About Today

Lemonheads, It’s a Shame About Ray

somesongsconsidered: “It’s a Shame About Ray” fascinates me because it hints at a story more than it actually tells one.  Evan Dando laments someone without giving a specific reason why.  The best guess is that Ray is gone; it could be anything from Ray just leaving before Dando arrived to moving away to passing away.  It doesn’t really matter, because this lament ends up telling more about Dando’s narrator than about Ray.  Whether intentional or not, Ray becomes an excuse for the narrator reflect on himself.  He tells us that he’s “never been too good with names” twice, and in between he suggests that he’d be better off putting his feelings back with the cobwebs – hidden away in a place rarely touched.  Whether he’s an introvert or he’s extracting a lesson from Ray’s situation, the narrator sounds resolved to keep to himself for a little while.

I was actually just thinking about this song this past weekend, as a bunch of friends were attending a funeral for a guy who was barely an acquaintance to me, but a righteous dude by all accounts. I think Dando’s in the same situation here. He knew Ray to see him, ran in the same circles, but wasn’t well-acquainted. So when whatever happened to Ray happened, he could only say one thing.