DEBBIE CALLED
performed on:
The track opens with the sound of midmorning traffic in New York City -- sampled personally by Jeff Jooce standing in Times Square after lunch at Sharro's on the Diplomacy Tour. After a moment, the trumpets and piano begin and the funkiest track on the album unfolds. The slight ska texture anticipates much of CARTOONS and really is unlike anything else on this record, which may be why it's the first track. Christina Singleton cowrote this with Nick Parker, marking a return to the conventional pop writing of the Geffen years as opposed to the jam origins of most of the later tracks. Singleton claims to have done all of the music for the cut and that Nick merely contributed the lyrics. As a result, she felt that she should have a say in the presentation of the song for the LP; she said that too many overdubs and production tricks were being added to the song and did her own mix from another take. Until days before the record was pressed, there was still uncertainty over which version would be used. Singleton didn't know hers had been excised until she got her copy of the record. She was so upset she refused to take part in planned recording sessions in the last quarter of 1996. She and Parker finally made up in time to record new material for a pair of exclusive singles and a compilation.
It's probably a result of this disagreement that the song is rarely mentioned by the band and was not played live until a tepid, almost universally panned performance on the 11/19/01 show that turned the whole thing into a dirge with Tina on lead.
you're both in your world in the morning
I'm in my galaxy at night
through the wires they connect
across the bounds of space
I break out of my shell to tell you Debbie called
my room is a fortress
walls are six feet deep
no one can penetrate me
not even you
not even him
still got my responsibilities
debbie called
still gotta pay my dues
debbie called