Hey Frumie
Love that three-quarter-length skirt
With those colored stockings
And that long sleeved shirt
Hey Frumie
You got me on my knees
But you won’t pay attention
Even if I say please
You never show yourself
You stay in after dark
There’s never anything
Down in Borough Park
Would you go out with me
I really doubt it
Bais Yaakov upbringing
Won’t allow it
Hey Frumie
You’re looking so fine
But when you see me coming
You just pretend you’re blind
You’re walking down the street
With hardly any skin showing
And when the boys dare to stare
You just keep going
Well, I could nudge you
Till you become unstrung
And then I could say
Only the good die young
Will you swallow all the things
That you were taught in school
Or will you meet me
On Shabbos after shul?
Your mama never told you
What love is all about
But if you wanna know
Your time is running out
Don’t know the burden
You’ll have to carry
When your folks are gonna
Get you married
Hey Frumie
Is that the real you there
Or is that a sheitel
Instead of your real hair
But if you’re still single
Then I just can’t sit still
Hey there Frumie
Won’t you say you will
©2002 The Hesh Inc./Reality Shock Music
This is a song about a less-Orthodox boy falling hopelessly for a very Orthodox girl. It came about one Friday night in late 1983 when I was hanging out with some very religious friends in a very religious neighborhood in Jerusalem. Boys and girls hung out with their respective single-gendered groups and looked each other up and down without looking at each other at all. The repressed sexuality in the air was so thick you could slice it.
A year or so later I started noodling with a reggae-like riff similar to the J. Geils Band's "Give It To Me," whose sentiment is quite similar to this song. And then I scribbled the first lyrics down in a notebook when I was headed down to the Negev with my army unit. One of my English-speaking army buddies asked me what I was writing, and I showed him; he said I was tiptoeing around the subject too much and that I should be a bit more in-her-face about it. So I reworked the lyrics until I got what you see and hear here. (Credit must be given to Moshe/Maurice Field of Toronto, Canada for the commentary, and for several lines in the second verse.)
The song became a mainstay of the setlist in the various bands I knocked around in in NYC and NJ in the mid-1990s. I remember when we played it at one gig at The Bitter End in which the band was billed at "The UnOrthodox" ... the second verse got a lot of laughs. Eventually my musical partner Izzy Kieffer and I recorded it for our REALITY SHOCK album in 2002.
Listen to it here: