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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 27, 2016 23:59:30 GMT -5
Thanks spencer! Nice catch on the Journey/Trip idea; she's saying "drive around to the window" for some "hazardous chemicals" after all, so yeah, she's offering to send them on a trip. And we have Going on a Hike in which Craig plays further with the image of "travel" and "hiking" when he means getting high. That looks like a very good call. You must be right about the Band/"bar band" connection too, another nice find. I'm skeptical that the Mary/Danko parallel is explained by weight gain; fundamentally, Mary's a speed addict, and I'm pretty sure weight gain doesn't go with that --- see too all the stuff about famine, kids ripping into sugar packets [SM, CatCT, OWL], etc. ("Stumbling" [MPADJs] suggests physical coordination issues, mainly.) But the other thing that "her steps they made the records skip" seems to allude to, and I guess I can mention this without getting into the details yet, is that *Mary took steps to subtly change the future she saw in her visions*. I've already claimed that "records and tapes" mean visions, so if you're with me that far then you can put it together with "grant me some indulgences" [BCrosses], "it all went down exactly like your visions" and "these miracles work" [YS] to conclude that "her steps they made the records skip" could be read that way. Just throwing that out there; more on this when we get to the crucifixion. What *does* end up being a big problem for the heavy speeders is "meth mouth," where their teeth basically rot out of their heads. And that gets to be a worry for Mary later on; see The Only Thing where the Narrator says: Last night her teeth were in my dreams But we're not there yet; that's 10+ years from the time of the "first night" party --- here, Mary's a speed shooter, but hasn't graduated to meth yet. The decline is long and slow. (I should note, since who knows when I'll get back to it, that even the album title "Teeth Dreams" is a double entendre --- on the one hand, we have the Narrator's dreams about Mary's teeth; on the other, we have her dreams brought on by the "bite" of the meth-dealing "bugs.") It's possible that UPC is Universal Product Code, though it doesn't seem to me to fit as well. Let me come back to this from another angle below. Here's another Swish line that you might have a take on, by the way: "Moving pictures got us through to September." I remember reading someone's suggestion that it's an allusion to the Rush album, whose title is a "triple entendre" (wikipedia entry on Moving Pictures), and that the change in the signature of the music is a Rush homage. That could totally be --- even to my untrained ear, it sounds sort of Neal-Peart-esque. And I can imagine the allusion being sort of a general double-meaning alert. But I've wondered if there's something more there. Craig hits you over the head with "oh shit *that's* what that means" so often that the subtler stuff leaves me second guessing. Is there a Rush angle to "September"? Or, here's another thought. I've stated that films/videos/records/tapes/DVDs are all metaphors for visions, and "moving pictures" obviously fits that list. Is Holly saying that Mary somehow got them through to September? I don't really have any other evidence for that, so I don't know. Craig doesn't waste space, though, so there's a point to it somewhere. ---------- I promised a rundown of Cheyenne Sunrise. This song is sung from Mary's POV; unlike many of the songs, it relates a conversation that takes place at a specific point in time, after the "first night" party but before the metal bar beatdown. She's talking to the Narrator. When I left I wasn't thinking That I wasn't coming home But first Al Green And then Barry White Convinced me not to go And I didn't come home for fighting I came to bandage up my hand And if you're gonna talk to me like that Then I'll just go back out again Mary went out one evening (from the apartment at Nicollet & 66th, where she's living with the Narrator, Charlemagne, and Gideon [HH]) and didn't come home. When she shows up again in the morning, the Narrator, who's still around and still concerned [HM, LID, TOT], confronts her about it. She tells him that she wasn't planning not to come home when she left; only that, once she got where she was going, the seduction of margaritas ("Al Green" [BBlues, 212M]) and then something white ("Barry White") convinced her not to go, with the implication that she's been getting high, seeing her visions, and fucking all night, so that her stigmata are bleeding (from holy/erotic ecstasy, just like at prom [YGD, OWL]) and she needs to bandage them up. She doesn't want to hear it from him (and again, he knows he has no standing to press the matter; see "I never want to make you feel uncomfortable / I hope I never did" [HM]); if he talks to her like that again she's just going to go back out. Two things here. It bugs me that I'm not sure what "Barry White" is; clearly the most likely thing is some form of speed that isn't yet meth, but if there's an obvious kind that would identify as "white" I just don't know what it is. In Barfruit Blues Mary was "sniffing margarita mix" to get the "white" of "red white and blue," and cocaine, which is sniffed, is the "white pony," so maybe it's coke. If someone can make a convincing link to speed, though, that would tighten things up. Internet isn't so good for answering these kinds of questions. Two, and this will be increasingly important later on: Mary's not turning tricks. She's staying out all night getting high and fucking because she really, really likes to get high and fuck. The Narrator has nothing to say here because she's doing exactly what she wants to do. When Charlemagne calls her a "borderline whore" [HF], it's meant literally; unlike Holly, she's not getting paid for it (she's a princess, not to mention a no-fail horse-race winner, and doesn't need the money). Lower back tattoos can mean whatever, but hers ("Girl you gotta cover that" [HM]) is a straight-up tramp stamp. This is consistent with the tradition of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute; according to wikipedia ( link): There's a lot more to say about this but it needs to wait until we get further into the story. But it's one reason why I don't think UPC stands for Universal Product Code; she's not dealing, and more importantly she herself is not for sale. Wipe that chip right off your shoulder We ain't getting any younger Some things are getting bigger Some things are falling off Some things they seem much harder Some other things stay soft She tells the Narrator to wipe the chip off his shoulder, his clinging to the outward things of a long time ago; the truth is that they're getting older now, and things are different than they used to be (this is the "Cheyenne Sunrise" theme, explained below). I don't know what is meant by "Some things are getting bigger / Some things are falling off." But I think the "harder/soft" lines refer to her: some things, like her body (see "just my body" below), seem harder; some other things, like the soul beneath, stay soft. We're tipping over in the taprooms We're shooting through the ceiling We're dying in the bathrooms And we're living For that one sweet, fleeting feeling It's been a few years since the "first night" party, and things aren't like they were. She describes the way they're living now, deeply addicted to drugs, sacrificing everything for one more chance to feel the "sweet, fleeting feeling" of their early highs (the same feeling that Holly too felt when she first started using, before she became "enslaved" [CiS], the high of their "first night" [FN]; this is again the "Cheyenne Sunrise" theme, a reminder of a time when the experience was wonderful and new; see below). Now they're a mess, "tipping over in the taprooms," "shooting through the ceiling," "dying in the bathrooms"; the only thing missing from the same litany as recited years later by the Narrator is "bleeding on the floor" [SM], and that's coming very soon (see her prediction about "your next party" below). I know my cough sounds awful Some nights it hurts a bit to breathe But I'm glad it's just my body I do my business on the street She admits that her cough (identifying her with St Therese of Lisieux [BBlues, MM, A&H, BCrosses, CSunrise]) sounds awful, and that her body is breaking down. But she's glad that it's just her body. Yes, she's a borderline whore, but that's just her body, too. We ain't getting any younger Tomorrow night we'll be that much older Some kids are growing awkward And some kids are going off We're fingering the punch bowl We're feeding from the trough There's nothing quite like a Cheyenne sunrise To make us has-beens feel too old Onward Christian soldiers We're gonna bash right through your borders I bet your next party gets sketchy I saw the new kids nodding off Some things are getting bigger Some things are falling off Some things seem much harder Some other things stay soft Once more she reminds him that they're getting older. And then she shares a vision about "tomorrow night," which we've already identified as a forecast of the metal bar incident. We're going to wrap up that episode tomorrow, so we'll revisit those lines then. But on the way, she describes the Cheyenne sunrise after which the song is titled: "There's nothing quite like a Cheyenne sunrise / To make us has-beens feel too old." So, what's this all about? We've said that most American place names in the story are metaphors, not literal cities and states, and that goes for this one too. "Cheyenne" isn't the city in Wyoming; to understand what Mary means by it, we have to turn back the clock to Minnesota of a few centuries prior. The Cheyenne ( wikipedia) were the indigenous tribe of the Twin Cities region at the time of the coming of the Europeans. Later (along with the Lakota) they were the US military's chief adversary in the Sioux Wars, including the Battle of Little Big Horn, at which Custer and his regiment were annihilated. In the THS canon the name of the tribe is associated both with the street-fight slaughter of the Skins in the "Indian fringes" on the day of the metal bar incident [BBreathing, C&N], and more broadly with the idyllic conception of the Twin Cities as the "wide open country" of the early western plains, idealized in the song "Don't Fence Me In." The repeated final verse of this song ("I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences / Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses / Can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences / Don't fence me in") is referenced twice in the THS canon ("a burn for every cowboy who got fenced in" [SN]; "the wild west begins / right where your body ends" [SS]). When the kids first came to Minneapolis it seemed like paradise, but it wasn't long before the scene turned heavy and they found themselves trapped in addiction, gang dealings, etc. See Craig's comment in the 2006 Pitchfork interview ( link): The "fencing in" of the West is a metaphor for this same progression; when Mary sees the sunrise after staying out all night, she's reminded of what the scene used to be like, like the unspoiled plains when the Cheyenne roamed Minnesota, and how much older they've gotten since then. In Yeah Sapphire, Mary envisions Charlemagne pleading to let him take her to Cheyenne to start over, but not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, he thinks she means the city (he figures Aberdeen, SD is a good backup plan). The Narrator too alludes to the city [TSPotC], but does so with some understanding that it's an idea, not a place ("It's like distance doesn't equal rate and time no more"). In short Cheyenne, like other place names used in the songs, isn't properly a reference to the city in Wyoming. It's the ideal of a new and unspoiled paradise, "a simple place to score" without the plagues and entanglements of the scene turned ugly. There's at least one other tie-in to this theme, maybe two. We mentioned Saddle Shoes, in which the Skins in cowboy