It’s been three decades since Cowboy Mouth brought New Orleans to the Top 40 with “Jenny Says,” a radio hit which landed them permanently in the annals of the city’s rock and roll history. In celebration, the band re-released the record as “Jenny Says (Jenny 20),” and will release the five-track EP Wide Open on March 27.

Among those five tracks is “Oh Toulouse!” — described as “the story of a relationship through the eyes of the major painter with little in the way of legs.” Premiering today (March 24) on OffBeat.com, the song’s genesis begins with a late-night stroll Fred LeBlanc took through the French Quarter. 

“I happened to turn onto Toulouse Street,” he recalls. “I had also just seen the old Jose Ferrer movie from the 1950s called Moulin Rouge about Toulouse-Lautrec [full name Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa] and was intrigued how the character of Latrec was able to turn what many people perceived as a seedy part of Parisian nightlife into something glorious and celebratory simply through the power of his artwork.  Lautrec was looked down upon in his day because he was what we would now call a ‘little person,’ and received (as it is crudely portrayed in the film) lots of derision from all facets of society based on his physical appearance. The fact that he used his talent to turn the supposed underbelly of Parisian night life at the time into a thing of majestic beauty says a lot about the proverbial artistic eye.”

With the backdrop in mind, LeBlanc then began thinking of the 1990s New Orleans rock band The Bingemen, whose song “Toulouse” served as a springboard, in a sense. “That [song] used similar word play to what I did in our song,” Leblanc says. “Kudos to those guys; you should find their song ‘Home’ and hear what a great band they were. Anyway, throw in the eternal male/female conflict and you have (what I hope) it’s a pretty catchy little rock ‘n’ roll song.”

Wide Open is available for pre-order here.