Lyr Req: Deguello Motel (Roger Alan Wade)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Deguello Motel (Roger Alan Wide)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 07:41 PM

I'm wondering if that penultimate line should be:

"I'm sinkin' like a pearl in a bottle o' Prell"

I'm remembering an old TV commercial for Prell shampoo, in which they demonstrated how thick the shampoo was by dropping a pearl into the bottle and watching how slowly it sank to the bottom.

Prell, by the way, is emerald-green; it fits with his having mentioned blood-red walls, Velveeta sheets, Chuck-Berry-green swimming-pool water. I don't get the Chuck-Berry reference, though. Why would Berry's name be associated with a shade of green?

But I've listened to the recording, and it sounds like he's singing "singin'", but "sinkin'" would make more sense. I'm just sayin'!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Deguello Motel (Roger Alan Wide)
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 02:44 AM

Deguello Motel

CHORUS:
I [F]live in a room with a [C]green radio,
[G]Curled in the womb of a [C]twenty-nine year low;
[F]Four walls from heaven, and [C]one sin from [Am]hell
In [C[room seventeen at De[F]guello Mo[C]tel.

The [Am]desk clerk's a jerk, an old [Em]carnival fellow,
I [F]ask where're you from, he said [C]Lake Isabella*.
I [F]told him I'd been there, but [C]I never had;
He looked at the clock, and [F]I signed the [C]pad.

He said, "No dogs allowed," so I bought me a fish;
He lives by my bed in a souvenir dish;
Swims 'round in circles and eats once a day,
And looks a lot like my ex-wife's fiancé.

CHORUS

And there's a wasteland across the highway,
Where the lot lizards** roam and the big diesels stay;
The cops ask me questions, and I tell them jokes;
And that fat one, he's always a-bummin' my smokes.

And the swimming pool water is Chuck Berry green.
And the water pipes rattle like a pinball machine.
The walls are blood-red, and the sheets are Velveeta;
And that girl in 112 (one-twelve), she goes by Juanita.

Juanita's a dancer, she does the naked ballet;
I keep an eye on things while she's away.
She spends all her money, and half of mine, too,
Tryin' to get high enough to get naked for you.

CHORUS

There's an old Mexican dirge this place is named after,
And I heard it once in a box office disaster;
The Duke told his boys, said it means leave or die,
I don't know much Spanish, but John Wayne don't lie.

CHORUS

I'm [C]singin' like a pearl in a [C]bottle of [Am]Prell,
In room seventeen at Deguello Motel.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Deguello Motel (Roger Alan Wide)
From: GUEST,Håvard
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 09:55 AM

Joe,

Thanks very much for the transcription and for the added comments/elaborations. I think it's an outstanding song in a somewhat cliché-ridden genre!

Håvard

Subject: ADD: Deguello Motel (Roger Alan Wade)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 04:36 AM

DEGUELLO MOTEL
(Roger Alan Wade)

I live in a room with a green radio,
Curled in the womb of a twenty-nine year low;
Four walls from heaven, and one sin from hell
In room seventeen at Deguello Motel.

The desk clerk's a jerk, an old carnival fellow,
I ask where're you from, he said Lake Isabella*.
I told him I'd been there, but I never had;
He looked at the clock, and I signed the pad.

He said, "No dogs allowed," so I bought me a fish;
He lives by my bed in a souvenir dish;
Swims 'round in circles and eats once a day,
And looks a lot like my ex-wife's fiance.

And I live in a room with a green radio,
Curled in the womb of a twenty-nine year low;
Four walls from heaven, and one sin from hell
In room seventeen at Deguello Motel.

And there's a wasteland across the highway,
Where the lot lizards** roam and the big diesels stay;
The cops ask me questions, and I tell them jokes;
And that fat one, he's always a-bummin' my smokes.

And the swimming pool water is Chuck Berry green.
And the water pipes rattle like a pinball machine.
The walls are blood-red, and the sheets are Velveeta;
And that girl in 112 (one-twelve), she goes by Juanita.

Juanita's a dancer, she does the naked ballet;
I keep an eye on things while she's away.
She spends all her money, and half of mine, too,
Tryin' to get high enough to get naked for you.

And I live in a room with a green radio,
Curled in the womb of a twenty-nine year low;
Four walls from heaven, and one sin from hell
In room seventeen at Deguello Motel.

There's an old Mexican dirge this place is named after,
And I heard it once in a box office disaster;
The Duke told his boys, said it means leave or die,
I don't know much Spanish, but John Wayne don't lie.

And I live in a room with a green radio,
Curled in the womb of a twenty-nine year low;
Four walls from heaven, and one sin from hell
In room seventeen at Deguello Motel.

I'm singin' like a pearl in a bottle of Prell,
In room seventeen at Deguello Motel.

*Lake Isabella is in Kern County, in the mountains above Bakersfield, California. It is heavily populated with trailer parks.

**lot lizards - prostitutes who frequent truck stops.

"Degüello" means "beheading" or, idiomatically, "no quarter" (as in "no surrender to be given or accepted--a fight to the death") in Spanish and was the title of a Moorish-origin bugle call used by the Mexican Army forces at the Battle of the Alamo, Texas, in 1836.

The tune was used in two John Wayne ("The Duke") movies, Rio Bravo (1959) and The Alamo (1960).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Deguello Motel (Roger Alan Wide)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 06:25 PM

Anybody have time to transcribe this for Håvard?
It's on Spotify.

-Joe-

Subject: Lyr Req: Deguello Motel
From: GUEST,Håvard
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 07:46 PM

I'm looking for lyrics (and chords) for Roger Alan Wade's song "Deguello Hotel".