Post by messedupmagician on Mar 12, 2010 11:17:05 GMT -5
Sometime last year I spent a good few weeks researching, listening to and writing about Boys and Girls in America. I have in fact done it with all their albums, but this one is the most concise and readable. It's a piece about the story behind BaGiA and what occurs in the album. If you are going to take the time to read it, I guess I should warn you now... it's kind of long.
Some of it is my own thoughts, some parts are from interviews, some are views taken from people on forums, the wiki and comments on lyrics. I haven't referenced anybody, so please don't be upset if you see something you may have said without your name at the bottom. I don't mean to plagiarise, just to organise.
I hope you enjoy.
The Hold Steady[/b]
If Jesus was in a band it would be The Hold Steady. But even he would only be singing backing vocals to Craig Finn.
Boys and Girls in America
During the recording of Boys and Girls in America, singer, Craig Finn told Rolling Stone magazine that he had been “thinking a lot about depression, and the relationship between depression and creativity” saying “Certainly there have been a number of artists who have done both”.
Like all of the albums, it follows the three main characters:
Holly - Her parents named her Halleluiah, but she was known by her peers as Holly. She was a good little Christian girl until she got high for the first time at a camp on the banks of the Mississippi River, aged 17 (which we learnt in the song Stevie Nix). From there on her life was a downward spiral of parties, drug addiction and promiscuity. Being raised Catholic, Holly believes that Jesus will be reborn again in human form, thinking she has found him in Charlemagne. Throughout her journey she battles between her party lifestyle and her Christian faith, before being reborn at the end of Separation Sunday.
Charlemagne – a pimp and drug dealer who Holly mistakes for her saviour. We also learn of his romance with the young psychic, Sapphire.
Gideon – a hardcore drug-dealer and gang-man. Gideon hooks up with Holly before she abandons him for a new boy. When things with him turn a little rough, Holly returns to find Gideon in Denver, and then they both leave for St. Paul.
THE ALBUM
Stuck Between Stations – The first song from their third album opens with a quote from Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, from the narrator Sal Paradise. The quote goes:
“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk- real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.”
Singer Craig Finn explained in an interview that he read On The Road when he was 17 and didn’t really get it. He read it again when he was 33 and understood it a lot better, really getting the intensity, originality and humour of the book. He said that he remembers reading that quote and thinking “I could write an entire album on that theme”. Thus begins Boys and Girls in America. However, Finn makes a big point of saying that, unlike Separation Sunday, this is not a concept-type record, but “more of a theme record”. Finn says this song comes from his awareness of getting out of a darker place and starting to take better care of himself. He explained: “There was this transition period, where I wondered ‘Wait a minute! This is going to be awful if I get in shape and lose my creativity.’”
A main part of this song is a biography of the poet John Berryman (also known as John Allyn Smith) who lived in the twin cities. In 1972, Berryman committed suicide by jumping off the Washington Bridge in Minneapolis, which stretches over the Mississippi River. A famous poet, author of The Dream Songs, and often considered one of the fathers of the Confessional school of poetry, he was a major figure in American Literature in the second half of the 20th Century. Haunted by the suicide of his father, who he found dead at a young age (8, 10 or 12), he eventually gave into his depression and alcoholism and threw himself of the highest bridge in Minneapolis. Berryman was a professor at the University of Minnesota (the Gophers), hence the line “He loved the Golden Gophers).
Another song about this incident is the fantastic John Allyn Smith Sails by Okkervil River from their fantastic album The Stage Names.
Chips Ahoy – In the words of Craig Finn “This song is called Chips Ahoy, but it is not about the chocolate chip cookies... although we’ve heard they’re delicious. It’s actually about a horse. But it’s not really about a horse it’s about this girl that can predict which horse will win a race. But then it’s not really about that either...”
This is a song about a guy (Charlemagne) who is with a girl that can predict the future (her name, we later learn is Sapphire). He thinks that having a girl who can tell which horse will win in a race will solve all his problems, but he soon realises that it doesn’t. She is only complete in a materialistic sense. She’s spiritually empty and won’t let Charlemagne get close. Interestingly, Sapphire plays an important role in the fate of Charlemagne by their fourth album Stay Positive. In the song Both Crosses we hear more from Charlemagne’s psychic girlfriend. Back in happier times (Chips Ahoy) she would tell him “which horse would finish in first” but now she’s having visions of his murder. Charlemagne carves a new path without Sapphire, but the tip-off may have saved him from getting stabbed. In Yeah Sapphire he tells her that it “all went down exactly like your visions”.
