Sounds Familiar: "Wish I Couldn't Read Her Mind"

Before the concert where I hurt my leg last year, I got the wonderful Christine Lavin to record a few lines of shtick for a new studio version of "Wish I Couldn't Read Her Mind". And then stuff happened. but I knew those .WAV files were sitting there, and I finally got to 'em. In retrospect, it's a good thing -- I did much better noise than I think I'd have done last year. Many thanks, Christine!

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Wish I Couldn't Read Her Mind
Words: © 1989 by Tom Smith
Music: "Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind" by Christine Lavin
Used with permission
Released under a Creative Commons Noncommercial ShareAlike License


We are at the opera, but she don't like the opera,
But I love the opera, and she loves me.
Vikings in leotards, a sixty-year-old teen,
And a German Godzilla all sing off-key.
She'd rather hear the Mormon Tabernacle doing Whitesnake*,
The threading of the plot, she cannot unwind,
But we are at the opera, because I love the opera,
I wish I couldn't read her mind.

("This goes on for three-and-a-half hours? And not one sing-along?")

(New version: "I will not give him the satisfaction.
I'll figure out which one Gotterdammerung is all by myself.")

We are with my ex-wife, she doesn't like my ex-wife,
But I'm friends with my ex-wife, and she loves me.
She feels like a combination prostitute and pirate,
And wishes my ex-wife was more ugly.
She's guilty 'cause she knows we'll never get back together,
But if we'd broken badly she would not be in this bind,
She doesn't want to take the chance that she might like my ex-wife,
I wish I couldn't read her mind.

("Gee, she's really kinda nice. I wonder why he broke up with her?
... It was him who broke up with her, right?")

(New Version: "Oh, okay, she's nice. Pretty but not too pretty.
-- She doesn't know Bab 5 and Firefly? Yes!")

Whoever thinks telepathy is wonderfully mystic
Is celibate, misogynist, and maybe masochistic.
I always have to filter through and translate double meanings,
And what it's done to my love life gives me hermetic leanings.

Here we are, we're making it, but she is merely taking it,
My lady love is faking it, 'cause she loves me.
I am doing everything to make her go crazy,
But she'd rather be watching her MTV. (New version: "... playing her stupid Wii.")
It's not that she's uninterested, or even non-orgasmic,
She worries for my feelings, but... am I that blind?
We are always making it, and she is always faking it!
I wish I couldn't read her mind.

("Ohh, God, this is wonderful. I guess.")

(New Version: "Beige. I think I'll paint the ceiling beige.")

So if I'm looking tired, and you feel inspired
To figure how my brain is wired, go right ahead.
I am so fed up with knowing all of her secrets
(And if she knew that I knew, we'd both be dead).
I'd like to find a woman who just tells me what she's thinking,
Who doesn't feel she has to lie just to be kind,
So if you're out there listening, I'm looking for love,
And the catch is, I can read your mind --
I sure hope you don't mind.

("And the fact that you always know what I'm going to say next --")
-- really gets on your nerves....

* Somewhat dated now that Whitesnake has been relegated to the third tier of Muzak, but you never know whose memory you will jog into a crippling flashback. Other possible lines include:
... Madonna and Sinatra do the Bee Gees
... The Beatles as performed by Willie Nelson
... Fred Schneider and Drew Carey doing 'N Sync
... Paul Potts and Kanye West perform with banjos
... or whatever unlikely groups scan to the line