THEN SHE SMILED AT ME
Here’s another THIKK song that’s been 40 years in the making. Inspired by the noir crime fiction of James Hadley Chase as well as the songs of the Beatles.
Collaborative songwriting is at its best when two songwriters can each add a dimension to a song that one could not do on their own. Like “Day In The Life” where John started the song and Paul added the second part… “Woke up got out of bed…” In this song, Krishna came up with the initial riff and I added the chorus later. Works well together I think.
I kept the noir theme going in the video as well. The storyline is vague... and the conclusion of both the song and video are open ended. What did our hero do to save the girl? Was she scamming him all along? At that point in our lives (at seventeen years of age) we read a lot of James Hadley Chase. He was a British crime novelist whose (often lurid) page-turners were written around the 1940s and 1950s Chicago and New York gangster culture. Most of his protagonists are tricked by beautiful women into committing crimes — or even killing on their behalf — only to realize later that they were manipulated.
I must have read all the JHC crime novels before I moved on from my teens — I still read them if I come across one. If you haven’t read Chase, I would suggest starting with “No Orchids For Miss Blandish.”
— Thomas Itty (January 2021) —
(Words & Music by Thomas Itty & Krishna Kumar)
She left home
With nothing but her clothes
A box full of cash
And a diamond on her nose
She wanted to go
To old Chicago
And meet up with
Some friends she used to know
O000oooo Chicago
Her husband was
A cruel and evil man
He robbed and killed
And ran with the Klan
She soon realized
That she had to get away
Which is how we met
On that fateful day
Then she smiled at me
And I knew that I had to set her free
It was love in the first degree
I thought I was
As clever as a fox
I learned about life
From the school of hard knocks
I was born in New York City
I called Harlem my home
I drive a car
With has too much chrome
Yeah Harrrrrrrlem is my home
I was at a rest stop
On the Jersey turnpike
When she stopped me
And asked me for a ride
She told me her story
Full of violence and abuse
I knew right away
That it was no ruse
Then she smiled at me
And I knew that I had to set her free
Then she smiled at me
It was love in the first degree