“Where’re The Stairs?”

On Jimmy Lewis’ “Where’re The Stairs?” from Ray Charles’ 1990 album Would You Believe?, the singer finds himself in a comical romantic predicament: he’s with a woman in her place when he suddenly learns that not only is there another man in her life, but that that man (who “packs a .38”) is outside the building, huffing and puffing and threatening to kick down the door. “There’s only one way out,” Ray cries to the woman, a mixture of anger at her duplicity and fear of his own safety. In his bumbling haste to get his pants up and escape, he demands to know where those damn stairs are anyway.

There’s a man out there, acting the fool
Trying to make me a ghost!

What’s interesting about this song is that Ray takes on a different role in a story he’d sung about before: the first song on his 1966 LP Ray’s Moods, “What-cha Doing In There (I Wanna Know)”, has Ray as the enraged lover outside the house, crazily peeking in windows and climbing down chimneys to see if his growing suspicions are justified.

“Where’re The Stairs?” is all synthesizers, programmed by Charles Richard Cason and Ray; Jimmy Lewis produced it and Ray engineered it himself. The song moves along dramatically on a minor chord, rather slick and muscular and unstoppable – like a cornered creature with nothing to lose. On top of the driving backing are short, airy synth notes, with quick-bending pitch modifications. They sound like Ray’s classic “aw” and “oh yeah” asides, just in keyboard form.

After a solo, played by Ray Charles (who, unusually, gets credited for it on the LP jacket – a necessity in light of how much Cason had to do with the keyboards on Would You Believe?), Ray starts to accuse himself, bringing a little woe-is-me this-is-all-my-fault to the story.

If I followed my mind I’d be fine
Something told me not to go
The same thing happened to a friend of mine
Now he’s not with us no more

A real tale behind “Where’re The Stairs?”

There may be more truth to this tale than you might think. In his 1977 autobiography Brother Ray, Mr. C tells a story from his early days when he was with a married woman named Maybelle at his friend Dug’s place, unbeknownst to Maybelle’s husband Fox:

We’ve just finished fucking and we’re both buck naked when we hear a knock at the door. We look out the window and our hearts nearly stop beating.
“Oh shit,” Maybelle says, “it’s Fox.”
Dug goes to the door […]
“Have you seen my old lady?” Fox asks.
“No,” Dug answers, guarding the door. “Why would you think she’d be here?”
In the meantime, while this little conversation is going on, Maybelle and I are in the bed. And the bedroom is mighty close to the front door. If Fox turns a certain way, he can practically see us.
Maybelle and I get so close that you don’t see no two heads or no two bodies; just one. We’re sure-enough tight-knit.
Meanwhile, Fox is still pressing:
“Sure you ain’t seen my woman?”
[…]
Finally, Dug lets him have it:
“Look, didn’t I tell you, goddammit, she ain’t here? You know me. If I tell you she ain’t here, she ain’t here.”
“Okay, man, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean no harm.” And with that, Fox splits.
[…]
That’s the kind of friend Dug was. And the man’s my partner to this day.

(My favorite part of that story: “We look out the window.”)

So it was a situation Ray knew, although it was Jimmy Lewis that wrote the song, and probably a basic enough tale that it was just a coincidence. It had been quite a while, in 1990, since Ray Charles had to worry about compromising situations like this; he had his own notoriety, methods, guards, and locations to conduct any activity he wanted. But he could still relate to the lyrics, and he sounds to be having fun singing about a somewhat lighter subject than usual.

There were no singles from Would You Believe?, so to hear “Where’re The Stairs?” you’ll have to find a copy of the vinyl LP, which is often seen for sale online. The question mark in the song’s title, incidentally, contributes to the small and brief fascination for punctuation in this era. There’s one in the album’s title, and the song after this one on the LP is called “Leave Him!”

“Where’re The Stairs?” is the fourth and penultimate song on Side 2 of Would You Believe?

Listen to “Where’re The Stairs?”

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