Hot Soft Light – This song starts with Charlemagne being interrogated by the police for a robbery that he denies being involved with, yet plainly was (he knows where it took place then quickly denies it). The robbery was most probably for drugs money. He recounts how drugs began recreational but then became “kinda medical”: a necessity. Northtown Mall, Lyndale Avenue and Lake Street are all Twin Cities references.
Same Kooks – One of a handful of ‘link’ songs, this tune sets up the story for the next song, including lines from many Hold Steady songs, but giving them an altogether different feel. Gideon is “making a pipe made from a Pringles can”, the same line appearing in the very next song. We also hear the “clicks and hisses”, a reference to the “Twin City kisses” line in Stuck Between Stations. The clicks and hisses are most probably the white noise that Finn mentions in the next track and become a lyrical motif throughout the album.
First Night – Possibly my most favourite Hold Steady track of all time. This is perhaps the only song that comes after How a Resurrection Really Feels in time-frame, meaning we get to see an update of the characters. This explains why Holly got in the hospital. Gideon’s “pipe” is debris from Same Kooks with more lines echoing from Stuck Between Stations. This is Holly, Gideon and Charlemagne’s consequences being paid. They can’t stay young forever. The drugs and booze are taking their toll and they no longer look as young, nor can they get as high. Being in hospital has perhaps made Holly break down. She doesn’t want to be part of the scene anymore. Holly references Stuck Between Stations in the line “Words alone never could save us”. The words “hot soft” appear in several Hold Steady songs and can be said to be a description of flesh and human bodies, but is also the antonym of the more well known phrase “cold hard” as in ‘cold hard cash’ or ‘cold hard facts’. The use of the term may also be a self reference to when it was first used in Most People Are DJs as a description of people in juxtaposition to the hard, rock of the planet we live on as well as its religious connotations. The wondrous line about “sequencer beats boys” is as a reference to purveyors of electronic music. A sequencer is used to digitally produce music. The Hold Steady are very anti dance-punk, as suggested in the song Most People Are DJs. There is a possibility that this may be the greatest song ever written...
Party Pit – Finn has said that this song is his attempt at rewriting "Chesterfield King" by Jawbreaker to fit into the Hold Steady canon. Craig Finn: "The Party Pit was somewhere I really would go in Minnesota. I don't know if it's there anymore. It was kind of like you'd go back in the woods and there was this big hole, maybe a quarry or something. It certainly wasn't an active quarry, but you could go back there and drink. There were a lot of high school parties there. The cops totally knew about it, though, so the parties would only last like 10 minutes. I'm really a fan of that song. It talks a lot about being evolved in punk rock and hardcore and all that shit but also partying." Essentially the song is about how Holly’s life goes downhill as she got “pinned down” to the town and got caught up in drugs, whereas the guy (probably just Craig as a narrator) goes off to College and starts a band (Craig’s first band Lifter Puller), whilst Holly runs out of money to have fun with them anymore. It’s hard to tell whether they hook up again when the narrator returns to Minnesota. Grainbelt Bridge, Crystal Court and the Har Har shopping mall are references to Rosevill, just outside of St. Paul.
You Can Make Him Like You – more satirical than literal, this song is an indictment against girls who live their lives through their boyfriends. They don’t need to be creative or interesting, so long as their boyfriends are. Craig is telling girls “Don’t settle for that crap. You are not a bruise that needs covering.” However Craig is not condemning these girls but is suggesting they are sad and conflicted. The whole song is a lyrical double entendre.
Massive Nights – This whole song just says “School dances” to me. Perhaps it’s “I had my mouth on her nose when the chaperone said we were dancing too close”. I think the whole song is about those first nights out, school discos, and house parties at mates. It reminds you how great and simple they were: “there weren’t any fights” and “every song was right”. “We drank from your purse” suggests those classic underage nights where you used to take your own booze out and hide it in chick’s handbags or in bushes outside. There is also a classic Hold Steady reference to getting wasted at the matinees. But there’s also a darker undertone. It’s suggesting that in a way it was all a facade. “My friends were acting cool”. Then the last lines “She had a gun in her mouth and was shooting up in her dreams”... Aiming for her head? Is this girl suicidal? She’s the perfect high school girl crowned queen, with all the best friends and parties. But is it all just an act?
