You Never Even Call Me By My Name notes
" I'd heard of Steve Goodman... I heard him play City Of New Orleans on the radio. I got a mental picture of this guy about six foot two and real collegiate looking and everything. I thought I had Steve pictured. He'd have a little-bitty beard like a little goatee. And in walks this little guy that was about five foot two... This Hotel Room The way it came about, we was in New York City in the spring of 1971. We wasn't in town 18 hours before we both had record contracts and we still had a couple of days left in the city before we had to return home to Chicago. We were stayin' in the Hotel Roosevelt in a room that was a little bit larger than your turntable and a we were sharing the room and uh... It was the first time I was ever in New York City. I felt like Stevie Wonder. So this was a big deal. This was the "Big Apple". my neck hurt the first day, looking at all the buildings and I'm from Chicago but New York really laid me out. So here we are in the hotel in this little bitty room and I had a bunch of beer in the bathroom on ice and Steve was complainin' 'cause he wanted to take a shower. And I explained to him that it was easy to take a shower but it wasn't always easy to have a cold beer when you want one. I went down to the village for a bit. I wanted to see someone and Steve stayed in the room and when I come back he was sittin' hunched over the desk with his guitar and I looked over his shoulder and he was writin' this terribly mournful song. It started out "it was all that I could do from keep from cryin', sometimes it seems so useless to remain..." And I had a couple of beers by then... I started making fun and teasin' and jumpin' on the started playing the violin and said that's so sad... and Steve got mad and he popped open a beer and we turned the song around you know and said "you don't have to call me darlin' darlin', but you never even call me by my name." And we went on from there and made a total shambles of the song and then we both went down to the village and got drunk. and I'd be damned, we did what we did and I thought the song would get no further than the hotel room... David Allan Coe picked it up about six months later and Steve put that phenomenal last verse on it about mothers, trucks, trains. and prisons, and it become a number one country song, You never even call me by my name." ~ John Prine from an early radio interview
Steve Goodman and John Prine wrote the song. John thought it was goofy, just a novelty song, and didn't want his name on it. When it started getting royalty checks, Steve bought John a juke box as a "consolation prize."