{"id":10484,"date":"2026-04-24T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/deep-cut-friday-you-cant-talk-to-the-dude-by-jonathan-richman\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:30:00","slug":"deep-cut-friday-you-cant-talk-to-the-dude-by-jonathan-richman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/deep-cut-friday-you-cant-talk-to-the-dude-by-jonathan-richman\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep Cut Friday: \u2018You Can\u2019t Talk to the Dude\u2019 by Jonathan Richman"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-688527128.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"783\" alt=\"Jonathan Richman on March 3, 1990. (Credit: Gie Knaeps)\"><figcaption>Jonathan Richman on March 3, 1990.<br \/>\n(Credit: Gie Knaeps)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the seven years between starting college and moving in with the woman I\u2019m now married to, I had eight different roommates. Some of those roommates were good friends, strangers who I eventually got to know better, or acquaintances that I\u2019d quickly learn weren\u2019t so easy to live with. And then there was Jace. He\u2019s the only Jason I\u2019ve ever known who went by \u2018Jace,\u2019 a choice that I don\u2019t really care for. (Sorry if you\u2019re a Jace, maybe you could change my mind.) But I can\u2019t say much else about Jace, because in the year we lived together, it felt like he never said more than a dozen words to me. If I tried to make small talk, it was like staring into a void. If we needed to discuss a pressing apartment-related matter, it was like pulling teeth. Now, with 20 years of interviewing people under my belt, maybe I\u2019d be able to talk to Jace, but back then, it felt impossible.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/michael-stipe-solo-debut\/\">Michael Stipe\u2019s Solo Debut Will Be Out This Year<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/king-gizzard-synth-album\/\">King Gizzard &amp; The Lizard Wizard Wraps Synth LP<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/the-milk-carton-kids-are-alright\/\">The Milk Carton Kids Are Alright<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"tShgvt8ByJk\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>I\u2019d loved the music of Jonathan Richman well before I lived with Jace. But I didn\u2019t hear one of Richman\u2019s best albums, 1992\u2019s <em>I, Jonathan<\/em>, until a couple years later. And I was dumbfounded by how perfectly Richman articulated my awkward roommate situation, and presumably his own, on the album\u2019s third track. \u201cYour sense of humor has gotten worse \/ Now that you live with a guy who can\u2019t converse \/ You can\u2019t talk to the dude.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Richman has dozens of songs about incredibly specific experiences or aspects of the human condition that nobody else ever thought to put into a song. It\u2019s one of the things that makes him an indispensable and truly original songwriter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"rcy13EHO0eA\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Apparently, I\u2019m not the only person who can heavily relate to \u201cYou Can\u2019t Talk to the Dude.\u201d The Lemon Twigs covered it over a dozen times on tour in 2017, and Car Seat Headrest\u2019s Will Toledo played the song during a Twitch livestream in 2020. \u201cYou Can\u2019t Talk to the Dude\u201d also made a welcome return to Richman\u2019s own concerts in 2025, so you might hear him play it on his upcoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.highroadtouring.com\/artists\/jonathan-richman-with-tommy-larkins\/itinerary\/\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. tour dates<\/a> in February, March, and June.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"VJtXJ5sRzgQ\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-three-more-essential-jonathan-richman-deep-cuts\"><strong>Three more essential Jonathan Richman deep cuts:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-somebody-to-hold-me\"><strong>\u201cSomebody To Hold Me\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The way that Richman pronounces the word \u201cuncomfortable\u201d in this song from 1983\u2019s <em>Jonathan Sings!<\/em> is simply fascinating.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-true-love-is-not-nice\"><strong>\u201cTrue Love Is Not Nice\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Jonathan Richman has been a cult hero with little chart success for over 50 years now. But his biggest moment of mainstream exposure came in 1998 with the blockbuster success of the Farrelly brothers comedy <em>There\u2019s Something About Mary,<\/em> which featured Richman and his trusty drummer Tommy Larkins as the film\u2019s recurring Greek chorus, commenting on the plot in song. One of the songs Richman sang in the movie, \u201cTrue Love Is Not Nice,\u201d appeared on his album <em>I\u2019m So Confused<\/em> a few months later.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-no-one-was-like-vermeer\"><strong>\u201cNo One Was Like Vermeer\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Richman has been writing memorable songs about painters since the Modern Lovers classic \u201cPablo Picasso,\u201d including \u201cVincent Van Gogh\u201d and \u201cSalvador Dali.\u201d The tribute to 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer on 2008\u2019s <em>Because Her Beauty is Raw and Wild<\/em> may be Richman\u2019s finest moment as an art critic.<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/spinmagazine.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan Richman on March 3, 1990. (Credit: Gie Knaeps) Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2152,4052,5949,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-cut-friday","category-jonathan-richman","category-modern-lovers","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}