gear are hanging around the saddle shop. There's mention there of a girl who "appeared faithless in fringes and feathers" [SS], which in turn hearkens back to the other "Indian fringes"; putting them together, we get the image of a girl in Indian fringes and feathers who has "faithlessly" aligned herself with the cowboys. But which girl fits that description? That would be Mary herself, who entered Holly's party on Gideon's arm, in her train wreck "white tatters like feathers," as we put it, while "the guys from the front lawn were making jokes about the white swan" [SN]. White Swan ( wikipedia) was an Indian scout with Custer's regiment at the Battle of Little Bighorn, who fought with Custer against the Sioux and Cheyenne. There had to be a reason why Craig turned Stevie Nicks' "white-winged dove" into a "white swan"; it turns out it's because he's working it into the Cheyenne motif. In Look Alive, where Shepard is described as coming back from another defeat with "blood on his boots and an arrow in his hat" [LA], the Skins are riding the crosstown Lake Street bus through Minneapolis "down to the railroad yard" [LA] in St. Paul (which is to say, to the metal bar and environs; Railroad Island is adjacent to Payne Avenue). The implication is that they're coming, not just from the Wild West, but literally from west of Minneapolis. Part of that is that they actually do come from there; following Lake Street west just beyond the city limits, you first pass the Cityscape Apartments (5707 MN-7, St Louis Park, MN 55416) and a few blocks later Methodist hospital (6500 Excelsior Blvd, St Louis Park, MN 55426) where the Skins "hang" [LA]. I've never been to Minneapolis and it's hard to form a sense of this from internet images, but it sure looks like the "Cityscape Apartments" are so named precisely because they sit on "the ridge," such as it is, "where the West commences." (There's also a maze of streets named after Indian tribes off the "frontage roads" [MoC] along "169 ... up by Edina High" [HH] which could conceivably be the "Indian fringes." The whole cowboys/indians metaphor is so insane anyway, and so riddled with double entendres, that it's hard to completely write it off; but unless that's where Craig's house was or something, the evidence to make that case is pretty thin. What there is we'll review later.) That's enough, more than enough. I hope it's not too much. Again, thank you for sticking with this, and for your prayers for Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 28, 2016 21:56:29 GMT -5
Back once more to the metal bar. We've already been through the history of Holly's departure for California, Charlemagne's subsequent financial troubles with the Skins, and the fact that he "went down to the taverns" [OwtB] to try to stabilize the situation. But the actual line is "we" went down to the taverns. So who exactly is "we"? It's the same "we" later referred to by Charlemagne, when remembering the day of the metal bar beatdown in Hornets! Hornets!: We were living up at Nicollet and 66th With three skaters and some hoodrat chick The "three skaters" here are the Narrator, Charlemagne, and Gideon. The "hoodrat chick" is Mary. Holly lived with them before her departure for California, but now there's just the four of them --- the Narrator, Charlemagne, and Mary on the ground floor, and Gideon up in the loft [SN]. (Charlemagne thinks of the house with four, not five, inhabitants precisely because he's stopped to recall the times in suburban Minneapolis when the heavy stuff did after all end up "at its heaviest" [HH], and the day of the metal bar tops the list. More on this when we take apart Hornets! Hornets! in detail.) We actually get a view of Holly and Mary together in the house at Nicollet and 66th, before Holly left, in Curves and Nerves. Mary is the POV character of the song, as indicated, among other things, by the first line "The call came in on a princess phone on the patio" [C&N]. This is a riff on the opening of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which "the call came in" on a "pink telephone" in the "patio section" of the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge; Craig ran with the same image, but altered "pink telephone" to "princess phone" in order to identify "princess" Mary [YGD, A&H, ASD] as the girl who answers. Note that Holly is already "back around the neighborhood" [MINTS] at the time of the metal bar episode, but living in another house with "some old lady" [CatCT] for a landlady. We know this because she showed up in the ER that night [SN] after she heard what happened to Charlemagne. We also have Mary's testimony that, "when the crowd went wild," Holly was "under the stands / Mouths and hands, hands and mouths" [C&N]. So the four friends got out of the house on Nicollet and 66th and headed down to the taverns. With that, let's review exactly what happened. The Skins ("all the living members of the Cityscape Skins" [C&N]) are coming off their Custer at Little Bighorn defeat ("down on their luck and still high from a street fight" [BBreathing]). When the kids show up they promise to "get [them] high" [SPayne] --- and they do, as far as that goes. They start by standing them drinks (see "open bar" [212M]), and end by giving them all a dose of meth ("we got dosed" [SM]) --- the first time, apparently, that any of the four has tried it. With the killer party [KP, GoaH] underway in earnest, each of the four experiences a very different night: Charlemagne -------------------- We went through most of Charlemagne's night already. But to recap, the Narrator's description in Barely Breathing gives us the most detail about what set things off: It got pretty sketchy. We tried to push forward. Now we're pointing at the scoreboard And it feels so amazing. And the crowd's going crazy. They're watching a show in the basement, high out of their minds on the "strong stuff" [SPayne]. But when they "[try] to push forward," Charlemagne knocks into Shepard [IHTWTDFY, LA, SS], who, having had enough of a shitty day of defeat, decides it's time to "show these kids," particularly the small-timer who owes them money but won't pay up, "some discipline" [SPayne]. That Shepard takes the lead in the beatdown is shown by the Narrator's description of him years later: "I've seen him destroy a dude before" [LA]. They beat the living hell out of Charlemagne, bashing him over the head with their motorcycle chains [RH, SPayne] until he's senseless and then some. The description, again, turns into that of a stadium sporting event: they're "pointing at the scoreboard" and watching as the Skins "[run] up the score" [IHTWTDFY], while "the crowd's going crazy" [BBreathing] / "wild" [C&N]. Charlemagne-Christ is being "scourged" and "smitten" in the judgment hall of Pilate, and is bleeding from the crown of thorns [John 19:1-3]. When the Skins are finally done with him, they leave him to bleed to death in the vestibule of the club [RH]. Narrator ------------ The Narrator also gets beaten, but not as badly: "Kids are getting beat up" [SPayne], "We were born to bruise" [BBlues]. Process of elimination identifies him as the one who gets Charlemagne to the ER [SN]; see the accounts of Gideon and Mary's night below. Gideon ----------- As we've seen, Gideon comes in for different handling: instead of beating him up, the Skins decide to jump him in [YGD, BBlues, HM]. That this happens on the same night as the metal bar beatdown is indicated by several pieces of evidence, the most immediate of which are: - "A shaved head and the blood on the bed" [SPayne]: the "shaved head" is Gideon getting his dreads shaved off [HM, BBlues, GLS]. - When he finally comes into the ER later that night, he's out of his mind [YGD] and behaving like a gangster ("drinking gin from a jam jar" [SN]); it's at that moment that he first becomes a target for Holly's "gunning for the gold rush" [SN, SPayne]. - When, as recounted in Runner's High, he finally comes to after being out of his mind for years (Gideon, sane again, is the POV character of RH; Charlemagne is the "you" who's come to him for help), the last thing he remembers is Charlemagne getting beat up and left to bleed to death in the metal bar vestibule: When I came to in Houston. I felt absolutely nothing. No voices no visions. I feel absolutely nothing. No pressure no Jesus. No crashes no hassles. I remember a dream about you. Getting hit on the head And left to bleed to death in the vestibule. Mary ------- Mary's experience is completely different. In Cheyenne Sunrise she foresaw "the new kids nodding off" [CSunrise], and in fact this is what happens: Strong stuff and she had more than enough And she was slumping over smiling and sailing off with cherubim But the specifics are a bit shocking. Enraptured ("smiling") by the vision of her Charlemagne-Christ being scourged, stigmata bleeding, she lets the Skins carry her upstairs ("sailing off with cherubim") and fucks them all night. The "blood on the bed" in Sweet Payne is hers: A shaved head and the blood on the bed Or as she describes it later in 212-Margarita: I hit the open bar and got myself all turned on Again, to be clear, this isn't drug slavery and it isn't rape; Mary knows exactly what she's doing, and is doing what she wants to do, as seen in Cheyenne Sunrise --- the only difference between that episode and this being in the strength of the drugs she's taking to get there. She's into meth now, and it won't be long before "more than enough" turns into never enough [SPayne]: All the little phillies at the Yukon Club Are gunning for the goldrush Yeah, they just can't get enough Her pleasure in the Skins' company is explicitly described in One for the Cutters: The girls gave her glares but the boys were quite pleasant ... Out on the parkways after the parties It was always arousing when they'd rev up their engines We note too that the full lyric in Curves and Nerves is When the crowd went wild we were under the stands Mouths and hands, hands and mouths In other words, while Charlemagne is getting almost killed, Mary and Holly are both doing the same thing; the difference is that Holly is getting paid for it somewhere, while Mary does it for her own enjoyment. The expression "sailing off with cherubim" is peculiar; what does it mean? We recall that "St. Theresa told me we should rattle our bones" [OWL] is an allusion to the book of Ezekiel (verse 37:7), and so is this. (See also "everything sparkles and appears like we're on wheels" [TSPotC].) Book 10 of Ezekiel describes the cherubim as composed of wheels, wings, and eyes [Ezekiel 10:12], and carrying on their back a sapphire throne [Ezekiel 10:1]: The wikipedia article on Ezekiel ( link) explains the meaning of this image: Sapphire is Mary, the living Throne of God and Queen of Heaven. Hope this is hitting home. Thanks for reading, and thank you for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Here goes
Jan 29, 2016 13:10:21 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by spencerm on Jan 29, 2016 13:10:21 GMT -5
Thanks for considering what I said. I'm not in nearly as deep as you but I've got a few other questions/thoughts. Sorry if these are obvious but there's a lot here and I'm having some trouble keeping it all straight.
1) your point against the UPC as a barcode is that Mary isn't for sale. But then you later cite her as being the source of the line "I do my business on the street". What is her business?
2) You also read three skaters and some hooray chick as the three guys and Mary, but if Mary is the pov character of curves and nerves, then who is she referring to as a hoodrat chick, herself? Ressurection also paints Holly as the hoodrat. But then you've also got Jesse identified as 'your little boldest friend'.
3) I'm not sure that the Rick Danko identification has to hinge on weight gain -- I had just put that out there but you could be right about the records skipping. I think your point about long slow decline also echoes danko, but probably not pivotal either way. Does Mary die by the end? You don't have to give this away but Stevie nix has the 'got high for the last time' lyric.
