A rarely used, but often practised verb, especially when arriving home, it means to take off your shoes, but is also a slightly more common adjective meaning barefoot or unshod, particularly for certain religious orders that wear sandals instead of shoes. The word comes from the Latin discalceātus, meaning "unshod". In English it dates back the early 17th century in the writings of in the writing of H. Greenwood in 1609, but does it ever slipped off into song lyrics?
Not the word itself, but here are a few of many shoe-removing references to put your feet up to while you read and listen:
First up, blues guitar and singing legend BB King brings an extended emotional metaphor, in Take Off Your Shoes:
“If you’re gonna walk on my love, baby
The least you can do is take off your shoes.”
Now picking up the pace, let’s dance with a perky Wilson Pickett and Barefootin’:
“Everybody get on your feet
You make me nervous when you in your seat
Take off your shoes and pat your feet
We're doing a dance that can't be beat
We're barefootin’”
Now let’s have a smoky funk number sung by Etta James - Leave Your Hat On, released in 1974 and written by Randy Newman, a song famously also used, when sung by Tom Jones, in the British film about a group of unemployed miners who, short of cash secretly turned into male strippers, in The Full Monty:
“Baby, take off your coat (real slow)
Baby, take off your shoes (here, I'll take your shoes)
Baby, take off your dress
Yes, yes, yes
You can leave your hat on.”
Another track used in a movie now, and it’s Elvis Presley, going bluegrass, with Barefoot Ballad:
“I want a barefoot ballad yes a barefoot ballad
Won't you play for me a down home country song
'Cause when I kick my shoes off and I kick my blues off
With a barefoot ballad you just can't go wrong.”
Something a little more series and slower and simmering now? It’s Coldwater Morning by Neil Diamond:
“Coldwater morning
Take off your night-time shoes
Coldwater morning
I've been waiting so long for you.”
Even more serious now and with a religious context. Take Off Your Shoes is powerful number by Irish legend Sinéad O’Connor, here attacking the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and the Vatican in the ongoing scandals over child sexual abuse, with these viscerally ironic lines:
“Take off your shoes – you're on hallowed ground.”
In a different context, taking off shoes is portrayed as a sensual act of freedom. Here’s a rockin’ bluesy Creedance Clearwater Revival, with Green River:
“Well, take me back down where cool water flow, yeh
Let me remember things I love
Stoppin' at the log where catfish bite,
Walkin' along the river road at night,
Barefoot girls dancin' in the moonlight.”
And in a romantic good-time context, here’s The Drifters with Down On The Beach At Midnight:
“Say you'll meet me down on the beach tonight
Where you and I can dance your tears away
Barefoot in the sand, hand in hand
We're gonna have all night party.”
Going barefoot appears in many other song, with shoes slipping off, even in vivid, incidental detail. Here’s an example in a song better known as a brilliant cover by Jimi Hendrix. But let’s hear Bob Dylan’s original of All Along The Watchtower:
“All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.”
So then, any more discalceate-related examples, leaving you deambulated and depeditated, and picked out in the shoe-rack of your own music library? Feel free also to share anything more in relation to it, whether in music or wider culture, such as from film, art, or other contexts, in comments below.
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