I didn’t even know the title of the song, which I just thought of as a great local tune probably older than the hills of Chimayo. It was years later that I later learned the tune was “El Mosquito” by Arizona native Eddie Dimas.

Eddie Dimas. Photo from his Discogs page.

Here’s Eddie’s famous song. You’ll notice, he also employed the “eat-shit” bass-line:

According to Dimas’ 2013 obituary in the Phoenix New Times:

When he was 17, Dimas recorded the rollicking instrumental, with his band, The Upsets, at Audio Recorders in Phoenix. The song proved to be a regional hit: Phoenix-based label Dektr pressed initial copies of the song, and soon New Mexico-based label Christy Records picked up the release, spreading copies all over the Southwest.

Had I known this back in 1981, I would have happily given Eddie his proper credit. When I re-released Potatoheads on CD in 1996, I corrected the mistake and secured permission to use it from Eric Perez, Sr. of Christy Records on Fourth Street SW in Albuquerque.

In the credits I referred to Dimas as “the Hispanic Dick Dale.” I still stand by that.

As for the lyrics, they present the singer -- that is, me – as a devil-may-care survivor stumbling down life’s path, laughing all the way, beer in one hand, guitar in the other.

I wrote the first two verses and the chorus in the projection room of the old Master Adult Theater, a porn house on West Central that summer of ’74 when I worked there. (You can read HERE about me working there the night Nixon resigned.)

The first verse is full of lines about some of my weird adventures in the early-mid 1970s.

Though I didn’t literally get chased out of South Dakota, I actually was involved in a car chase out of the town of Wall, South Dakota. I wrote about that crazy incident in my other Substack, Steve Terrell’s Snazzy Life:

Photo by Jared Winkler - Creative Commons

… there was that crazy day in South Dakota on my first major hitchhiking trip in 1973, in which I was with three guys from Connecticut who’d picked me up outside of Madison, Wisconsin.

We’d tried to get served alcohol in this bar in the tiny tourist town of Wall, South Dakota but none of us were 21. So we went back to the VW van those guys were traveling in and planned to throw a string of lit firecrackers out the window and into the bar. However, instead, the firecrackers landed right by this woman who was getting into her car and the next thing we knew we were being followed by a couple of pickup trucks.

Our driver, Bruce, pushed the VW and somehow we outran them, the rest of us chugging whiskey all through the escape.

We made it to Rapid City where, after eating dinner at some little café, another one of the Connecticut guys grabbed a Spiderman mask from the van and went back to the diner and momentarily terrified the place by screaming that he was Spiderman and he would have his revenge.

We ended up at Mount Rushmore, which was by then closed for the day. There we met this couple who had driven up there and also were disappointment that the national memorial was closed.

But we eventually convinced the park ranger on duty to turn on the lights so we could see the faces carved in the mountain. I started strumming Bruce’s guitar and we all sang “America the Beautiful.”

So despite what my lyrics said, I now believe that the four presidents on Mount Rushmore were not frowning. I’m pretty sure they were smiling on this act of patriotism. (I wrote about this wild moment for the original No Depression magazine back in 1999. Years later I posted it on my blog.)

George & The Boys all lit up

The second half of the verse, those lines about getting falling-down drunk in Juarez and being drug back about across the border, is just a slight exaggeration of some of those rip-roaring times my friends and I had down in that border town before most of us were of legal drinking age.

The second verse lists a couple of personal heroes soul crooner Sam Cooke and baseball great Mickey Mantle, but also a couple of folks who I don’t quite remember why I put there:

A lot of my friends loved Baba Ram Dass, (born Richard Alpert) though I was never really into him. I always thought his book Be Here Now should have been called “Be There Then,” because by changing his name and dressing like some Hindu swami from hundreds of years ago, Ram Dass didn’t really seem to be “here” or “now.”

Actually, when I first wrote that verse, instead of Ram Dass, I used the name “Reverend Ike,” who was a “prosperity gospel” preacher I’d seen on TV. At the time, I guess figured him to be kind of a loveable con-man. According to several sources (here’s one), a Reverend Ike catch phrase gave John Lennon the inspiration for his song “Whatever Gets You Through the Night.”

Maybe I should have stuck with the preacher, but the words “Baba Ram Dass” just sounded funnier when you sing them real fast.

Rev. Ike on his throne. He feels left out since I took him out of “Cook Yer Enchiladas.”

As for Sylvia Plath, no, I was not suicidal. At the time of writing the verse, I’d recently studied – and admired -- her poetry in an English literature class.

I was aware that because of the way she died, her name might cause a little jolt with some listeners. I always liked providing little jolts for my fans.

“Farting winos, screaming puppets, lone assassins and their guns” basically described the chaotic world unfolding before my young eyes during the Watergate era.

Sure glad that chaos went away …

“Everybody has a noise to make, strange deeds that must be done” is my zen Doris Day “Que Sera” moment here.

Whatever will be will be.

Like I said, the first two verses were written in a porno theater in the summer 1974 (right before I turned 21). The last one I added a couple of years later.

In it, I basically go back to bragging about what a tough customer and groovy individual I am, resilient as all fuck. (“in confidence and anger I can rise above defeat …”) and how if you break my heart, I’ll just “cry for about five minutes then I’ll roast you in a song.”

So who was I asking to cook those enchiladas?

That would have been my next-door neighbor at the time. Evavwas a beautiful, slightly older woman from Las Vegas, N.M. Though we never quite got into a romance, I had a terrible crush on her.

I’ll never forget the night we got drunk at her house and we both passed out on her sofa while listening to Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge album Full Moon. Eva had her record player on repeat, so the first side played over and over until we woke up the next day.

And the last song, “Tennessee Blues,” written by Louisiana singer Bobby Charles was stuck in my head for days. It haunts me still.

This beautiful tune sounds nothing like “Enchiladas.” But I can’t help but think that the influence is in there, at some level.

As I was leaving her house that next morning, Eva expressed some concern about what the neighbors would think if they saw me leaving. Thus came the immortal line, “Trust me, I won’t tell the neighbors if you should go too far …”

But what’s this got to do with the titular New Mexican dish in this song?

The fact is, Eva made some of the tastiest green chile enchiladas I ever had in my life.

Wish I had some now!

Now, enjoy my song:

Credits:

Steve Terrell, lead vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar

Jack Clift: lead guitar, producer

Mike Roybal: bass

David Valdez: drums

Tom Dillon: steel guitar

David Borrego: “El Mosquito” solo

“El Mosquito” was used with permission from Eric Perez, Sr. of Cristy Records, Albuquerque.

Get your own copy of Picnic Time for Potatoheads & Best-Loved Songs from Pandemonium Jukebox HERE