4) you asked about moving pictures. I'm not sure if its a Rush allusion or not. The one thing I can think of is that I read an interview with Geddy Lee once who remarked that at the time they started people thought they had named the band after rush, a cheap drug. The drug in question is alkyl nitrate or poppers (as in Pensacola parties hard [KP]. I can't say that the end of the swish feels particularly Rush like to me. I thought maybe the moving pictures line was a reference to hollys porn career but it doesn't seem to really line up -- that was in California, not city centre, unless she was still living on that money until September when she had to start doing favours? (But then how do we deal with the 'bloodsucking summer' line?) My other instinct is to link it back to 'seein lousy movies but only for the AC' from hostile, mass. In which case it gives a very literal sense of getting relief from the summer heat by going to the movies.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 29, 2016 22:25:54 GMT -5
No, this is great, I don't mind the questions, and besides I'm certain I've screwed up at least a few things (see an example with "Barry White" below). I mean, I'm sure about the big picture, but the big picture's made out of little pictures. The details matter. One thing I will say is that if you extrapolate from various things I've said, you're going to find a number of apparent contradictions not too much further out. Craig has dropped row after row of landmines in this thing, all of which have to be defused. I'm trying to step up the pace because I want to get to them with an explanation soon, before folks reading do. (Plus I underestimated the amount of writing needed for this by like an order of magnitude, and I can see that this is getting hard to follow.) Anyway, to the points you raise: 1) I think Mary's "business" is literally just getting high and having sex; that's "her business" in the general sense, not a business for profit ("she don't have to work" [CA]). The line is constructed to make it appear that she's hooking, and for a long time I thought that's what she was doing, but that's a trap set by Craig. (Among other things, it helps to conceal the true backstory in high school, and to create the impression that Charlemagne is her pimp later on, which he isn't.) If I try to put a very precise construction on it, I would say this. Mary wants Charlemagne, but there's an obstacle there, even beyond the fact that he's still in love with Holly at this point (in CatCT we see that he's still passing by Holly's house after her return from Hollywood). Under the circumstances, for Mary, getting high and fucking while experiencing him in her vision is the next best thing. Charlemagne looks like a townie in her vision --- why, we can't say yet, but there's the Jimmy Connors thing we mentioned [ABlues]; you might also ask when exactly the kind of guy who would wear a purple suit, who rolls with a "knockoff necktie" [HM], would switch to sweatpants --- and so in the Cheyenne Sunrise timeframe she's out looking for townies to get high and fuck with. Now I'm probably putting way too fine a point on it, but this is before the metal bar, too; once she's found the metal bar, then she doesn't even have to go out looking around, she can just go to the club. See The Ambassador: While you were in Michigan She was pretty much living in A 3.2 bars a stretch to call a club. It was called The Ambassador She was pretty much crashing there. The space between the skin and all her blood. ... There was blood on the bed And the lights in their eyes. 2) In Curves and Nerves, when Mary says "these hoodrat chicks," she's definitely talking about Holly --- Charlemagne didn't fit Holly's plans; she left, and in leaving cut him pretty deep. But even though the plural can be read as applying just to Holly, I suspect Mary *is* also referring to herself. I'll address this further down since it ties in with what's happening behind the scenes at Holly's party. A very important thing to clear up, though, is that HaRRF calls Holly "a" hoodrat, not "the" hoodrat (and, again, it's the unreliable Narrator speaking there; while not exactly lying in that particular line, he's sure as hell not telling the whole truth. You might have a look at the Separation Sunday liner notes, to see an alternate lyric that Craig weighed using; it should ring a bell, and that might give you an idea of what sort of conversation he's having.) Anyway, Mary, Holly, and Jesse all do quite a lot of more or less indiscriminate fucking, and they all get called hoodrats at different times. 3) When you put it that way, I think you're right about Rick Danko, actually: with Robbie Robertson / Robo already in place, it has to be a member of the Band, and one whose name fits the meter. I was thinking that there are plenty of rockers who got wrecked on drugs, but in fact there's only one who fits both the other conditions, and that's Danko. As for Mary: you are on it. I'm not going to spoil it because what happens has a little bit of a twist, and it's worth not spoiling. But you've put your finger on ground zero of the story. 4) Cool. That's one line where I'm more comfortable with the simpler explanation. Though I've gotten burned a lot by being comfortable with what "simple" lines mean. Tomorrow, I'm going to do a brief-as-possible timeline of events from the beginning of the story through the end of Holly's party. I hope that's going to help with following along. Side note: I was listening to One for the Cutters yesterday and the line "sniffing at crystal" hit me. So apparently speed can be sniffed, and the wikipedia article on meth ( link) says that it "occurs as white crystals or a white crystalline powder." With that I'm going to say that "Barry White" in CSunrise is speed after all. It might even be meth, I don't really know --- all I know is that Mary's drug use is focused on speed, that it goes from bad to worse, and that whatever she's doing in Cheyenne Sunrise isn't as strong as the "strong stuff" (which is definitely metal flake / crystal meth [Knuckles, SM, R&T]) that she takes in Sweet Payne. Apologies for making a hash of that; the details of how the kids are getting drunk/high are critical to the story, and I'm certainly trying to get it right, it's just that certain patterns of drug abuse are hard to fact-check. OK, now, Holly's party, one more time, through the lens of Milkcrate Mosh, with a little help from Stevie Nix. Milkcrate Mosh is another song from Mary's POV. She starts out saying: The gin was just like Gideon. The kings were just like Solomon. The bashes were like Babylon. and later adds: He smoked the Camel Filter Kings. "He" in the latter line is Gideon; not only does he get mapped to "the gin," he gets mapped to the "the kings," too. Gideon is being cast in the role of Solomon here. The story of Solomon in question is the Judgment of Solomon, the one about the two women and the Baby[lon], which begins like this [- I Kings 3:16]: From this alone, we understand that it's not just Holly who comes on to Gideon; Holly and Mary *both* come to him --- "there were a couple pretty crass propositions" [Weekenders] --- each making their pitch to be awarded "the baby" in exchange for his "party favors" [MM]. (It's "*all* the little phillies at the Yukon Club," after all, not just Holly, who "are gunning for the goldrush" [SPayne].) Mary describes all three of them going back behind the building together accordingly: We went back behind the building. He did a brisk little business. This casts a different light on things; it appears that Mary's intimately involved in the betrayal. In fact, we can see her agency behind it: Listen up closely to the lit tips of your cigarettes. Can't you hear the serpent hiss? Saying, sweet baby, suck on this. The "lit tips of your cigarettes" is plural; she's talking (silently) to both Holly and Gideon, trying to nudge them together. In these lines, the Biblical casting of events is shifted to the Garden of Eden, featuring Adam, Eve, and the serpent who gets blamed for original sin ("I heard the dude blamed the chick / I heard the chick blamed the snake" [CatCT]); but it's Mary who's behind them all. The white wine was the nectar. The oldies made me feel like Phil Spector. Is Charlemagne your main man, or is he just your sad protector? She feels like Phil Spector because she feels like she's a producer, putting the whole production together. And she asks Holly a question to which she already knows the answer: do you really consider yourself to be "with" Charlemagne? or is he just your sorry pimp? (Speaking of the drug/alcohol specifics being important: just like Gideon drinks gin and Mary drinks margaritas, it's always Mary who drinks wine; but we'll come back to that later.) You know you look so good together. But sometimes I get a feeling that you're a little bit restless. It's a small scene already and it gets dirty on the fringes. You sucked through his defenses. She continues her persuasion (overt, and subliminal: "You sucked through his defenses") of Holly. (Note that if it's Mary who's "faithless in fringes and feathers" [SS] here, then with "it gets dirty on the fringes" she's making a veiled allusion to her own train wreck appearance, encouraging Holly to compete with her.) And Holly responds: She said, I usually wouldn't do this. But I couldn't help but notice. You had that text across your T-shirt. It said: what would Judas do? Mary, the "faithless" [SS] "White Swan" [SN], wore that tattered Judas T-shirt to Holly's party as she did everything that night, with a deliberate purpose. She means to look like a wreck standing next to Holly, and to lose the Judgment. She wants Holly cleared out of the way. Even with Holly gone, she won't be able to have Charlemagne herself, as will soon appear. But that doesn't mean she isn't jealous. We see Mary's "production" in Stevie Nix, too. First, Mary brought Gideon in, high and looking for sex (compare "The jester kept on jacking off" [MM]): Some nights we just need to get touched and rub up against something plush Some nights it's just a crush and some nights it's blood lust Then, she stations him in the "coat check" [Weekenders] by the entrance, from which they'll be able to go "back around the building" [MM], and told him to wait there until she comes back "around dawn," dropping an innuendo that "we" (they're still with Holly at the entrance) "might use you later on": She said we might use you later on Meet me right back here around dawn The next verse flashes back to the ER scene in which Holly realizes that Gideon's got access to serious drugs, and forms a resolution to get them from him; this explains the background to Mary's scheme. Then, returning to the party, Holly hears Mary confide in her, wickedly: She said I love the guys you can't trust Meet me here about dusk Mary lets Holly know that Gideon's the sort of boyfriend "you can't trust," and that she's OK with the prospect of infidelities ("I love [those] guys"); she makes an appointment with Holly, too, to meet back up with her and Gideon "about dusk" (in the twilight of dawn). (There's a second level of allusion here to Stevie Nicks' Edge of Seventeen, in which the voice of the dove is heard "in the morning" and "at nightfall"; the "white swan" does in fact map to the "white-winged dove.") How things end up, we know. Holly won the Judgment of Solomon, is awarded Gideon's "baby," and gets Rocky Mountain High; then she and Gideon get off the grid together ("And after your party we got off the grid" [MoC]). We'll pick up there after the timeline tomorrow. Spencer, back to your question about hoodrats: I think this understanding of the events of Holly's party casts the end of Curves and Nerves in a darker light: These hoodrat chicks are like razor blades They're pretty cheap but they'll cut you deep We know now that Mary's not an innocent. She's the hand behind Charlemagne's heartbreak at Holly's party. And she's the one who answered the princess phone "when the call came in" [C&N] that lured Holly away the first time. The suggestion in these lines is that she may have had a hand in that first departure, too, whether by lying about the call, or by setting it up in the first place. I don't really have any further evidence for that, beyond the fact that there's precedent for it and it's plausible. She's a hoodrat too, after all, and pretty cheap. And she cut him deep. I hope tomorrow's timeline will help sew things up in a satisfying way. Thanks for your patience thus far, and for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 30, 2016 23:34:54 GMT -5
Timeline time. (This was very useful, I should have done it before.) A few things: 1) Committing to a timeline with dates ups the chances that an oversight on my part will make its way into black and white. If (when) that happens, I'll come back and edit this post, with a record of edits. I also plan to add to some things later on when we've established a few more details, and I'll make note of those as well. I mean for this to serve as a clear account of the story so far, and as a reference document. 2) The various anchor dates we're given all fit together neatly, provided the Teenage Liberation numbers aren't read as actual ages indexed to events (in the same way that the events from the story alluded to in Positive Jam didn't actually happen in the 1920's, 1930's, etc.), and that's the assumption I'm going with. I'll write up a discussion of the dates and the math later. 3) The goal is clarity, so I'm shooting for completeness. That means I'm going to toss in a few early events or dates that I haven't made an argument for yet, and will mark those with an asterisk for the time being. Update: after the rest of the breakdown, the timeline continues here ( link). PREHISTORYSep 1970 - Sep 1971Mary, Charlemagne, Gideon and the Narrator are born.* (see notes on timeline below) July 1977
Holly is born.* (see notes on timeline below) Jun 1981 - Jun 1982Jesse is born.* (see notes on timeline below) ACT I - High School (1980 dates) Before summer 1988
Mary gets screwed up by religion, screwed by soccer players [SN, ASD]. Summer 1988
Mary got high for the first time at the camps down by the banks of the river [SN], had her first vision of Charlemagne-Christ (being crucified) and fell in love [R&T, HM]. Stigmata appear on her hands. The Narrator sees a Youth of Today show at 7th Street Entry Sunday Night Dance Party. He gets almost killed by skins in the pit [PJ, BBreathing]. He also meets Gideon* [CSTLN]. The Narrator, looking to buy, gets knocked off his bicycle down by Selby and Griggs, and gets 10 bucks & his tennis shoes stolen [YGD]. The Narrator, looking to buy (invited by Gideon [ASD]?), goes to a party at the Party Pit, and meets Mary, who's there with the townies [PP, ASD]. Jesse takes up smoking [BCig]. Spring 1989
