“Child Support, Alimony”
Song by Ray Charles
The darkly comic divorce song “Child Support, Alimony” from Ray Charles’s 1990 album Would You Believe? is built entirely on synthesizers, played not by Ray but by Charles Richard Cason. The music is light and peppy, danceable but smooth. It has an airy, inorganic feel to it, all computery and digital-sounding. Nothing at all like Ray’s other music, it’s closer to Janet Jackson’s MTV pop than his classic sound.
Written by Ray’s friend Jimmy Lewis, who produced this version, “Child Support, Alimony” is a long whine by Ray about the actions of his ex-wife and her mother (“the witch,” he mutters) as the erstwhile couple and their lawyers square off during divorce court proceedings. (The gist of Ray’s objections concerns testimony full of lies, which moved the judge to angry tears as the incredulous husband looked on, helpless and hapless.)
The song’s hook is the Ray rap that gets repeated throughout the song: “Child support, alimony, she’s eating steak, I’m eating baloney”. Ray has to live frugally, and can’t even visit his kids when he wants — the ex-wife decides that. Also mentioned is the singer’s ignoble transportation, a Volkswagen Rabbit — the baloney of cars, as Jimmy Lewis saw it. Ray’s voice is knowing, easy but resigned.
As late 1980s baby boomers got divorced in droves just as they’d gotten married in the 1960s and 1970s, songs like this reflected something that was, for better or worse, in the cultural air in 1990. Many might have found themselves ruefully relating to the sentiments in this song.
“Child Support, Alimony” is commendable for its humor and for Ray’s deep, winking growl as he relishes playing the role of the put-upon ex-husband. There is no actual pathos here, despite the passing reference to custody of the children; it is pure woe-is-me silliness, and enjoyable silliness at that.
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Songs on Would You Believe?