Tom Russell Touch Of Evil (cover by Luis Medina)

“Touch of Evil” was the very first Tom Russell song I ever heard. From his amazing 2001 album, “Borderland,” I was immediately taken into his musical sphere of influence. The 1958 movie upon which the song is based is one of my favorite Orson Welles movies. I’ve seen it about 6 or 7 times. A masterpiece of cinema, Russell’s song about the movie is among some of the best songwriting around. If you haven’t heard Russell’s version, please, get it (don’t let my mauling of it dissuade you!). If you haven’t seen the movie, rent it, buy it, see it.

Charlton Heston, who died only this past Saturday is in the movie “Touch of Evil,” playing the role of a Mexican district attorney who, while on his honeymoon, becomes ensnared in the seedy, and evil web of Orson’s corrupt bordertown police world. He wears a thin mustache in the movie and it’s kind of odd seeing him play a Mexican. But he turns in a great performance in the movie as do all the other great cast members.

Carlotta I found among a series of vintage burlesque films. Innocent by today’s standards, these were pretty spicy clips back in the day. The most interesting thing about watching this flesh show is how creepy and mysterious those men leering in the dark all look in their fedoras. Now, really, who wears a fedora to a strip show anymore?

Touch of Evil
by Tom Russell

The night my baby left me, I crossed the bridge to Juarez Avenue.Like that movie “Touch of Evil” I got the Orson Welles-Marlene Dietrich blues.Where Orson walks into the whorehouse and Marlene says “Man, you look like hell.”And Orson’s chewing on a chocolate bar as the lights go on in the old Blue Star Hotel.”Read my fortune” says old Orson, “down inside the tea leaves of your cup.”And she says “You ain’t got no future, Hank. I believe your future’s all used up.”

[Chorus]
Why don’t you touch anymore, why don’t you touch anymore?Why do you run away and hide? You know it hurts me deep inside.Why do you close the bedroom door? This is a brutal little war.What good is all this fighting for, if you don’t touch me anymore?

They shot “Touch of Evil” in a Venice, California colonnade.And I grew up near those dead canals where they filmed the longest pan shot ever made.Now I’m thinking about the movie, the bar I’m in, the bridge, the Rio Grande. Now I’m thinking about my baby and the borderline between a woman and a man.I was drunk as Orson Welles the night I crawled backwards out the door.I was screaming “Baby, baby, how come you don’t touch me any more?”

Won’t someone roll the credits on twenty years of love turned dark and raw.Not a technicolor love film, it’s a brutal document. It’s film noir.And it’s all played out on the borderline and the actors are tragically miscast.Like a Mexican burlesque show where the characters are wearing comic masks.”Oh, it’s love and love alone!” I cried to the barman in this Juarez waterhole.As we raised a glass to Orson and the touch of evil living in our souls.

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