I'm Too Shy

Getting out of "Cowbell Range"

When I was a little kid, my mom would call me and my siblings home to dinner using a cowbell.¹

If we were playing kickball up the street, we’d hear the bell and everybody knew it was time for the Schindlers to head home.

Dinner took place at exactly 5:30 p.m. everyday.²

If you were out of earshot of that bell and wound up being late for supper, you were in trouble, which might mean no dessert, or worse.³

I generally tried to stay within earshot of the cowbell through first grade.

My friends were the neighborhood kids who lived within earshot of the cowbell.

In the second grade, I made a friend in school who lived outside of cowbell range.

I resolved to visit him in his exotic new neighborhood.

His name was John Klun, and we had talked about starting a band together, which we decided to call the Neptunes.⁴

He lived 12 blocks from my house, maybe less if you cut through some yards, but way way out of range for hearing the cowbell.

One day, I rode my bike to his house up on Kent Road and approached through the alley.

I stopped short when I saw that there was a big game of dodgeball going on with all of his neighborhood’s kids engaged in the melee.

I cowered behind a lilac shrub and considered my options.

I just couldn’t see myself fitting in with this group of kids, or walking up and inserting myself into their energy.

I turned around and went home.

I was too shy.

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Today’s song addition to the “Mixed Up Files” album is called “I’m Too Shy.”

Listen for free in the player below.

When I recorded this demo, my girlfriend at the time said: “What a load of bullshit, you’re like the least shy person I know.”

To which I say: “False!”

I can be very shy before I get to know someone. So there.

This recording—this analog relic from the ‘90s—was released in 2007 on the cassette-only version of “The Mongolian Invasion.”⁵

I did not have set lyrics when I recorded this.

Sometimes you just have to set up a microphone and a drum machine and try to make stuff up as you go along, see what shakes out.

Even today, when I was trying to transcribe the lyrics, I found myself asking: “What the hell am I even saying there?”

But I like the way it sounds, and I hope you do to.

Here are the lyrics:

I'm too shy to ask
and I'm always the last to learn
Maybe I will learn
Maybe I'll turn around
Where I know
I know that I have been
And I know that I've been wrong
So I know this feeling dear
Get away from it and here
This affair....

(Joyful yet somehow mournful whistling)

I don't know how to act
When I'm around you and
If you won't react
Then I will be away
All that way
I know that it gets weird
And I hope, I hope that it's you
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

(Joyful yet somehow mournful whistling)

This affair
I think I might die
This affair la-la-la

I'm too shy
I know
I know that I am
and I know
I know that I am

My swashbuckling friend, John Klun, in his yurt in Mongolia.

I overcame my shyness eventually and became great friends with John Klun, who inspired The Mongolian Invasion.

Faux Jean, all sepia, no swashbuckle.

1. My mom grew up on a large dairy farm and that’s how you did things in that world. Also, she spared all the neighbors from knowing what her yelling voice sounded like.

2. Technically, we called it supper.

3. Straight to bed with no dinner, anyone?

4. Our teacher, Mrs. Davern, caught wind of this plan and asked me about the Neptunes. I was very embarrassed by this for some reason. (Side note, famous comedian Maria Bamford was in our class and did not seem bound for Hollywood at the time.)

5. I might have one copy left in the garage.