No, I Can't

Lyrics

You bought me some chocolates
And you bought me a rose
And you brought me a paper bag
And you brought me a lamp

Thank you for the chocolates
Thank you for the rose
Thank you for the paper bag
Thank you for the lamp

Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need

You brought me a sofa
And you brought me some books
And you brought me a filing cabinet
And you brought me a Panasonic DX-4500

thank you for the sofa
thank you for the books
thanks for the filing cabinet
I don't know what I
I don't know what I
Ever did without it

Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need

You came by, and you came in
And you let the wind in
It must be cold outside
We stared out through the sliding glass door
But I'd forgotten what we were looking for

Thank you for coming by
It's nice to see you once in a while
Thanks for the coat I forgot to mention
I've been freezing in here
I've been freezing in here

Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need
Now I have everything I need, yeah

Banter

• It had a sequel called 'Yes, I Will' but I forget how it went. Anyway, it's called 'No, I Can't'. It's sort of a dance song. (1999-10-09)
• I met a guy in, I think, 1992. He was fronting a band called Diskothi-Q. They opened with a song called "I'm Straight'" by Jonathan Richman, but I had never heard this song, so I was like, "That guy is a fuckin' genius! I gotta tell this guy how I feel!" After the show's over, in 1992 if John Darnielle comes up to you to tell you how you feel, I hope you brought a lunch 'cuz I was a very verbal dude. I had a lot to say about a lot of things, and I got to know this guy. He ran a tape label called Sonic Enemy. His name was Peter Hughes. My writing -- I really hate when people say, "Can you describe your creative process?" for some reason -- but when I'm writing, the way it happens is I will go through a phase of doing other things, say watching television or going to sporting events or cleaning. And then one day I'll be doing whatever, and I'll go, "What if that hook went [strums guitar] ?" And then when I do that, it tends to just kinda open the lid on my skull so that -- a lot of the albums you like, half of them were written in a three-day period and the rest of the albums were written over six months. I'll go through, like, I think with In League With Dragons, three of those songs were written on the same day. But Peter had this tape label, right? He gave me a bunch of tapes, and most of them were by bands he was in. But it was really cool, it was -- I try not to nurse nostalgia, right, but the days of people starting tape labels out of their bedrooms living with their folks or whatever when they go, "I wanna fuckin' release some tapes of my friends' bands because they deserve to be represented in some way." These were glorious days for us, right, and I really wanted to be part of Peter's thing and I was in one of those periods where I had unscrewed the top of my head and stuff was coming out and I was like, "I'm gonna write a song during Christmas break every day." So I wrote a song a day for nine days and then I covered a song very badly by the Commodores, and then I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I'd wager the way it happened was that I showed up on Peter's porch, going, "I made you an album!" And the record was called Transmissions to Horace. (2021-12-17)

Live Performances

• 1992-12-27 - Munchie's, Pomona
• 1994-08-18 - Under ACME, New York City (JD and Rachel)
• 1994-08-22 - The Middle East, Cambridge MA (JD and Rachel)
• 1994-08-23 - Baystate, Northampton MA (JD and Rachel)
• 1996-02-25 - Tower Musikclub, Bremen (JD/Peter duo - recording)
• 2013-06-04 - Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center, York PA (JD and Peter - encore)

Footnotes

The items listed in the song are often shuffled or switched out based on, presumably, vibes.