The Narrator and Mary go to prom together; they have a massive night, but the presence of Charlemagne in vision interferes, sending them off on separate trips [MN, OWL, YGD, PP]. Summer 1989
Gideon, a townie but not a Skin yet, moves in to pick up Mary, and introduces her to speed shooting [ASD]. The Narrator goes to a Shelter show at 7th Street Entry Sunday Night Dance Party. He gets a Hare Krishna pamphlet and an mystic message of non-violence from lead singer Ray Cappo [BBreathing]. Fall 1989
The Narrator goes away to school in Boston [PP]. Mary stuck around the Twin Cities for school, staying where the townies are [PP]; she lives with other girls & gets good grades, but continues to frequent Gideon and the Party Pit in secret [OftC]. ACT II - 1990 dates; Nicollet & 66th Spring 1993The Narrator graduates and returns to the Twin Cities to start a band [PP]. Fall 1993 Holly, 16 years old and with a developing love of getting high, skips CCD to go look for something for a party, and meets Charlemagne, 22, dealing on the corner [CiS]. Charlemagne takes her under his wing and insists that they flee the mean streets of Lynn together. Holly mentions that she has a nice cousin from a good family who just graduated college in Minneapolis [Swish, BBlues, MINTS, CiS, SN, OftC, analogy to SM, etc.]. She also said, always remember never to trust me; there's gonna come a time when I'm gonna have to go with whoever's gonna get me the highest [HH]. (See notes on timeline below.) The "first night" party takes place in an Uptown bar. Mary and Gideon are there [Swish]. The Narrator's band is playing; he sees Mary for the first time since high school [BBlues]. Holly, just arrived from Lynn with Charlemagne in tow, enters and is greeted with a kiss by cousin Mary, whose stigmata have begun bleeding at the sight of her Christ in the flesh [Swish, BBlues]. At some point Mary tells Charlemagne that she has to talk to him, but then doesn't say anything [MINTS]. At the end of the party, Mary proposes that the five of them get a house together; the Narrator has to choose whether to get back into Mary's life and lose, or to run, but in the end decides to go with them [BBlues]. The five kids move into a house at Nicollet & 66th [HH, C&N]; Gideon lives in the loft, the other four on the ground floor [SN]. Mary calls the boys the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost [A&H]. Summer 1994Holly's first summer in Minneapolis (the "blockbuster" summer). She and Charlemagne spend the summer in the theaters; she turns 17 in late July, he's 23, their relationship is chaste [Swish]. They're supported by Mary ("moving pictures"), who, as Charlemagne will later learn, can use her visions of the future to make easy money at the racetrack/OTB [CA, Weekenders]. Fall 1994After September [Swish], Charlemagne, dreaming of the big time, makes contact with the meth cooker Skins and sets up as a dealer. Holly's drug use becomes more serious, moving steadily along the spectrum from enthralled toward enslaved [CiS, implicit from later developments in Swish, C&N, CatCT, etc.]. Spring 1995Charlemagne hasn't been dealing long before he fucks up, and, with the cops at the door, has to put the drugs down the drain. He's left owing the Skins $7K [YGD]. Charlemagne turns to Holly (who for her part wants the flow of drugs to continue [BBlues]) to bail him out; she begins turning tricks [YGD, BBlues, Swish]. Summer 1995Holly's second summer in Minneapolis (the "cocksucking" summer). Charlemagne takes her earnings and pays her back in drugs, but is increasingly unreliable about his half of the bargain [Swish, C&N, MINTS, MM]. In the meantime she's blowing gangsters in the declining City Center, and gets herpes [Swish, PJ]. In late July, Holly turns 18. She gets a call inviting her to come out to California to be in films, and goes [C&N, MINTS]. She leaves Charlemagne with 50 bucks, a business that is now plainly failing, and a debt to the Skins that still has to be repaid [MINTS, OwtB]. With Holly gone, they're now four in the house at Nicollet & 66th [HH]. Winter 1995Holly spends the winter in California making porn [C&N, MINTS, CiS]. The Skins cut off supplies and send over some guys with a message for Charlemagne about the debt [OwtB]. Charlemagne pulls street corner scams [FN], trying to dig out of the hole he's in, but doesn't make headway. Spring 1996 Holly comes back to Minneapolis, to a house in the same neighborhood [MINTS] with an old landlady [CatCT], and goes back to turning tricks [C&N]. Summer 1996In a short space of time [CSunrise, OwtB] in or around July, a series of things happen. Mary comes home after a night of drugs and sex to a confrontation with the Narrator about what she's doing [CSunrise]. Both he and she have become increasingly drug-addicted over time [SM, CSunrise]. She predicts the metal bar beatdown at their next party [CSunrise, Weekenders]. Charlemagne's increasingly dire financial straits result in the phone getting disconnected [OwtB]. The Narrator, Charlemagne, Gideon and Mary go down to the metal bar in St. Paul; the phone's a problem, and Charlemagne wants to make an impression on the Skins [OwtB, SPayne, etc.]. The kids get a dose of meth [SPayne, SM], Charlemagne gets almost killed [SPayne, KP, SG, etc.], the Narrator is beaten [SPayne, BBlues], Gideon gets jumped in to the gang [YGD, SPayne, SN], and Mary launches into a raunchy new arc of meth abuse, stigmatic bleeding, and Skin-fucking [SPayne, OftC, Ambassador, 212M]. The Narrator gets Charlemagne to the hospital [implicit in SPayne, SN, RH, etc.] and calls Holly, who comes to the ER to see him [SN]. Charlemagne reproaches her for not having been by his side when it happened [BBreathing]. Gideon shows up, newly jumped in; Holly sees his new status, and resolves to make him share his new supply of drugs with her [SN]. In late July, Holly turns 19 and throws a party [MM, HF, SN, Weekenders]. Mary shows up with a plan to get Holly out of the way: she's going to pair off Holly's need for drugs with Gideon's need for sex [SN, CiS, Weekenders, etc.], and so kill two birds with one stone. Charlemagne, sitting in the corner with a milkcrate on his head, sees what's going down, and predicts that Holly's going to die [HF]. Mary stops to ask him how he likes the big time now [HF]. Her plan succeeds; Holly blows Gideon, tries meth for the first time, and the two of them leave together [MM, MoC]. Almost, but not quite, done with Act II here. Update: after the rest of the breakdown, the timeline continues here ( link). Thanks for reading. If this is at all enlightening or fun, and you can take a moment out of that to frame a thought or a prayer for my friend Still Alive Carl, I would be very grateful. NOTES ON TIMELINE -------------------- Some evidence below isn't covered until later in the thread (spoiler alert); but the timeline arguments ought to be in one place. The essential evidence for Mary, Charlemagne, Gideon and the Narrator being born between Sep 1970-Sep 1971 is as follows. From the combination of SN and R&T, we know that Mary was 17 [SN] in 1988 [R&T]. We know that Gideon was 17 at same time as Mary [YLHF]. We know that Mary and Narrator were at prom together [MN, YGD, OWL] and headed off for college at the same time [PP]. Finally, we're told that Mary was 33 at the time she died [SN] in the same crucifixion that involved Charlemagne and Gideon; if Charlemagne, the most overtly Christ-like of all of them, was 33 at the same time as the others, that gives him a birthday in the same year as well. We know that Holly was born in July 1977 because she was named for the storm during which she was conceived [HJ]; Hurricane Holly hit on October 22, 1976. The evidence that Jesse is born between Jun 1981-Jun 1982 is that she's 22 years old as summer 2004 approaches [HJ]. The evidence for placing Holly and Charlemagne's first meeting in Fall 1993 is threefold: - CCD is in session and there's a party later, but it's dark already [CiS]; it's not summer. - Holly being 16 and running away with a 22-year-old Charlemagne is plausible; 15, not so much. - Holly and Charlemagne have to get to MLPS with a summer ahead of them. EDITS ------ Added OftC as evidence for Mary's good family, C&N for all five kids at Nicollet & 66th Added note about Mary supporting Charlemagne and Holly through summer 1994 Added links to the continuation of the timeline later in this thread Added refs for the asterisked items above Moved range for Jesse's birth from Mar 1981-Mar 1982 to Jun 1981-Jun 1982, having decided to take "summer" [SS, JaJ, BBreathing, CSummer] as the literal date of the crucifixion and "Easter" [BCrosses, HaRRF] as the metaphoric date, not the other way around Added NOTES ON TIMELINE at bottom of page, and references to same in timeline. Added note about Jesse taking up smoking :-) Added note about 'always remember never to trust me'
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 31, 2016 21:53:20 GMT -5
Last week just about did me in. For the next few days I'm going to bite off smaller chunks, hopefully with the timeline out there it'll feel like clearer progress is being made.
The next we see of Charlemagne after Holly's party is in Southtown Girls. Charlemagne is the POV character of the song; needing to find a new source after the metal bar beatdown (which itself came after the Skins had "cut off supplies" [OwtB]), he takes the lead on a deal that, after a lot of runaround, eventually goes down at the Southtown Shopping Center not far from Nicollet & 66th.
From
I'm a little bit surprised, you didn't tell me there'd be three of you
we know that he's accompanied by two people. Gideon and Holly disappeared after her party; the only two left are Mary and the Narrator. Mary comes along because she means to put herself front and center now that Holly's out of the way (it's also her car). The Narrator comes along because of Mary. She's going a bad road, and he's going to follow her all the way down.
The whole fourth verse is just a stunning bit of writing, with a huge amount of information packed into a totally lifelike thumbnail in a tiny space:
Don't look me in the eye, look over at the theater I'm a little bit surprised, you didn't tell me there'd be three of you Hey Bloomington, what'd you let them do to you? Now I think they're almost through with you
The dealer gives them orders, showing them who has the upper hand. Even their unannounced arrival with three times his numbers doesn't faze him. Charlemagne is still making rookie mistakes, showing how much of fuckup he is. He shows clear signs of having been beat within an inch of his life, and at this rate, the dealer predicts, it won't be long before he gets properly killed. (Even "Hey Bloomington" is doing double and maybe triple duty: the Southtown Shopping Center is located in Bloomington, Minnesota; it's likely that there's a deliberate echo of Bloomington, Indiana there to go with "Quarry" in his foreshadowing of the crucifixion and the One for the Cutters framing; and it lets us know something about how to read "Hey Providence" in Same Kooks.) Not too shabby.
Anyway, Mary's plan works:
Southtown girls won't blow you away But you know that they'll stay Southtown girls won't blow you away But you know that they'll stay
Charlemagne is looking at Mary, thinking about the fact that she's with him down at the Southtown Shopping Center, sticking with him in the midst of a really bad situation after Holly's abandoned him. She's no Holly; she's not going to blow you away; but you know that she'll stay. From these small beginnings, Charlemagne begins to fall in love with Mary.
In the rush of getting through to the timeline last week, I forgot a few things along the way, which I want to add in before we get too much further:
- The identification of Mary with the "white-winged dove" of Stevie Nicks' Edge of Seventeen (in Stevie Nix) has a point: the voice of the dove is heard in the morning and again at nightfall saying "come away, come away," which is what Mary is saying to Holly.
- "All-ages hardcore matinee shows" in Massive Nights is a long double entendre. On the one hand it refers to actual all-ages hardcore shows at 7th Street Entry / First Ave (and maybe there really were matinees). On the other it refers to the "hardcore" sexual encounter of Mary and the Narrator at prom, "all-ages" because he's still 17, and "matinee shows" because she's watching her "film" vision of Charlemagne the whole time. Good stuff.
- When identifying Sapphire with Mary, I should have mentioned the Narrator's description of Mary as "giving off blue light" in Our Whole Lives.
That'll do. Thank you for reading along, and for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 1, 2016 19:20:27 GMT -5
I want to pick up some city/state metaphors that I deliberately skipped past last week, and I'll start with one that made me spit coffee, namely Dallas. (Some of these ahas are really, really funny. There's a line in Runners High that I just got for the first time today; I made heads turn in the office when I laughed. I don't think I'm doing justice to that, but I want to try, at least.)
Let me back into this for a minute by talking about "the play within the play" (the idea of a story told inside the main one that reflects on the main story itself).
Craig riffs on this idea a lot. We see it first in The Swish, with
They made a movie about me and you They made it half nude and half true
where we're given to understand that Holly is seeing her own and Charlemagne's story reflected in a movie that they're watching. There are others, too. Almost Everything has something that certainly looks like one:
Went to some movie. It was loud dumb and bloody. The third act took place in a wormhole. The hero ascended to heaven. Then we headed home.
We can guess that "The hero ascended to heaven" might have something to do with Charlemagne's crucifixion, and "loud dumb and bloody" fits what we know of it from Both Crosses too. The "wormhole" has to wait for later. But "the third act" is where I got "Act I" and "Act II" for the timeline. (I don't actually know whether this division into 3+ acts is supposed to be applied just to the events of the crucifixion, or to the whole story; but it fits the overall story easily, so I'm going to run with that for now.)
