Music and Lyrics
"Shoes" is described by one critic as a "bizarre wedding song". The lyrics tell the story of Johnny and Louise's wedding day, and the contributions of various relatives and friends to the wedding. The song is not about shoes, although it does include the line "Mother didn't give her abuse / she didn't forget her shoes". A family wedding is an unusual subject for a pop song, although not unique: the 10,000 Maniacs' song "My Sister Rose" on their In My Tribe album has a similar subject and similar bittersweet mood.
In its musical style, "Shoes" has what one commentator calls "a Middle Eastern feel". The recording uses an eclectic range of instruments including harpsichord, Jew's harp, bouzouki (which is namechecked in the line "Tom brings his band / bouzouki in his hand") and tambourine and adds some vocal shouts and cheers. There is also an electric guitar solo, and some children's backing vocals, which have been wrongly (and perhaps facetiously) credited to Reparata's sixth grade students (she was a schoolteacher). One blogger describes the song as "Boney M meets Dusty Springfield". Another blogger comments that "This is one weird '70s song. It sounds like “Gypsy Wine” meets “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” meets “Bohemian Rhapsody” meets “Hair” meets “Another Brick in the Wall” ... meets some dude playing the harmonica/harpsichord meets a bunch of frogs on helium.".
This mixture of styles creates an "absurdly catchy" and unique record, which has been variously described as "discoish" and "Spooky bouzouki" and as sounding like it was written by the maverick US pop and rock group Sparks.
The celebratory lyrics of "Shoes" are undercut by Reparata's understated vocal delivery. She sings in a much lower register than she had used on previous recordings as lead singer of the Reparata and the Delrons, and some listeners have believed they were listening to a male vocal. This ambiguity of the singer's gender adds to the strange mood of the record.
Summarising the sound and mood of "Shoes", one blogger comments that
"... despite the surface bonhomie, the music's thrust is slightly threatening and more than slightly unreal, particularly in the middle section when the beat cuts out to let through an ethereal cloud of dishevelled angel choirs ... Reparata's voice strolls as serenely as Carole Bayer Sager's, cannot dispel the feeling that something isn't quite right with the scenario".
Read more about this topic: Shoes (Reparata Song)
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