“I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home”
David Frizzell
Written by Dewayne Blackwell
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
August 14, 1982
David Frizzell had a brief chart run, but he really livened up the weekly listings with his song titles.
Some highlights that didn’t top the charts:
- Where are You Spending Your Nights These Days?
- A Million Light Beers Ago
- Who Dat
- When We Get Back to the Farm (That’s When We Really Go to Town)
Of course, none of these are as memorable as his only solo No. 1 single. “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home” is one of the all-time great country song titles. It’s so distinctive and out there that it’s hard to imagine the song itself can live up to its title.
Thankfully, it does. It’s sung in the same style as Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove it,” but instead of it being a disgruntled employee talking to himself, it’s a fed up woman ready to redecorate her entire house to keep her boozing husband at home at night.
This song is hilarious. I want to buy this woman a drink:
She said, “Just bring your Friday paychecks
And I’ll cash them all right here
And I’ll keep on tap for all your friends
Their favorite kinds of beer
And for you, I’ll always keep in stock
Those soft aluminum cans
And when you’re feeling macho
You can crush ’em like a man”
And how about this?
She said, “You’ll get friendly service
And for added atmosphere
I’ll slip on something sexy
And I’ll cut it clear to here
Then you can slap my bottom
Every time you tell a joke
Just as long as you keep tipping
Well, I’ll laugh until you’re broke”
It’s such a clever inversion of the long suffering housewife trope. It may sound a bit dated today, but in 1982, this was progress.
My money says that his ass stayed home for good after that chat, and she didn’t spend a cent on remodeling.
Frizzell had two more top ten solo hits: “Lost My Baby Blues” and the aforementioned “Where are You Spending Your Nights These Days.” His recording was sporadic after 1984, but nearly forty years later, he’s still touring regularly.
You can bet your bottom dollar that this is the song he closes with.
“I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home” gets an A.
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This song is so ridiculous that I love it. I sometimes eye roll with some of these classic country songs due to the cheese factor but at the same time I catch myself singing along and smiling. You are absolutely right about the song title being awesome. Sometimes when I see weird song titles it catches my eye and makes me go to that song to see if song holds up to the awesome title. In this case it most certainly does.
For a kid from Minnesota, this was the song outlandish that famously name-dropped the beer refreshing from my home state by mentioning the Hamm’s Bear clock on the wall in the wino decorated home.
This song is brilliantly constructed by Dewayne Blackwell’s impeccably clean rhyme scheme.
Blackwell would later become even more famous for writing Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places.”
I adore this classic song and performance.