Meanwhile, Rick James... lyrics by Cake

I think you have to sit with this for a while to get it, but I might be wrong about that...

Cake is super ironic, sometimes cynical, but always underneath it's because John McCrea is really sensitive... you get kind of sarcastic when you care in life and you get pissed on. Welcome to humanity.

Anyway, I think there's a few things that are just thrown in there as either un-knowable references, or things to throw you off from the main plot. But overall, I think the plot is this: Guy goes out dancing with a group of friends, one of whom he's in love with. She meets another dude (probably black), and goes with him.

Now before you jump to a bunch of conclusions, try it on. Fawn, Jo, and Tootsie are out on a wire: these 3 friends are wired, i.e., on a drug bender... Lettuce-toothed junkies all full of desire... they get stoned, and then want to screw the next random dude (ever met anyone like that? nah, never).

So, to end the whole discussion about whether it's "Rick James takes her new" vs. "takes her nude", it's nude. You can't hear it in the first chorus, but you can clearly hear it in the second, and there's even emphasis on the "d" sound in the second one. And it's intended, as so often with Cake songs, to be heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. Here's this bouncy melody, la di da, oh and by the way, here's my girlfriend fucking some random dude. Maximum impact, classic Cake. (I love that.)

And there's nothing I can do. And there's nothing I can say to you. I've got a lot of work to do? Hmm. I think she's his girlfriend, he's more in love than she is, and she's mad at him for something he's done (or failed to do), so to punish him she's gone off with some random dude. He, having an inferiority complex as he does, takes all the responsibility on himself -- he's got a lot of work to do in order to gain her love. He guesses he'll leave it up to her. As any weenie would.

As to why Rick James, I don't think it's literal, I just think that's a derogatory reference to the random dude that his girlfriend just went off with.