I’d always thought the lyrics of “Bitches Ain’t Shit” painted a sad picture. Or, rather, the part that I chose to excerpt skewed sad. I actually didn’t use the entirety of the lyric. I decided to concentrate on the parts where the main character is released from prison and is excited to see his girlfriend, only to discover her having sex with his cousin on the floor. It’s like a sad Johnny Cash song with a lot more vulgarity. Slowing these words down from their gangsta-rap presentation and adding melody creates an absurd effect, both sad and funny. Sung this way, the misogyny in the original lyrics, no matter how wrong, could be explained by how badly the narrator was hurt. I consider the melody for “Bitches Ain’t Shit” to be as good as any melody I’ve written. It’s no throwaway. It was a joke only to the extent that the comedy I loved from the seventies was a joke: It was based on something real.
“Bitches Ain’t Shit” in ballad form was expanding my audiences much like “Brick” had done for Ben Folds Five in the decade before. I can’t say I was completely thrilled with this new demographic, but that’s the way it is with hits. The song brought in more drunken college boys with ironic (I guess?) backward baseball caps. And YouTube was full of children lip-synching along to this vulgar song—something I wasn’t expecting. I can’t say I was comfortable with all of this. In fact, the song never got easier for me to sing. It always felt so very wrong, but, then, that was also part of what made it interesting. At the time of the John Mayer tour, this crude and melancholy tune was undoubtedly my hit. And when you’re on tour with a major recording artist, you must play the hit. Needless to say, “Bitches Ain’t Shit” wasn’t very well received at John Mayer’s general-audiences-rated concerts.
The song, which I sang completely earnestly, got me booed regularly. And in response to that, my inner punk took over and I began flipping off the audience with one hand while playing with the other. Thirty-something parents with respectable jobs had brought their children to this concert for an evening of polite rock, not to hear a foul-mouthed pianist as he gave them the finger. As they hissed and hollered in disgust, covering their children’s ears, I would finish the song, pretending to be flustered by the negative response. “People, I’m sorry. I’m here to have a good time and I don’t understand why all the booing.” (Straight out of Kaufman more than Compton.) “That’s just rude of you. I’m so nervous now—all this bad energy and angry vibes. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry if I upset you. But can you see my children just off the stage there? Do you think they want to witness their father being booed like this?” (Never mind that they just witnessed their father singing about dick-sucking.)
There would be a palpable forgiveness in the air. They weren’t a cruel audience.
“I’m a little lost now….” I would pause and then continue, “Let me look at this set list. I don’t even know where I am now, or what I just played. Hmmm…Okay, I don’t think I played this one—I have to say, your booing has really thrown me off. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the next song is called ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’!”
The audience groaned.
Then I’d play it again. All the way through. Sometimes even slower, savoring every word. I often told them to sing along or I’d play it yet again, which I did on a couple of occasions. Thrice. Sometimes I’d break their will and the booing would stop, and a few would even indulge in a sing-along. They must have thought if that was what it would take to shut me up, then fine.
“Would you please just not play that song?” Michael McDonald (not the singer, but John’s manager) asked me after having been pummeled with audience complaints.
We had a very earnest long conversation about it on the tour bus. I told Michael that he was asking me not to play something my audience expected me to play. Further, I pointed out that Michael and I had toured together before, and he was surely aware of the kind of language I used at my shows before this tour was booked.
“No, Michael,” I said, “this is censorship.” And I stuck with that line.
I told him that I wouldn’t hold a grudge if he fired me. But he knew John wanted me on the tour, and so I was kept on. It probably was unfair of me to be so stubborn, but I was a child that year, at least onstage.
* * *
—
Offstage I was buried in grown-up problems, many springing from what was shaping up as an awful divorce—if, in fact, there’s such a thing as a good divorce. The legal and financial issues of divorce can certainly take their toll, especially when you’re trying to keep the children safe and stable through the mess you’ve created. I was filled with dread the entire waking day, except when I was onstage. My ears rang from high blood pressure most mornings. I often wished I’d just go to sleep and never wake up. But sleep itself was rare, as I endured bouts of a condition called “Restless Legs Syndrome,” involving a sensation in your legs and lower back that gives you the overwhelming urge to jump out of bed and sprint. It’s awful, and I was in agony. RLS is something I’ve often had during periods of high stress.
Maybe I should have tended to myself rather than going out on tour, but here I was, on the move from city to city, with voicemail and inboxes full of drama—a disaster of my own making, indeed. We all encounter rough patches, and we each find a way to power through. Luckily, I could still have a laugh, something that’s gotten me through my toughest chapters. But these were times that made me wonder how much longer I could even hang on to that.
“How about you work with me on this, Ben,” Michael asked, “and just don’t play that nasty song twice? Can you do that much? Just don’t play it twice? Please?”
I agreed. I would not play it twice. And that night as I passed him going on for my set, he kindly reminded me, “Not twice, right?”
I assured him, “I won’t play it twice, Mike.” And I turned around to him, nearly seated at my piano, and mouthed, “Thrice!” holding up three fingers. He had forgotten to say anything about playing it three times.
These days I’ve stopped playing “Bitches Ain’t Shit” and I ignore requests for it. Music should work to ease social tensions, not throw gasoline on the fire, even inadvertently. I don’t want non-white people in my audience subjected to large numbers of white people gleefully singing a racial slur that had never been the point.
We had our Dre moment. Moving on.
* * *
—
My most childish episode during that tour was in Indianapolis, one of the biggest shows on the tour, and it had nothing to do with Dr. Dre. Before an audience of ten thousand devoted John Mayer fans, I spent my whole forty-five-minute set meticulously developing a huge absurd whopper of a story. In banter between songs, I made myself out to be the son of some mystery famous songwriter whose career had tragically ended on the very stage on which I performed that evening. For much of the set, I didn’t let on whose son I was. I spoke as if they were, of course, supposed to know who my dad was.