My Favorite Ray Stevens Song

October 16, 2007

Driving into work this morning, there was nothing good on the radio, and I was too lazy to change CDs in my player.  I’ve been listening to Robert Earl Keen Live at the Ryman for weeks now.  Instead, I just turned the radio off and started singing to myself.  Goofy?  Yes.  But I do it quite a bit.  For some reason I started a whole series of Ray Stevens songs, most of them off of his album “He Thinks He’s Ray Stevens”.  Of course, I couldn’t remember all the lyrics to most of the songs because I haven’t heard this album in so long.  Then I remembered my favorite Ray Stevens song is on that album, but it is probably one most people have never heard–”Fred”.

In this song, the singer and Fred are good buddies, and Fred is the best roommate he’s ever had from the sound of it.  But Fred gets another dog pregnant and is subsequently killed–”flattened by a trucker hauling dog food.”

Anyway, the funniest part is that Fred’s mate ends up living with the singer, and the he’s not as happy with the situation.

You know, ol’ Fred’s gone and I’m kind of glad

If he was here now he’d sure be mad

Cuz ain’t one of them pups looks anything like him.

This is my favorite Ray Stevens record…definitely worth a listen for other greats like “It’s Me Again Margaret”, “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival”, “I’m Kissing You Goodbye”, and “Erik the Awful”

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