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Leroy (radio version)

This is the radio broadcast version of the song from the Carl Stone Show, KPFK Los Angeles, 1982.

Rhoda Penmark explains things to her mother. From The Bad Seed, which most of us saw as a film based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, which in turn was based on the 1954 novel by William March, who was already known for his 1933 recollection of WWI, Company K. I remember hearing Francois Truffaut going off on the film version, saying that its view of the early roots of sociopathic behavior was wrong, and although it might be pleasing to scare ourselves as adults by seeing innocence maligned, he felt that childhood was the "victim."

We set dialogue from Bad Seed to a whole-tone ditty we hadn't known what to do with. It used to literally be an obsession for Ron and Magie to plan a theatrical production of the play as they quoted Rhoda. Now, I can see now how Stringer's taste for Catholic ideas like original sin were starting to come into play. I think Magie just wanted to play any part on stage, even if she wasn't age-appropriate. If Truffaut's wounded, overly romanticized view of childhood is a bit mawkish, you have to admit that The Bad Seed basically trades on our ingrained Puritan fear of children as untamed, wild creatures who need straightback pews and the lash. Its use of the cheap trick of total inversion doesn't ring true. So Truffaut isn't entirely barking up the wrong tree.

William March