Here's what I really wanted to get to: Holly's porn films. We're told about two of them, a parody of North Dallas Forty, and another of Revenge of the Nerds:
She did a movie called North Dallas Foursome There was agony and ecstasy and the cheerleaders got gruesome
She did a movie called Revenge of The Pervs There were screams and jeans and curves and nerves
Holly really did get into porn, but these lines are pulling a second line of duty as plays-within-the-play. Just like that couplet in The Weekenders,
I remember the metal bar I remember the reservoir
these two films allude symmetrically to (1) the beatdown and (2) the crucifixion. We're getting ahead of ourselves matching up "loud dumb and bloody" [AE] with "Revenge" and "screams" for #2, but it's easy to see the metal bar beatdown in the first movie:
- "foursome": the four who were present: the Narrator, Charlemagne, Gideon, and Mary - "agony": Charlemagne getting beat to shit - "ecstasy": Mary in ecstasy seeing her Christ being scourged, having sex - "cheerleaders got gruesome": Mary bleeding from stigmata on the bed - football metaphor: as we've noted, the beatdown is repeatedly described as a stadium event, with the Skins "running up the score" on Charlemagne, and the crowd going wild "pointing at the scoreboard" [C&N, BBreathing, IHTWTDFY]
And presto, there's the "Dallas" metaphor: the Skins as violent thugs prone to "running up the score" are the "Dallas Cowboys." (This is the second Skins-as-cowboys motif, totally separate from the cowboys/indians metaphor associated with "Cheyenne," which was already completely unhinged in its own right.) I laughed. Go Vikes!
This reading is further confirmed by Don't Let Me Explode:
And we didn't go to Dallas 'Cause Jackie Onassis said that it ain't safe for Catholics yet Think about what they pulled on Kennedy and then think about his security Then think about what they might try to pull on you and me
Here, Holly is being questioned about her movements with Gideon after they left her party ("We scored big in Denver and thought it might be best" etc.). Los Angeles? Referring to their "big-time" dreams, she says "We never made it." New Orleans? Referring to her earlier experience in porn, she says "We were trying to stay away from those kind of scenes."
And then she denies going to "Dallas," which is to say that she denies going back to the land of lurking violence on Payne Avenue. "Jackie Onassis" is "Jack," i.e. Gideon [Swish, HM], warning that they shouldn't go there: "look at what they did to Kennedy" --- to Charlemagne --- "and think about what they might do to you and me."
The "think about his security" quip turns on Charlemagne's status as Christ, who suffered scourging and crucifixion despite having legions of angels at his command [Matthew 4:6]:
And, before the crucifixion, when Peter cut off the servant's ear to defend Christ in the garden [Matthew 26:53]:
Both these Biblical passages are referred to elsewhere in the songs. The first is spoken by the Devil, when he takes Jesus up to the pinnacle of the Temple and tempts him to throw himself down; we recognize this behind "The Devil and John Berryman, they took a walk together / And they ended up on Washington talking to the river ... There was that night that we thought John Berryman could fly" [SBS]. And the second one comes back in the context of the crucifixion. But I want to hold off opening that can of worms for a while longer.
More tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with this so far, and for your thoughts for Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 2, 2016 23:42:43 GMT -5
There's only one more thing to cover in Act II, namely "what happened to Gideon and Holly after her party." And to explain that, we need to wrap up the rest of the THS geography. We've talked about city/state metaphors. "Dallas" (the state of lurking violence) is a little different than "Denver" (state of being high), "Los Angeles" (state of making it big), and "Hostile, Massachusetts" (state of hostility) in that it's not just an abstract state; because that violence went down in a particular place, "Dallas" is also used to refer to that same place --- namely, the metal bar, or more generally, the killer parties area of St. Paul. Like "Dallas," there are other city/state names that map to physical locations in the Twin Cities. In the abstract, "Ybor City" is the state of wild party insanity; but the place where this insanity comes to life is, again, the killer parties area of St. Paul. This is made explicit in Most People Are DJs: Well, hold steady Ybor City ... It's going down right now in Lowertown Ybor City is in Lowertown, which is adjacent to the southern end of Payne Avenue (metal bar) and to the railroad yard (the Skins' destination in Look Alive). This nexus of sketchy places is always referred to as "down" there, at the opposite end of Lake Street from Uptown: - "down to the taverns" [OwtB] - "down to the railroad yard" [LA] - "down to Ybor City" [SA] - "down in Lowertown" [MoC] - "down by Selby and Griggs" [YGD] - "went down with some crust punk junk and woke up with a straight edge band" [BBlues] - "bloodshed down below" [GoaH] In the 2005 MAGNET interview, Craig explicitly confirms that the geography of the story is structured in this way ( link): Texas --------- Which brings us back around to "Texas." In the same way that "Los Angeles" and "California" have the same meaning in the story, "Texas" and "Dallas" refer to the same place. This is why (see "down in Lowertown" etc. above) The Only Thing describes Mary's time "pretty much living in" the Ambassador (i.e. the metal bar) as being "down in Texas": First she's down in Texas. Then she went back to Tennessee. Tennessee ---------------- So if, after being down in Texas, Mary went back to Tennessee, what does "Tennessee" mean? From The Sweet Part of the City, we know that Mary "always claimed that she was from Tennessee"; and in Sequestered in Memphis, the contrast of "Texas" with "Tennessee" is described more narrowly as the contrast of "Texas" with "Memphis." We don't need more than that to guess that "Tennessee/Memphis" is so named because it's "Graceland," the state of grace, home of "Mary, full of grace" [BCrosses]. It's possible that Mary is in fact physically from Tennessee as well; in Our Whole Lives, the Narrator is under the impression that she moved to the Twin Cities from elsewhere ("you finally stopped talking about that boy back home" [OWL]). But it could also be that he's confused by her "weird-talking" description of these things, just as Charlemagne is later imagined as believing that "Cheyenne" refers to the actual city [YS]. (More to say about "Memphis," and what happens there, in Act III.) Houston ------------- Beverly Hills and Modesto are in Calfiornia, but in the THS universe they have different metaphoric meanings. "Houston" too is different from "Texas." We've already suggested that Runners High is told from Gideon's POV, when he's come back to himself, years after getting jumped in. The line that describes his return to sanity is the following: When I came to in Houston. Why "Houston"? The answer is given by The Ambassador: A Bay City tire shop. It's just a temporary stop. A touchdown on a trip that was mostly undefined. "Houston" is "touchdown" country; like the Apollo missions etc., it's where Gideon made contact again with Earth. Bay City ---------- So "Houston" is the same place as "Bay City," where Gideon was living and working at some point after his departure [SPayne, Ambassador]. "Bay City" is the name of this place as tire shop, maybe because of the auto bays, but more likely in homage to the Bay City "Rollers," where rollers=tires. (The first album Craig owned was a Bay City Rollers album; he talks about them in a few interviews.) (There will be more to say about "Bay City" too in Act III.) Virginia ---------- While talking about The Swish, we forgot to mention "Newport News": We spent the night last night in Newport News Holly's statement that she and Charlemagne were in "Newport News" is the same as saying that they were in "Virginia"; compare Killer Parties: And we found out Virginia really is for the lovers "Virginia" is the state of virginal love; Holly and Charlemagne (16-going-on-17 and 23 at that time) weren't in a sexual relationship ("They made a movie about me and you / They made it half nude and half true" [Swish]; see also "She said I've laid beneath my lovers but I've never gotten laid" [HaRRF]). Thanks as always for reading, and for sparing a thought for Still Alive Carl, if you can.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 3, 2016 23:43:58 GMT -5
I changed my mind about finishing the geography --- I'm just going to talk about Holly and Gideon with the evidence that's available now, and leave the rest of it for later. There's no way to get to all the evidence without covering a bunch of things out of story order, and it's not worth the extra confusion. We'll get there soon enough. There are two major sources for what happens after the party: Stevie Nix and Banging Camp. Stevie Nix is easy so let's deal with that first: I was keyed up, keys jangled in the stalls They counted money in the motels, they mostly sold it in the malls And the carpet at the Thunderbird Has a burn for every cowboy that got fenced in This is pretty straightforward. Like the dealer in Southtown Girls, the Skins sold their wares in the malls during the day, and counted up the money in the motels in the evening (compare "Shepard showed up when we were wrapping up the counting up" [SS]). Holly's party was in July 1996; for the rest of that year and the winter of 1996-97, Gideon was out with them, traveling between malls and motels, accompanied by Holly. She got high in bathroom stalls, and fucked Gideon in the motels by way of trade; a bleak life, with little trace of the "sweet fleeting feeling" [CSunrise, CiS] of old "Cheyenne." Gideon and the cowboys have been fenced in. This went on until the spring (1997). To find out what happened then, we have to turn to Banging Camp. I would say that, of all the songs, Banging Camp is the most difficult. A lot of that has to do with when and how it's told. But rather than try to explain the whole thing now, I'm just going to review the story that it tells about Holly and Gideon at the riverbank that spring. Yeah, there's camps down by the banks of the river And it's sketchy in the night but they mostly lay low in the light Hey sweet recovery, come on, won't you wade into the water with me? You know, there's camps down by the banks of the river The first two lines set the scene near the camps down in the sketchy area of St. Paul, by the banks of the river near the harbor. Then the voice of Gideon is heard: "Hey sweet recovery" is a gangster-style greeting, like "Hey Bloomington" in Southtown Girls. He's talking to Holly; his meaning in calling her "recovery" is ambiguous, but we'll find out what he means in a moment. He invites her to "wade into the water" with him, with the implication that he's going to baptize her. (Like the Narrator lighting candles [LID], Mary praying for indulgences [BCrosses], and Holly skipping CCD [CiS], Gideon was raised Catholic; we remember his lecturing Mary about not having the patience for Jesus, before initiating her into speed shooting in A Slight Discomfort.) After a few intervening verses, the POV character continues: I saw him at the riverbank He was breaking bread and giving thanks With crosses made of pipes and planks Leaned up against the nitrous tanks The "he" in this description is again Gideon, who is now seen holding Mass. See the definition of "Mass" from wikipedia ( link): The origin of the Eucharist is the Lord's Supper, and the line "breaking bread and giving thanks" comes from the gospels' description of this event [Matthew 26:26-28]: The description of Gideon continues: And he said take a hit Hold your breath and I'll dunk your head Then when you wake up again Yeah, you'll be high as hell and born again Here Gideon offers Holly another sacrament, the sacrament of Baptism: he promises her that, if she takes a hit of nitrous and holds her breath, he'll dunk her head, and she'll wake up high as hell and born again. We're left to fill in the blanks after that. But there are clues earlier in the song that point us to what happened: She said I dig those awkward silences 'Cause I grew up in denial and went to school in Massachusetts He said Hi, I like to party on the problem blocks And I can't stand it when the banging stops The first two lines are the voice of Holly; the second two are the voice of Gideon (note again the "Hi," like "Hey sweet recovery"). In the symmetry of these lines, a key opposition is expressed: Holly likes awkward silences; Gideon likes the *opposite* of awkward silences, namely banging. At first blush, this is an odd set of statements. But it isn't just about silence versus noise; both "awkward silences" and "banging" bring along additional implications. We have the evidence of Hurricane J to tell us that "banging" means "fucking." And we have the evidence of Hornets! Hornets! to tell us what "awkward silences" means: She said I won't be much for conversation If we go and do the rest of this And I've never been much for conservation ["She said" in the liner notes confirm that this is all one speech] I kinda dig these awkward silences "I've never been much for conservation" means "yes, we *should* go and do all the rest of this (rather than save some for later), even though I won't be much for talking afterward," since after all "I kinda dig these awkward silences." We understand from this that the complete sense of "awkward silences" is "super-high-and-withdrawn silences." This is critical. We know that Mary likes to get high and fuck, but that's not Holly at all. Holly likes to get high and retreat into silence. There's lots of evidence for this, now that we know what to look for. We already know that Holly never pursued sex for pleasure, only as a means of earning money for drugs ("She said I've laid beneath my lovers but I've never gotten laid" [HaRRF]); but now we understand why there's so much emphasis on the fact that she has to force herself to make noise while fucking. There's "Holly can't speak" in Barfruit Blues, talking about her prostitution: Holly can't speak, she don't feel all that sweet About the places she sometimes has to go to get some sleep And "wired for sound" in Cattle and the Creeping Things, with specific reference to Holly and Gideon together after her party: You on the streets with a tendency to preach to the choir, wired for sound and down with whatever I heard Gideon did you in Denver And "hard fast noises" in Girls Like Status, also with reference to Gideon/Holly's looks-for-"status" (high) exchange: She said that she was coming but she mostly just made hard fast noises It kind of sounded like The Locust But this is a problem, because *Gideon* likes to get high and fuck, with a lot of noise. And he's her lover, with strings attached, as the final lines of Banging Camp ominously remind us: Yeah, there's strings attached to every single lover There's strings attached to every single lover We have enough to put together the pieces now. At some point, being unhappy with the "fenced in" life of malls and motels, Gideon "got off the grid" [MoC] with Holly and went down to the camps by the banks of the river (in apparent analogy to John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness along the river Jordan, who baptized with the Holy Ghost [Mark 1:1-8]). But in doing so, he ceased to be a reliable supplier for Holly ("She spent half last winter just trying to get paid / From some guy she originally thought to be her savior" [HaRRF]). She in turn withdrew her availability for sex, claiming to be done with their deal ("sweet recovery"). But Gideon "can't stand it when the banging stops" [BCamp]. So he invited her to "wade into the water" with him, and told her he'd get her "high as hell and born again." And then he drowned her. We know that something funny happened here; we have several lines that appear to come from later in Holly's story, and we have her own testimony in Stevie Nix to the effect that I was half dead then I got born again I got lost in all the lights but it was okay in the end But Gideon really did drown her. And place name "Sacramento" refers to the sacrament of Eucharist/Baptism in which Holly was killed. That's enough for today. Please think of Still Alive Carl if you have a moment, and thank you for reading along this far.
