Like so many, Johnny Paycheck doesn’t get the proper respect. The success of “Take This Job and Shove It,” which was written by David Allan Coe, sort of dwarfed everything else he ever did. But I particularly like this earlier Billy Sherrill production. There’s something offensive, yet brilliant, about the dorky stunt harmonica playing. Paycheck’s voice didn’t quite have that expressive puffy foghorn moan that makes George Jones so miraculous. His play-acting of the hell-raising bad boy is less believable than Merle Haggard’s and certainly less compelling than the obviously pathological David Allan Coe, still Paycheck had his own thing going. “Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets” is basically just a bit of bedroom bragging: he may be a poor and generally no-good dude, but the rich lady seems to make a point of coming over to visit for some sweet lovin' whenever her sugardaddy of a husband leaves town. I always find the chorus: “Slide off of your satin sheets, slip into your long soft mink/ You know where to find my door/I know what you’re crying for,” to be vaguely dirty, with all the sliding and slipping, fur and door-finding.
[A Driftwood clan side note, the picture of Paycheck on the cover of this record (not the one pictured) always reminded me a little of Lefty’s dad.]
"Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets" -- Johnny Paycheck
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