Loose Shoes and Tight Pussy

The title of the album comes from an old racist joke that was made infamous in 1976 by politician Earl Butz, who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The quote of Butz using the racist joke in reference to Black Americans, reported in Rolling Stone in an article by White House counsel John Dean, caused a controversy which ultimately led to Butz's resignation from the Ford Administration. Butz was speaking privately to entertainers Sonny Bono and Pat Boone, and to Dean, and was asked by Boone why the Republican Party had trouble attracting African-American voters when it was the party of Abraham Lincoln. As Time later reported, "The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign. Butz said: 'I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.'"[8]

A version of the joke was often relayed by cowboy character actor Slim Pickens, who made himself the target. In a 1972 Rolling Stone article, Pickins was quoted as saying the line to writer Terry Southern in 1963 during the filming of Dr. Strangelove.[9]

1. "I've Never Found a Girl" (Booker T. Jones, Eddie Floyd, Alvertis Isbell) – 3:45
2. "Lipstick Traces" (Naomi Neville) – 3:27
3. "Hook Me Up" (Johnny "Guitar" Watson) – 4:16
4. "The Oogum Boogum Song" (Alfred J. Smith) – 3:26
5. "If You's a Viper" (Leroy Smith) – 2:16
6. "I Remember Mama" (Shirley Caesar, Michael Mathis, Bernard Sterling, Dottie Sterling, Ann Price, Mae Newton) – 3:46
7. "April in Paris" (E. Y. Harburg, Vernon Duke) – 3:29
8. "There Will Never Be Another You" (Mack Gordon, Harry Warren) – 2:18
9. "Single Again" (Gary Stewart) – 2:55
10. "You've Got a Booger Bear Under There" (Ollie Hoskins, Quinn Golden) – 4:39
11. "Shiny Stockings" (Frank Foster) – 4:03
12. "Goodnight My Love" (John Marascalco, George Motola) – 2:55

• Alex Chilton – guitar, vocals
• Ron Easley – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Richard Dworkin – drums
• Recorded at Sear Sound, New York City
• Engineered by Tom Schick
• Assisted by Todd Parker
• Mixed at Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee in June 1999
• Mélange auteur – Don Bell
• Mix and overdub engineer – Pete Matthews
• Sleeve design by Louis Sutter
• Photography by Vincent Lignier