RFI: Lyrics to Alex Chilton's "Tennis Bum"

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i haven't heard this song in about 5 years but i'm trying to remember them off the top of my head, here goes:

"i've got a deluxe head racket with gut strings
i said my serve is really outta sight
i play tennis
all day and all night
compete with aces and deuces
my (?) never loses

i said a cross court (? ?) drop shot (? ?)
i Play To WIN
I HAD HIM
it was my ad
he's breaking my back hand"

and then alex mumbles something about Virgina Wade or something... during the "solo" he starts cracking up and notes how identical the Cmaj7 verse chord sounds "almost exactly like 'wooly bully'"... can someone correct/fill in the gaps on this?

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 22:24 (twenty years ago) link

that's heavy reverb on the C7... don't think it's a maj7

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 22:24 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...

where's eddie hurt?

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 00:09 (nineteen years ago) link

Groovin'

― Bumfluff, Wednesday, 26 January 2005 00:34 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

gygax is totally 100% right about this song.

― p@reene (Pareene), Monday, 18 September 2006 03:42 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, one of the few things that poor dude was ever right about.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 18 September 2006 04:26 (seventeen years ago) link

funny, I recently went thru a major Chilton reappraisal. the demos he did, which this song is included in, are some of the best things he ever recorded. I found that Tommy Hoehn doing "She Might Look My Way" was far inferior to Chilton just apparently tossing it off. And came to the conclusion that most of his post-'84 shit was pretty much not there, maybe a dozen really great or half-great songs. But I do love "Tennis Bum."

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 18 September 2006 12:21 (seventeen years ago) link

does "post-1984" include Feudalist Tarts/No Sex??? He wasn't recording at all in 1984, was he?

christ, a dozen great songs post-1984 is more than most who've been recording since 1967 can offer.

but yeah, 1985-to-present, Chilton has like two albums' worth of A material spread across a million releases.

― p@reene (Pareene), Monday, 18 September 2006 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

oh tennis bum,
i get some,
oh baby baby in my ??
tennis socks
oh tennis bum

the last thing i can remember
i was down, break point
my backhand was really a mess

― p@reene (Pareene), Monday, 18 September 2006 13:51 (seventeen years ago) link

?? = jock

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 18 September 2006 14:58 (seventeen years ago) link

three years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqA4LLJ04A&feature=related

― Melvin van Osterlow, Jr. (res), Friday, 19 March 2010 03:27 (fourteen years ago) link

eight years pass...

This song is a love song to Chris Bell.

― Three Word Username, Thursday, 5 April 2018 09:50 (six years ago) link

two years pass...

Alex Chilton "96 Tears" recently unearthed late '70s home video footage, Memphis. pic.twitter.com/VnpJywjVAp
— Nikki Kreuzer (@NikkiKreuzer) May 26, 2020

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 27 May 2020 17:06 (three years ago) link

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