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Post by thesemiracleswork on Feb 4, 2016 14:54:44 GMT -5
Just want to say thanks for all the work you've put into this and good luck to you and your friend Carl, hope everything works out.
I've often wondered just how coherent the story behind the songs actually is, great to see it all coming together.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 4, 2016 23:56:06 GMT -5
Thank you! Thanks for your username, too, seriously. That's a timely shot in the arm. All right ...!
Two small things I forgot yesterday. One, Craig establishes the double meaning of "banging" in MINTS already, earlier than Banging Camp and much earlier than HJ --- important, because Banging Camp is almost impossible to parse anyway, and would be harder without this confirmation. Two, it's after drowning Holly that Gideon goes to "Bay City" to work at the tire shop, and disappears for years (out of sight of the Narrator, Charlemagne, Mary, and the Skins). And that's how Act II ends.
On to Act III. This is the era of "living up on Hennepin" [TSPotC], with dates in the 2000's.
I'm doing this off the cuff, but I think the first reported events of the new era are the ones in Chips Ahoy! and Sketchy Metal. In Chips Ahoy!, we see Charlemagne's appreciation for Mary burst into the full flower of love, Charlemagne-style; we'll come back to that later. For now we want to follow the thread of Sketchy Metal back into the Jesse storyline.
We've already covered Sketchy Metal and related songs, but to summarize the events of early Act III: the Narrator continues to play shows and fall deeper into addiction [SM]. After one show he wakes up with Jesse, who's got hold of a backstage pass [SM]. At the next show, a benefit concert, he introduces Jesse and Charlemagne to each other [SM, Magazines, JaJ, BCig]. Charlemagne takes one look at this young girl shooting speed and takes charge of the situation, getting her cleaned up and off the heavy stuff [SM]. She falls for him, identifying him as a father figure in place of her absent bio-dad [40B, BCig, CF]. She gets him a job as a bartender at the Lowertown restaurant where she's a waitress, which he takes so he can keep an eye on her, but which he also exploits for its convenience as a place to deal from, because he's a fuckup like that [CSongs, CF, HJ, Magazines]. He tries to persuade her to leave for New York, to get her away from St. Paul, but she's waiting for him to come along, and he isn't going [CSongs, HJ, CF]. In the meantime, they have a complicated relationship with a lot of sex and fighting, both apparently at her instance, and a lot of kissing at his [YLHF, BCig, HJ, Magazines].
There are lots of questions surrounding the above, particularly about motivations. But now we can start answering them.
First off, we can now account for *both* halves of the psychologically screwy Jesse-Charlemagne relationship. She's obsessed with him because she identifies him with her father. But he's obsessed with her because he identifies her with Holly.
His decisive reaction when they met is due simply to having seen a pretty young girl (Holly was about 6 years younger than him; Jesse is about 10 years younger) on speed, and thinking: "it's Holly." (CiS tells us that he acted with the same decision the first time he met Holly, too, something that's otherwise uncharacteristic of him.) In both HF and CatCT, Charlemagne warns Holly that she's going to die, and warns her about Gideon (in CatCT he even calls him a "murderer"). That's why he's so anxious about Jesse's association with the "hard" boys (like Gideon [Knuckles, SN, etc.]) in the harbor bars (like the metal bar [SPayne]); see HJ, CSongs, etc. That association was the path that led to Holly's death, and he's determined to keep Jesse off it.
So when Charlemagne says "I serve my purpose" [BCig], this is what he's talking about. Whatever else he's doing or not doing, he's sticking around to keep Jesse away from that scene. (I recall reading that Craig took some shit for this line, just like he did for Wait a While, but again, it's Charlemagne's line, and any "paternalistic" quality in it is a front for his guilty, anxious, fucked-up bundle of complexes about the past.) It's a pretty messed up way to deal with the situation, and Charlemagne doesn't come off looking too good here, particularly when he can't resist the opportunity to start dealing from the restaurant, with the result that he himself ends up bringing Skin trouble down on Jesse (as described in Criminal Fingers). But it's a pretty human reaction, and believable.
With that, we're ready to take a closer look at Hornets! Hornets!
Like We Can Get Together, HH is a song about Charlemagne and Jesse, holed up in her bedroom and listening to her records. The POV character of the song is Charlemagne. He's hanging with Jesse but remembering Holly, contrasting Jesse's innocence with the heavy stuff he's seen in the past.
She said always remember never to trust me She said that the first night that she met me She said there's gonna come a time when I'm gonna have to go With whoever's gonna get me the highest
Set off from what follows by the silence of the band, this is Charlemagne remembering Holly & her prophetic warning, on the first night that he met her, that one day she'd have to go with whoever would get her the highest (as she did when she left her party with Gideon). Again, Holly's not about love or sex; Holly's about getting high, and always has been.
She said I won't be much for conversation If we go and do the rest of this [liner] She said / [sung] And I've never been much for conservation I kinda dig these awkward silences
The music starts, and now we're in the Act III present, some time in the 2000's. We just looked at the meaning of the first verse yesterday, but didn't mention that it's Jesse who's speaking these lines, not Holly. Charlemagne hears her say something that Holly used to say; she says it in all innocence, but the echo of Holly's "awkward silences" [BCamp], with the implication of "I'm gonna have to go," make his blood run cold. (We know that Jesse really does have Holly's tendency to stop talking as she gets high; see "we power down and try to socialize" [BCig].)
She's got those Bones Brigade videos She knew them back and forth, she slept with so many skaters She had the place to herself, she had a couple hundred bucks And he had nothing but the [sung] number / [liner] numbers
Charlemagne's with Jesse in her bedroom; looking around he sees the Bones Brigade videos on the shelf, relics of the way she throws herself into whatever her boyfriends are into ("guys let me cover this" [40B], "she used to feel so stupid when they'd talk about the music" [JaJ]).
(I'd just like to say that the Bones Brigade line is a really nice touch; once again, a crapload of information in a really elegant thumbnail. And the conversation/conservation thing, clever as hell but packed with significance the whole way through. Not everyone can write like this.)
Jesse had a couple hundred bucks from her waitressing job [HJ, 40B], and the house where she lives, in St. Paul [AHfA, CF, WCGT, Smidge], to herself; Charlemagne had shit, but he did have the number of a dealer (or, in the liner notes version, dealers). So they stopped by some house in suburban Minneapolis (see below) to buy some, and are now getting high together. (This is maybe the best example of Charlemagne's similarity to Christ in being maintained by women [Luke 8:2-3]).
[liner] She said / I like the guy who always answers the door He always knows what you came to his house for
As she's getting stoned, Jesse comments brightly that she likes the guy who always answers the door at the dealer's place --- he always knows what you came to his house for! Charlemagne hears the innocence, and is hit hard by it: she has no idea what the dealer scene can lead to. Everything's reminding him of Holly.
She said I won't be much for all this Humbert Humbert stuff I've never really done that much of this And I have to really try so hard not to fall in love I have to concentrate when we kiss
Again with the perfect symmetries: verses 2-4 were about the shadow of Holly's drug addiction on Jesse's words; verses 5-7 are about the shadow of her prostitution on the same.
Jesse warns him that she won't be much for fooling around with a much older man (like Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita) either, that she's never done really that much of this (which, like "she doesn't really do it much" in 40 Bucks, is essentially a lie; she might not have been fucking other older men, but she's been getting with him plenty [YLHF, BCig]).
But they kiss, like they usually do [HJ, Magazines]; Charlemagne has to concentrate to avoid falling in love, but he does his best to keep it together. For one, he has a purpose to serve [BCig], to keep Jesse from following Holly's path. For two, he's in love with Mary.
We realize now why he keeps obsessing about kissing Jesse, at the same time that he assumes zero cognitive responsibility for the sex in their relationship ["Damn right you'll rise again" [YLHF], "She pulls me into experiments" [BCig], "This little tryst is hard to quit" [BCig]): it's because that's what he used to do with Holly. Holly and Charlemagne never had sex [Swish, HaRRF], but they kissed a lot, in the theaters and elsewhere. This is a fact that becomes important later on.
She mouthed the words along to "Running Up That Hill" That song got scratched into her soul And he never heard that song before but he still got the metaphor He knows some people that switched places before
Jesse mouths the words along from "Running Up That Hill" about switching places; Charlemagne doesn't know the song (if Jesse's comment in Criminal Fingers is to be taken literally, he likes punk-label Revelation songs), but again the line reminds him of Holly, how she left him to end up with Gideon, and Mary left Gideon to end up with him [MM, SG, etc.].
They're listening to records; Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is played, one of the songs that "got scratched into her soul" [CSongs]; this is a clear confirmation that "she" is Jesse, and that this is one of Charlemagne's visits "to her cabin" "on Heaven Hill," where they "lock your bedroom door and listen to your records" [WCGT].