Citrus – Tad wrote a riff that he thought sounded like an acoustic Led Zeppelin song so Craig said “if we’re gonna try do a Led Zeppelin thing we should probably call the song citrus, ‘cos all the good Led Zep songs are about citrus fruit”. The song is, in a way, about the various feelings you go through along the journey of getting drunk. I love how, when it opens, he makes it sound like a love-song about a girl but it’s really about alcohol. The juxtaposition of Jesus and Judas is interesting. On the surface it seemed as though Judas loved Jesus, but Judas betrays Jesus. Similarly, perhaps he is saying that drugs may seem to induce love, but then betrays it. Drugs betray the lovers... I love how he doesn’t put down the liquor or the powders but the “pistols and the pagers” as the inevitable result as a life centred around inebriation.
Chillout Tent – Damn. Maybe this is my most favourite HS song? The guest vocals are David Pirner of Soul Asylum and Elizabeth Elmore of The Reputation/Sarge. A lot of festivals have unofficial “chillout” tents for the people who get too strung-out, but the idea of using one as the setting for a love story is incredible. I love the juxtaposition of unrequited love with drug overdose in the line “it was kinda sexy but it was kinda creepy”. “He quoted her some poetry, he’s Tennyson in denim and sheepskin...” goes down as one of my favourite Finn lines. Elmore just kills me with her ending lines “And I never saw that boy again”. Such a simple line but loaded to the brim with emotion, it is also a fabulous ending to a breath-taking story.
Southtown Girls – A song that is really all about drugs. All the twin cities references are just directions on where to meet the dealer/narrator. “Meet me right in front of the Rainbow Foods, I got a brown paper bag and black buckle shoes. If anything seems weird then just cruise”... “don’t look me in the eye look over at the theatre. I’m a little bit surprised you didn’t say there’d be three of you.”
Girls Like Status – A song that simply references all of the music that made the Hold Steady. The Mountain Goats, The Locust and Dillinger Four all crop up here. Have to admire the line “And song number four on that thirsty floor, you want the scars but you don’t want the war, that’s just hardcore. These kids are clever to the core.”
Arms and Hearts – The amazing bonus track closer to their third album. When the Hold Steady play live they nearly always end their shows with one of their album closers. It’s almost always a ten-minute-long rendition of “Killer Parites” but I also personally love it when they choose this. It pretty much tells the story of the cruise across the states. It references both albums that came before this as well as Boys and Girls. It pretty much gives you all of Finn’s favourite lyrical motif’s in one song: Sex, Catholicism, Alcohol, Death. Absolutely phenomenal!
Chris Cook
Well there you go. Thanks for taking the time to read that. I hope you got something out of it. Please feel free to add to it.
Stay Positive
Some of it is my own thoughts, some parts are from interviews, some are views taken from people on forums, the wiki and comments on lyrics. I haven't referenced anybody, so please don't be upset if you see something you may have said without your name at the bottom. I don't mean to plagiarise, just to organise.
I hope you enjoy.
The Hold Steady[/b]
If Jesus was in a band it would be The Hold Steady. But even he would only be singing backing vocals to Craig Finn.
Boys and Girls in America
During the recording of Boys and Girls in America, singer, Craig Finn told Rolling Stone magazine that he had been “thinking a lot about depression, and the relationship between depression and creativity” saying “Certainly there have been a number of artists who have done both”.
Like all of the albums, it follows the three main characters:
Holly - Her parents named her Halleluiah, but she was known by her peers as Holly. She was a good little Christian girl until she got high for the first time at a camp on the banks of the Mississippi River, aged 17 (which we learnt in the song Stevie Nix). From there on her life was a downward spiral of parties, drug addiction and promiscuity. Being raised Catholic, Holly believes that Jesus will be reborn again in human form, thinking she has found him in Charlemagne. Throughout her journey she battles between her party lifestyle and her Christian faith, before being reborn at the end of Separation Sunday.
Charlemagne – a pimp and drug dealer who Holly mistakes for her saviour. We also learn of his romance with the young psychic, Sapphire.
Gideon – a hardcore drug-dealer and gang-man. Gideon hooks up with Holly before she abandons him for a new boy. When things with him turn a little rough, Holly returns to find Gideon in Denver, and then they both leave for St. Paul.
THE ALBUM
Stuck Between Stations – The first song from their third album opens with a quote from Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, from the narrator Sal Paradise. The quote goes:
“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk- real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.”
Singer Craig Finn explained in an interview that he read On The Road when he was 17 and didn’t really get it. He read it again when he was 33 and understood it a lot better, really getting the intensity, originality and humour of the book. He said that he remembers reading that quote and thinking “I could write an entire album on that theme”. Thus begins Boys and Girls in America. However, Finn makes a big point of saying that, unlike Separation Sunday, this is not a concept-type record, but “more of a theme record”. Finn says this song comes from his awareness of getting out of a darker place and starting to take better care of himself. He explained: “There was this transition period, where I wondered ‘Wait a minute! This is going to be awful if I get in shape and lose my creativity.’”
