Portrait of Wile E. Coyote

Lyrics

The lower region of the inner ? of the left ear The iris of the left eye A bit of fur at the extreme upper right of the cheek Of Wile E. on the nose Of Wile E. Coyote

The middle part of the head from the plume at the top to the forehead between the eyes The major part of the left cheek A crease below the right eye The forward edge of the outer surface of the right ear Of Wile E. Coyote

The left whisker The right whisker The right eyebrow The white of the left eye Of Wile E. Coyote

The forward edge of downturn ? surface of the left ear The right temple between cheek and eyebrow A bit of fur at the lower extreme right of the cheek Lower edge of the left eyebrow The lower edge of the left eyelid Of Wile E. Coyote

Major part of the nose The left eyebrow The right eyelid Bits of fur bordering the extreme left of the cheek Of Wile E. Coyote

The edge between the eyelid and eyebrow Extending inward to the inner corner of the right eye Turning to become the lower edge of the eyelid The major part of the muzzle The outer edge of the left eye A shadow on the left of the nose Of Wile E. Coyote

Inner surface of the right ear The right cheek The white of the right eye The left eyelid Of Wile E. Coyote

? running from side to side Across the muzzle Of Wile E. Coyote

A crease at the left edge of the right eye The iris of the right eye The inner corner of the left eye

The left temple behind the eyebrow A patch of fur at the upper rear Of the left cheek Of Wile E. Coyote Of Wile E. Coyote

Chronology

• Five American Portraits
  • Mayo Thompson - vocals

Retrospectives

Mayo Thompson, 2010

Wile E. Coyote, I saw the first Roadrunner cartoon back when they came out. I always liked Wile E. Coyote and thought he was a very sympathetic figure and, you know, one of the most charming villains in film history.

And I also liked Bo Diddley, and I know Bo Diddley wrote a song called 'Roadrunner.' So I started putting two and two together, things like that, you know, just one step after another, that leads to another thing - the 'knock on' effect with ideas. It was about generating something that was familiar.

You know how portraits are - when you go and look at a portrait of somebody you'll see in a museum, and if they were an explorer there'll be a little globe on the table, and they'll have their hand on a book of geography, that kind of stuff. And so it was pretty simple putting together the atmosphere that goes around these kinds of people. Their worlds, so to speak.

Wile E. Coyote's world is his life in the imagination of people. And I thought about Bo Diddley, of course, and Bo Diddley had just passed away not too long before I started working on that thing. I had always liked his music, and I always felt a great deal of sympathy for him, and understanding, because when I hear 'Roadrunner,' which is a little bit different from his jungle thing, I thought, 'That's the pop musician's perennial problem, that the idea is to make something that everybody will like, and to do something that makes a kind of sense.'

So I went online and saw a couple of performances of Bo Diddley performing 'Roadrunner' with his ensemble, and it just struck me how alienated the whole thing was, about how much it wasn't idea-driven, about how it was a project to do something, and to get something that really resonated with the people.

And who knows? Bo Diddley, at the time he did that, I think he was living in New Mexico. Maybe he saw a roadrunner, or maybe he saw the Roadrunner cartoon and thought that it had captured people's imagination and he was going to get him a little piece of that action, he was going to get in on that, so he wrote that tune, and that tune seemed to be good enough to me.

So I rearranged it and added a few little thises and little thats, but it seemed to be an ideal way of portraying Wile E., a good backdrop. And it seemed to capture some of the energy and the frenetic aspect of it, which is something like a cartoon.