[liner] She said / I like the crowds at the really big shows People touching people that they don't even know, yo
Jesse remarks, again in total innocence, that she likes the crowds at the really big shows, where even strangers touch each other; it's another dark moment for Charlemagne, remembering how Holly turned tricks under the stands at stadium shows to feed her habit [C&N, etc.].
I guess the heavy stuff ain't quite at its heaviest By the time it gets out to suburban Minneapolis We were living up at Nicollet and 66th With three skaters and some hoodrat chick
Charlemagne reflects that this suburban Minneapolis stuff must not be all that heavy; Jesse's high, but she's still talking. And that goes for the difference between things back then with Holly, and the present with Jesse, too. Tripping isn't hard drugs, and being a hoodrat isn't prostitution. He just has to stay on top of the situation and warn her off anything worse ("tripping is for teenagers, hard drugs are for murderers / the bartender's friends" [CSongs, CatCT]; "22 and banging around in restaurants / isn't that much prettier than banging around in bars" [HJ, MINTS]).
But then, even out in suburban Minneapolis it can get really heavy. He remembers how he, Mary, the Narrator, and Gideon --- themselves just a hoodrat and skaters in their 20's --- were living together at Nicollet and 66th at the time the metal bar incident went down. And then, a cryptic refernece to another suburban MPLS episode, or possibly two:
Drove the wrong way down 169 Almost died up by Edina High
There's a timeframe jump here; "Drove the wrong way down 169" refers to something that happens later, as does "Almost died up by Edina High" (whether that refers to the 169 incident, or to something separate).
The context is provided by the title "Hornets! Hornets!," which comes from the cheer for Edina High sports teams. Like wasps, spiders, bugs throughout, it's a reference to the Skins, and associates them with the deadly suburban heaviness that Charlemagne is remembering.
"Drove the wrong way down 169" is the second event alluded to by "Speed shooters driving 'round and coming down and trying to hook up with an [song] entrance / [liner notes] exit ramp" [CiS]. We'll get there.
"Almost died up by Edina High" could refer to the "almost died" drive. But it could also refer to a late street fight in the Indian Fringes (the same fight where cowboy Shepard ended up with "blood on his boots and an arrow in his hat" [LA]), if indeed the Indian Fringes are that warren of streets that connect Edina High with the frontage roads along 169. The idea is so ludicrous --- that's some swank suburban living up there --- that I can't propose it seriously, but it's not like the Cowboys/Indians theme isn't insane already, and it perfectly ties up a bunch of things late in the story. You can judge for yourself when we get that far, or take a look in the meantime at Edina on Google Maps and see Cherokee Trail, Indian Hills Pass, Navaho Trail, Arrowhead Lake, Blackfoot Pass, Cheyenne Trail, Dakota Trail, Iroquois Trail, Mohawk Trail, Indianhead Lake, Paiute Pass, Apache Road, Pawnee Road, Shawnee Circle, Comanche Court, Sioux Trail, all between Edina High and 169.
More tomorrow. Thank you, sincerely, for reading along, and for any and all prayers you can spare for Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 5, 2016 20:59:21 GMT -5
Short one today. The fact that Charlemagne so strongly identifies Jesse with Holly explains, finally, what's going on in Certain Songs: Born into the only songs that everybody finally sings along and Hurricane J: But they didn't name her for a saint. They named her for a storm. So how's she supposed to think about How it's gonna feel in the morning? On the face of it there are a lot of problems with this. There never was a Hurricane Jesse (or even a Tropical Storm Jesse); there are on the other hand a variety of traditions for St. Jesse. So what exactly is Charlemagne talking about when he's saying this? The answer is that he's not talking about Jesse; he's talking about Holly, since when he looks at Jesse it's mostly Holly he sees. There is no St. Holly or St. Hallelujah; there was however a Hurricane Holly on October 22, 1976 (hat tip somuchjoy! link to discussion here). That's when Holly was conceived, and she was born in late July 1977, right on schedule "into the only songs that everybody finally sings along" (Only the Good Die Young and Paradise by the Dashboard Light, both released in 1977) [CSongs]. This date is a critical anchor in the timeline. Among other things, it allows us to date the Cheyenne Sunrise confrontation, the metal bar, Holly's party, Southtown Girls, and On with the Business to a narrow window in or around July 1996: - Beyond appealing to the "Industrial Age" theme [Weekenders], I haven't yet made the full case for the fact that it's Holly's 19th birthday party, but that's coming. - On with the Business refers to the "prick in the parking lot," which puts it after Southtown Girls, and refers the trip "down to the taverns" to some time "last week." - In Southtown Girls, Charlemagne is still showing signs of having been badly beaten, which puts it after the metal bar, and Holly's already gone, which puts it after the party. - Gideon shows up at Holly's party having already been jumped in, meaning that it too comes right after the metal bar. - Cheyenne Sunrise includes a prediction of the metal bar as the "next party." - Finally, there's evidence that the party is in the summertime; there are guys standing outside on the front lawn, Mary's wearing a tattered T-shirt, and Holly, Mary, and Gideon go outside (back around the building [MM]) to get busy. Certain Songs also mentions that Jesse is "roughly twenty years old," and Hurricane J says she's "twenty-two and banging around in bars." In the latter song, Charlemagne predicts that she's going to crash into the harbor bars "this summer" [HJ]; but this never happens due to the intervention of other events, the same events that include Mary getting high for the last time at 33 [SN]. Thanks to Records and Tapes, which tells us that Mary got high for the first time in "summer '88" [R&T], and Stevie Nix, which tells us that she got high for the first time at 17, we can date the "intervening events" to some time in the months prior to summer 2004 --- while Mary is still 33, but before Jesse crashes into the harbor. That's how we know that Jesse is born sometime between early 1981 and early 1982 (and we'll be able to date it even more precisely when we know more about what the "intervening events" entail). I feel like I forgot to add a couple of things there, but that's enough for now, we'll come back to the calendar later in any case. In the meantime, thank you for reading, and for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 6, 2016 17:21:03 GMT -5
Now that we see Charlemagne and Jesse's relationship for the two-sided Freudian clusterfuck that it is, we can take a moment to appreciate that sometimes a big cig isn't just a big cig. There's got to be another reason why the ladies love Charlemagne, right? In Big Cig, we get this about Jesse: She always likes the big ones best. (And the next line too, since she always foots the bill for her boyfriends [HH, 40B]: "You get more for your money" [BCig].) This gives us a little more insight into the goal of her "experiments" [BCig]: Some nights she's a scientist. She pulls me into experiments. Squeezes hard and Charts the forward progress. Charlemagne's got a huge dick; Jesse, fascinated, is literally trying to see how big she can make it ("Damn right you'll rise again [YLHF]). Their first time seems to have been an eye-opener in that respect; as Charlemagne describes it, We met at a benefit. It was a pretty big opening. Apparently his dimensions are well-known; in Most People Are DJs, the Narrator (POV character) describes Charlemagne as ... some guy who looks like Rocco Siffredi And I've heard he's been dead once already Among porn stars, Rocco Siffredi is proverbial for the size of his dick. Mary too adores Charlemagne for this reason (just as St. Theresa had ecstatic visions of Jesus or the seraph piercing her with his "long spear of gold"; see wikipedia). We already talked about the description of her prom-night vision in Ascension Blues, but that last line deserves a second read: She said he looked like Jimmy Connors She said he tasted like the Calvin Klein She said we had a pretty huge time As noted earlier, "he tasted like the Calvin Klein" (the shorts) is a reference to her blowing Charlemagne-Christ in vision; they had "a pretty huge time" all right. And this brings us full circle to Charlemagne in Sweatpants: Tramps like us and we like tramps Charlemagne's got something in his sweatpants "Charlemagne in sweatpants" isn't just the title of the song; it's the origin of the story, the first three words of it that Craig wrote down; see the 2008 Independent interview ( link): It's the origin because this is how Mary sees Charlemagne in her vision, looking like a townie, like Jimmy Connors, not in a knockoff necktie or a purple suit, but in sweatpants. With something really big in them, that makes all the tramps he likes super happy. I've said before that all the names in the story are significant. We've covered this for "Mary" and for "Shepard," and without yet explaining "Jesse" and "Hallelujah" we've shown that both are part of the Catholic liturgy of Mary, Queen of Heaven. There's a slam dunk explanation for "Gideon" which we'll get to. But Charlemagne is more difficult. Probably the standard explanation, that it's a reference to the "Did you feel like Jesus?" drug dealer in the Steely Dan song Kid Charlemagne, is right. But I suspect there's a joke in his literally being called "Big Charlie," too. Tomorrow I'll move ahead with the events of Act III a little bit. Thanks for reading, and thanks for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 7, 2016 17:43:32 GMT -5
Chips Ahoy! is the other song that covers early events in the Act III timeframe.
This is the story of how Charlemagne went from appreciating the fact that Mary could be relied upon to "stay" [SG], to being totally in love. Southtown Girls lets us know that there's more to it on his side, but it's hard not to notice that she's a small-timer's dream girl: she means free money and drugs, one rigged bet at a time.
The song's basic story is straightforward, but there's some interesting detail in it that's worth calling out:
At first I thought that shit hit on some tip that she got from some other boy
It's mentioned only in passing, but Charlemagne is jealous (the video for the song plays this up); Mary won't let him touch her, but at the same time she's "pretty much crashing" [Ambassador] down at the metal bar, bleeding on the bed, "getting nailed against dumpsters behind townie bars" [OftC].
Some nights the painkillers make the pain even worse
The song hints darkly at the reason why she won't let him touch her. Is it because he's abused her in the past? Is it because the gift of precognition comes at some terrible physical price? In fact, the reason isn't either of these ...
She gets migraine headaches When she does it too much
She always does it too much
The whole thing is sad and star-crossed, but this line made me laugh --- put it together, and she *always* has a migraine. Charlemagne's living through the most epic, off-the-deep-end case of "Not tonight, dear" the world's ever seen, and still hasn't figured out that the headaches are a lie. Can't spoil the real reason yet, but we're getting there.
I remember now what I forgot two days ago, so back to Jesse for a moment. In Certain Songs, "roughly twenty years old" is meant to split the difference between early-twenties Jesse and late-teens Holly as the object of Charlemagne's descriptions. In the opening lines about kids on the east coast, he's thinking of Holly being "coaxed out" from Lynn by the promise of a certain perfect life in Minneapolis. But as he looks at Jesse and sees the world she's moving through, he can't help but see the parallels to where Holly ended up:
I guess you're old enough to know Kids out on the west coast are taking off their clothes Screwing in the surf and going out to shows They get high and ride around in GTOs
- "Kids out on the west coast are taking off their clothes": Jesse's shirttails/socks; Holly went out to the west coast to take off her clothes (porn) - "Screwing in the surf and going out to shows": Jesse's jukebox/music boys in harbor bars; Holly went out to shows to screw (prostitution) - "They get high and ride around in GTOs": Jesse gets high in her car; Holly got high riding around in big black cars (traveling between motels and malls with Gideon)
Charlemagne has certain things scratched into his soul as well.