A main part of this song is a biography of the poet John Berryman (also known as John Allyn Smith) who lived in the twin cities. In 1972, Berryman committed suicide by jumping off the Washington Bridge in Minneapolis, which stretches over the Mississippi River. A famous poet, author of The Dream Songs, and often considered one of the fathers of the Confessional school of poetry, he was a major figure in American Literature in the second half of the 20th Century. Haunted by the suicide of his father, who he found dead at a young age (8, 10 or 12), he eventually gave into his depression and alcoholism and threw himself of the highest bridge in Minneapolis. Berryman was a professor at the University of Minnesota (the Gophers), hence the line “He loved the Golden Gophers).
Another song about this incident is the fantastic John Allyn Smith Sails by Okkervil River from their fantastic album The Stage Names.
Chips Ahoy – In the words of Craig Finn “This song is called Chips Ahoy, but it is not about the chocolate chip cookies... although we’ve heard they’re delicious. It’s actually about a horse. But it’s not really about a horse it’s about this girl that can predict which horse will win a race. But then it’s not really about that either...”
This is a song about a guy (Charlemagne) who is with a girl that can predict the future (her name, we later learn is Sapphire). He thinks that having a girl who can tell which horse will win in a race will solve all his problems, but he soon realises that it doesn’t. She is only complete in a materialistic sense. She’s spiritually empty and won’t let Charlemagne get close. Interestingly, Sapphire plays an important role in the fate of Charlemagne by their fourth album Stay Positive. In the song Both Crosses we hear more from Charlemagne’s psychic girlfriend. Back in happier times (Chips Ahoy) she would tell him “which horse would finish in first” but now she’s having visions of his murder. Charlemagne carves a new path without Sapphire, but the tip-off may have saved him from getting stabbed. In Yeah Sapphire he tells her that it “all went down exactly like your visions”.
Hot Soft Light – This song starts with Charlemagne being interrogated by the police for a robbery that he denies being involved with, yet plainly was (he knows where it took place then quickly denies it). The robbery was most probably for drugs money. He recounts how drugs began recreational but then became “kinda medical”: a necessity. Northtown Mall, Lyndale Avenue and Lake Street are all Twin Cities references.
Same Kooks – One of a handful of ‘link’ songs, this tune sets up the story for the next song, including lines from many Hold Steady songs, but giving them an altogether different feel. Gideon is “making a pipe made from a Pringles can”, the same line appearing in the very next song. We also hear the “clicks and hisses”, a reference to the “Twin City kisses” line in Stuck Between Stations. The clicks and hisses are most probably the white noise that Finn mentions in the next track and become a lyrical motif throughout the album.
First Night – Possibly my most favourite Hold Steady track of all time. This is perhaps the only song that comes after How a Resurrection Really Feels in time-frame, meaning we get to see an update of the characters. This explains why Holly got in the hospital. Gideon’s “pipe” is debris from Same Kooks with more lines echoing from Stuck Between Stations. This is Holly, Gideon and Charlemagne’s consequences being paid. They can’t stay young forever. The drugs and booze are taking their toll and they no longer look as young, nor can they get as high. Being in hospital has perhaps made Holly break down. She doesn’t want to be part of the scene anymore. Holly references Stuck Between Stations in the line “Words alone never could save us”. The words “hot soft” appear in several Hold Steady songs and can be said to be a description of flesh and human bodies, but is also the antonym of the more well known phrase “cold hard” as in ‘cold hard cash’ or ‘cold hard facts’. The use of the term may also be a self reference to when it was first used in Most People Are DJs as a description of people in juxtaposition to the hard, rock of the planet we live on as well as its religious connotations. The wondrous line about “sequencer beats boys” is as a reference to purveyors of electronic music. A sequencer is used to digitally produce music. The Hold Steady are very anti dance-punk, as suggested in the song Most People Are DJs. There is a possibility that this may be the greatest song ever written...
