Ry Cooder The Tattler – Quirky Tex-Mex Take on Marriage

Ry Cooder took “The Tattler” on the road with Flaco Jiménez in BBC performance

By Stephen Pate – This BBC 4 video captures a unique performance of slide guitarist Ry Cooder‘s “The Tattler” live with Muscle Shoals-style doo-wop backup and Flaco Jiménez on accordion.

The Tattler is a sly, cynical commentary on fidelity in marriage, probably not written by newlyweds. The lyrics are all about slip sliding around. The song combines the sexual tension of a blues song with strong Tex-Mex feeling.

It does have a redeeming chorus “True love can be such a sweet harmony when you do the best that you can.”

The song has a quirky Tex-Mex influenced rhythm which explains Flaco Jiménez playing on stage with Cooder, even if Jiménez was not in the studio when the song was recorded 3 years earlier. Jiménez was touring Europe with Ry Cooder on the Chicken Skin Music tour. The tour was released as a video link below.

Paradise and Lunch – Ry Cooder

Flaco Jiménez was one of the creators of Tejano music and Ry Cooder was deeply influenced by the blues, Tex-Mex and other indigenous music. One of his first professional groups was with Taj Mahal.

The Tattler Lyrics

Whenever you find a man that loves every woman he sees,
There’s always some kind of woman that’s a-puttin’ him up a tree.
Now that kind of man, he ain’t got as much sense as a mule.
You know, everyone don’t love you, they’re just a-playin’ you for a fool

Mmmm, oh, no,
It’s not hard for you to understand.
True love can be such a sweet harmony
If you do the best that you can.

If you marry the wrong kind of woman and you get where you can’t agree,
Well, you just as well could get your hat and let that woman be.
But a man oughta make a good husband and quit tryin’ to lead a fast life.
Goin’ about dressin’ up other women won’t put clothes on his own wife

Well, there’s lots of good women who wants to marry, and they want to live well at home.
But they’re ‘fraid they’ll might get hold of a rowdy man, can’t let other women alone.
And there’s lots of good men wants to marry, and they wants to live well at home.
But every time they turn their back, there’s another man there askin’, “Darlin’, is he gone?”

Flaco Jiménez and Ry Cooder “The Tattle” BBC 4 1977

You can hear it on Ry Cooder’s 1974 release Paradise and Lunch.

The song was written by written by Ry Cooder and music producer bassist Russ Titelman. Ry Cooder married Russ’s sister Susan Titelman.

“My sister Susan and Ry had met by then, but they weren’t married yet. Four years on, I would co-produce Ry’s ‘Paradise And Lunch’ album and co-write ‘Tattler’ with him, so Performance was the beginning of a lot of associations.” Spectropop

Linda Ronstadt recorded The Tattler on her album Hasten Down the Wind. Here’s a live 1976 performance of Linda Ronstadt in Germany where she keeps the same arrangement as Ry Cooder.

This story is updated from 2010.