Lyrics

Interviewer
And that was Jonathan Richman of course who else but with "I must be King" and that is off of the new album "Jonathan Goes Country"

Jonathan Richman
Which I made cause there were three reasons see

Interviewer
Yeah I was gonna ask you a couple

Jonathan Richman
See I made the record cause I always thought some of my songs would just sound good with country arrangement, you know, and there were some country songs that other people have done that I just thought that I could sing with feeling I know I'm not a country singer
What I want to clear up is I don't want anyone to think when I say Jonathan goes country

Interviewer
Goes country that that's gonna be your new style

Jonathan Richman
I'm not parodying country I'm not trying to be a country singer I just thought that some of my songs would sound good that way I know I don't have a country voice and also It gave me a chance to work with these musicians who I really admire down in Springfield Missouri who are really good rock players and really good country players and producers and it was produced by Lou Witney and Clinton Thompson down in Sprinfield Missouri

Interviewer
As long as we are on this subject, some of your influences, did you have any country influences at all? or anybody that was like real folk or rockabilly at all?

Jonathan Richman
You see classical composers, they have influences, guys like me we have people we copy

Interviewer
Uh ok, that makes it real easy then, so who'd you rip off then?

Jonathan Richman
So I copied a little bit of, that's better thank you

Jonathan Richman
Yeah I stole a little mostly from Motown guys, people like the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Buddy Holly, old rock n roll guys and new rock n roll guys is mostly who I stole from

Jonathan Richman
I've admired all different kinds of stuff but I only steal from some

Interviewer
??? Has a question from a fan who called in

Jonathan Richman
??? Called and wants to know if I'll play Roadrunner tonight, and the answer is 'maybe' cause I don't use a setlist see I just get up and play stuff I play that song about 1 out of every 100 or 200 shows see older stuff generally ok but newer stuff is my way, so I just stand up there and do the thing and we swing

Interviewer
That kind of brings us to a question I know Pete had about not having a backing band live and stuff What made you not play with other musicians on your last couple of albums? I know there was some people on the one before this

Jonathan Richman
You see I'm not, how can I put it gently? I'm not the greatest boss in the world cause I'm always changing my mind so here I got no one to boss around but myself and boy is everyone else happy about that

Interviewer
Ok so you're gonna pretty much gonna be up on stage

Jonathan Richman
No not just pretty much I've definitely gonna be on stage

Interviewer
Just you and yourself? well unless someone just really gets into the act and sings along

Jonathan Richman
No

Interviewer
No sing alongs?

Jonathan Richman
They can sing along but there'll be one person on the stage

Interviewer
And that's you

Jonathan Richman
That's correct

Interviewer
That's good, well let's play another cut

Jonathan Richman
Wait there's a question, there's a question

Interviewer
We want to get to the phones, we want to get to some more music cause there's a lot of phone lines ringing and we want to get these questions on the air so we're gonna get ??? to answer the phone and we're gonna play another track off of the new album of Jonathan Goes Country this is a song called Reno