Party Pit – Finn has said that this song is his attempt at rewriting "Chesterfield King" by Jawbreaker to fit into the Hold Steady canon. Craig Finn: "The Party Pit was somewhere I really would go in Minnesota. I don't know if it's there anymore. It was kind of like you'd go back in the woods and there was this big hole, maybe a quarry or something. It certainly wasn't an active quarry, but you could go back there and drink. There were a lot of high school parties there. The cops totally knew about it, though, so the parties would only last like 10 minutes. I'm really a fan of that song. It talks a lot about being evolved in punk rock and hardcore and all that shit but also partying." Essentially the song is about how Holly’s life goes downhill as she got “pinned down” to the town and got caught up in drugs, whereas the guy (probably just Craig as a narrator) goes off to College and starts a band (Craig’s first band Lifter Puller), whilst Holly runs out of money to have fun with them anymore. It’s hard to tell whether they hook up again when the narrator returns to Minnesota. Grainbelt Bridge, Crystal Court and the Har Har shopping mall are references to Rosevill, just outside of St. Paul.
You Can Make Him Like You – more satirical than literal, this song is an indictment against girls who live their lives through their boyfriends. They don’t need to be creative or interesting, so long as their boyfriends are. Craig is telling girls “Don’t settle for that crap. You are not a bruise that needs covering.” However Craig is not condemning these girls but is suggesting they are sad and conflicted. The whole song is a lyrical double entendre.
Massive Nights – This whole song just says “School dances” to me. Perhaps it’s “I had my mouth on her nose when the chaperone said we were dancing too close”. I think the whole song is about those first nights out, school discos, and house parties at mates. It reminds you how great and simple they were: “there weren’t any fights” and “every song was right”. “We drank from your purse” suggests those classic underage nights where you used to take your own booze out and hide it in chick’s handbags or in bushes outside. There is also a classic Hold Steady reference to getting wasted at the matinees. But there’s also a darker undertone. It’s suggesting that in a way it was all a facade. “My friends were acting cool”. Then the last lines “She had a gun in her mouth and was shooting up in her dreams”... Aiming for her head? Is this girl suicidal? She’s the perfect high school girl crowned queen, with all the best friends and parties. But is it all just an act?
Citrus – Tad wrote a riff that he thought sounded like an acoustic Led Zeppelin song so Craig said “if we’re gonna try do a Led Zeppelin thing we should probably call the song citrus, ‘cos all the good Led Zep songs are about citrus fruit”. The song is, in a way, about the various feelings you go through along the journey of getting drunk. I love how, when it opens, he makes it sound like a love-song about a girl but it’s really about alcohol. The juxtaposition of Jesus and Judas is interesting. On the surface it seemed as though Judas loved Jesus, but Judas betrays Jesus. Similarly, perhaps he is saying that drugs may seem to induce love, but then betrays it. Drugs betray the lovers... I love how he doesn’t put down the liquor or the powders but the “pistols and the pagers” as the inevitable result as a life centred around inebriation.
Chillout Tent – Damn. Maybe this is my most favourite HS song? The guest vocals are David Pirner of Soul Asylum and Elizabeth Elmore of The Reputation/Sarge. A lot of festivals have unofficial “chillout” tents for the people who get too strung-out, but the idea of using one as the setting for a love story is incredible. I love the juxtaposition of unrequited love with drug overdose in the line “it was kinda sexy but it was kinda creepy”. “He quoted her some poetry, he’s Tennyson in denim and sheepskin...” goes down as one of my favourite Finn lines. Elmore just kills me with her ending lines “And I never saw that boy again”. Such a simple line but loaded to the brim with emotion, it is also a fabulous ending to a breath-taking story.
Southtown Girls – A song that is really all about drugs. All the twin cities references are just directions on where to meet the dealer/narrator. “Meet me right in front of the Rainbow Foods, I got a brown paper bag and black buckle shoes. If anything seems weird then just cruise”... “don’t look me in the eye look over at the theatre. I’m a little bit surprised you didn’t say there’d be three of you.”
Girls Like Status – A song that simply references all of the music that made the Hold Steady. The Mountain Goats, The Locust and Dillinger Four all crop up here. Have to admire the line “And song number four on that thirsty floor, you want the scars but you don’t want the war, that’s just hardcore. These kids are clever to the core.”
Arms and Hearts – The amazing bonus track closer to their third album. When the Hold Steady play live they nearly always end their shows with one of their album closers. It’s almost always a ten-minute-long rendition of “Killer Parites” but I also personally love it when they choose this. It pretty much tells the story of the cruise across the states. It references both albums that came before this as well as Boys and Girls. It pretty much gives you all of Finn’s favourite lyrical motif’s in one song: Sex, Catholicism, Alcohol, Death. Absolutely phenomenal!
Chris Cook
Well there you go. Thanks for taking the time to read that. I hope you got something out of it. Please feel free to add to it.
Stay Positive