While on the subject, we've said that Charlemagne is trying to persuade Jesse to leave St. Paul for the east coast [CSongs, Magazines]. Jesse herself has a reason to want to go to New York, alluded to in Magazines:
New York gets pretty heavy, girl, I hope it doesn't crush you Magazines and daddy issues I know you're pretty pissed, I hope you'll still let me kiss you The "daddy issues" we already know about; "magazines," not otherwise explained, are the reason she wants to go (and eventually does go, as shown by the "inbound trains" and "two years off some prairie town" of Spinners). She wants to be in magazines. Spectres isn't part of the story, but Craig expands on the same idea there:
When all we really want Is to be in magazines
And Jesse herself alludes to her ambition in Sketchy Metal:
You get your picture in the paper if he lets you in his trailer
Further into the Act III story tomorrow. Thanks in the meantime for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 8, 2016 0:52:16 GMT -5
Wow. I've been spending my spare time the past couple of days reading this thing, and it's nothing but impressive. Actually, it's one of the most interesting things I've been reading for years. I can't wait for the rest of it.
That being said: I belong (or used to belong) to the yes-there's-a-story-but-not-EVERYTHING-is-supposed-to-have-a-specific-meaning camp. I think it's pretty obvious that there's some heavy storytelling going on here. Not just because of Holly, Gideon and Charlemagne, but also due to the re-occuring events described, the scenes and imagery stretching from Positive Jam to Oaks and because that's how Craig writes (see Lifter Puller). Still, I sort of came to peace with the story being important, but not complete or present in every song, in every line. I still have my doubts whether a strict timeline can be constructed - some of the events described seems more like snapshots to me, things happening, told by different people, referenced in real time and in retrospect.
After reading this, I'm more open to reconsider. Allthough some of your interpretations seems like too-good-to-be-true to me, you're absolutely right about it being a coherent story with coherent metaphors and signifiers. Whether you're right or not, that's impressive, interesting and has a value of his own. And IF you're right, Craig Finn is the most underappreciated songwriter ever. He's obviously a genius, in the sense of being a terrific and unique songwriter. But you're analysis kind of depends on him having this big vision while writing Milkcrate Mosh and the AKM songs, and somehow managing to turn everything he's written into pieces of a large puzzle. I would love for that to be true. It's just hard to take in or believe. I'm still a skeptic. But still, this might just be a miracle.
After all, I think it speaks volumes of Craigs songwriting that it's possible to do an analysis like this in the first place. Even though some of your readings might not be exactly what it was meant to be, it says something about the Hold Steady catalog as a piece of art. You CAN actually read these things into it, and it's perfectly believable. If there's one thing who can and should unite the two camps on this board (The-Big-Story-Camp vs The Just-Enjoy-It-Goddamit camp), it's that our favourite band has written some songs and albums who makes us able to have these discussions at all. That's pretty remarkable in itself. An whether we want to really bury ourselves in the lyrics and the stories, prefer to go to shows and lose ourselves completely, or both, I think we should value that.
Anyway, this thread has really made me think. And it has made me go back to songs I haven't revisited in years. With the thousands of word making up the analysis so far, I have more questions and comments than I can remember right now. There will be more of them. But for now:
1. THE ORIGIN OF THE STORY I guess it's unfair to adress this to you, but I would love to hear what you think about whether Craig had all of this sorted out before AKM, or if the story kind of evolved as songs and albums went by. I know you can't give an answer to this, but what do you think? Was Milkcrate, C&N, The Swish, Sweet Payne etc. created with the full plot allready in Craig's head, or was he laying out some pieces of a puzzle he had yet to figure out in full? In your work with the lyrics, I guess you somewhere along the way has reflected on when the songs were written, and where in the real world timeline the pieces of the story was laid out. If you find the time, please elaborate on this.
2. THE STORY VS THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUFF In popular opinon, there was a lyric shift between Boys And Girls and Stay Positive - from more of the Holly/Gideon/Charlemange stuff, to something more related to Craig's own life/age. When I first heard Stay Positive, I also found a lot of stuff who seemed more connected to Craig, as opposed to The Narrator. What do you make of that? When Craig sings about the unified scene in Stay Positive, and ends the sequence with the "you know we couldn't have done this if it wasn't for you" (and live, adding "you, you, you, you", pointing at people in the crowd), do you think he is "in story", or appearing as the singer in a band called The Hold Steady? Same with the parts of Positive Jam and Sweet Part Of The City, where he talks about starting a band etc. All metaphors, or some of the real life Craig blending in with the characters? To me, Craig seems to be present as himself in a fair amount of songs (Adderall, Touchless, Almost Everything, Going On A Hike, Constructive Summer and Chicago Seemed Tired to name a few more). I guess most songs easily could be read into the story as well, especially since the narrator is the same age as Craig, and playing in a band - but it's also fair to read many lines as statements on The Hold Steady and/or Craig. To me it's pretty clear that Craig is present in a number of songs. And if he is, it makes it a bit harder to separate what's the narrator and what's Craig, right?
3. LIFTER PULLER (AND THE LINK BETWEEN THE STORIES) Due to your strictly-THS-mode you obviously can't answer this, but at some point I hope you'll dig in to Lifter Puller and the solo stuff as well. And when you do, i'd like to hear how you hear and read Craig's Lifter Puller lyrics in regard to your Hold Steady storyline. I've been thinking a lot about Our Whole Lives the past couple of days. I had a decent aha moment myself back in 2010, when I finally remembered where I had heard those images and lines before. This is from Viceburgh by Lifter Puller, dating back to 1997:
"yeah these hescher guys are trying to give me high fives but they don't stick the sugar packets inside ripped and drippin down all over the barfly she's takin off her taven jacket last night swear i saw your face up there in the footlights she was mouthin the words to the national anthem and she was liftin her skirt just like a three dollar dancer we were hangin around just kickin "walk like a panther" prayin that your princess will pick up her pager sad ravers in freight elevators sucking on skyscrapers, living on lifesavers baby"
There's more where that's coming from. And therefore, while Our Whole Lives obviously refers back to a lot of stuff in the Hold Steady story, it also is anchored in a completely different story, the Lifter Puller story about Jenny, Nightclub Dwight, The Eye-Patch Guy and everybody else. I guess this mostly is a teaser of how much you'll gonna love diving in to Lifter Puller as well, but I can't help wondering what you'll make of the link between the universes. I also think it sheds new light on some of your interpretations. If you open up for some lines being a deliberate reference to Lifter Puller lyrics, you either have to accept that these two universes are story-wise connected to each other, or that Craig is having a narrative inside joke going on - and therefore also is present as a narrator himself. I could say a lot more on this thing, but I'll guess it's best to wait till you get around to listen to them,
I originally had a couple of more subjects to adress, but at 06:45 in the morning, and a kid not all that happy, I can't recall them. I'll just post them as I remember.
Finally: English is not my mouther tounge, so you have to read this with a certain degree of goodwill.
And I would really like to hear if we can do more for Stay Alive Carl than saying a prayer. I had a friend who had a really short battle against cancer before christmas, and he lost it. If there's anything I can do, let me know.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 8, 2016 23:59:23 GMT -5
Thanks, muzzleofbees. I'm psyched that this is hitting home in some way. (Your English is great by the way, if you hadn't told me I would have thought you were English yourself, with the Terry Butcher avatar :-) You open up some good topics, too. I need to respond to them over a couple of days so I can keep moving forward with the story, but yeah. These are definitely things I've thought about myself. About the idea that "Craig Finn is the most underappreciated songwriter ever" ... I have two takes on this. There are days I can't believe THS aren't as big as the Stones, and the fact that they aren't seems like evidence of the poverty of our times. But I also think this is going to change. The fact that Craig was invited to do the American Songbook concert is a step in that direction. I believe that what he's written here is a great American story, and I'm willing to bet that in 50 years, his work is going to be a recognized part of the national literary canon in a way that even Dylan's never was. What's more, people are going to be listening to the music and amazed at how these guys fucking rocked it. Sometimes it'll be Tad doing the heavy lifting and sometimes it'll be Craig. But this shit has legs and the appreciation isn't over. You wrote: "An whether we want to really bury ourselves in the lyrics and the stories, prefer to go to shows and lose ourselves completely, or both, I think we should value that." Totally agree. I don't think there's anything but win in having more people on board, however they're plugging in. I can't unsee what I've seen, and I do feel an obligation to try to explain it well. But if someone isn't interested in that, and wants to relate to the music in a totally different way, how can that be anything other than cool? I wonder a lot about Lifter Puller, too, not going to lie. Funny you should bring that up today. For possibly obvious reasons, there are a lot of mornings when I wake up with a THS line on a loop in my head. (Woke up with "her claddagh ring was pointed at the people" three days in a row in August, a personal record.) This morning it was "Mouths and hands, hands and mouths / So many shows where nobody comes out," with that kind of metallic synth in the background, and I was remembering what bigontheinside said recently ( link), that Curves and Nerves is "very lifter pullery." I've seen the wild song titles, too, of course, so all these things have kind of combined in my head to form an idea, probably completely wrong, of what it must be like. But yeah, I'm curious. Let me get to the origin and the autobiographical questions tomorrow, I just need to get on with the story or I'm going to crash here. But before I do, let me say that I'm really sorry about your friend. I don't know what to say except that this cancer thing is brutal, and it sucks. Thanks too for your concern for Still Alive Carl. To be honest, he's got good care and people around to help. He really doesn't need anything other than to have it go miraculously into remission. It can still happen. All right. Over the weekend I broke up the Act III material into different buckets; I say "buckets" because the songs don't really fall in chronological order, it's more like different songs cover different parts of the picture. We've already done the background in SM/CA and the Jesse baseline in HH/CSongs; but there's one song more than any other that establishes the general Act III scene, and that's The Sweet Part of the City. This is the song that establishes the characters' new location (up on Hennepin, in Uptown, in the sweet part of the city) and the new rhythms of their life (the thermos, the matinees, the occasional fights, the highs), but all at a distance from the building complications that are going to move the story forward. The POV character is the Narrator. Back when we were living up on Hennepin. She kept threatening to turn us in. At night she mostly liked us. We used to pass around a thermos. Some nights she looked gorgeous. The Narrator describes a new period; it's a general picture he's painting, but it's focused around, or building up toward, the summer of 2003. The Narrator and Charlemagne have left Nicollet & 66th to move to a place on Hennepin in Uptown; Mary might technically be included in that "we" on Hennepin, but she's basically living down at the metal bar [Ambassador]. Charlemagne and Jesse are working at a restaurant/bar in St. Paul [CSongs, Magazines, HJ, WCGT, etc.]. Some evenings they used to sit and pass around a thermos, suggesting summer (the year 2003 is back-calculated from Mary's 33 [SN], which is coming up). Jesse would join them; mostly she liked them, sometimes she'd threaten to turn them in --- we recall that Jesse is the one who has ups and downs in the nights and mornings [TSPotC, Magazines, HJ, 40B, BCig], that "she isn't always funny in the night" [Magazines]; some nights she was gorgeous ("I know that she's gorgeous" [BCig]). We were living it. We delivered it. We didn't feel a thing. We were living in. The sweet part of the city. The parts with the bars and restaurants. We used to meet underneath the marquees. We used to nod off in the matinees. She always claimed that she was from Tennessee. Now it seems to me Like distance doesn't equal rate and time no more. It's like gravity doesn't apply. Everything sparkles and it feels like we're on wheels. It was dark but I guess that's the deal. He describes their life then. They were living it --- not out in the suburbs any more, but in the sweet part of the city, the parts with the bars and restaurants. They were dealing drugs ("we delivered it," see "delivery" [MPADJs], and Charlemagne's delivery of "party stuff" to Jesse [40B]), and taking plenty ("we didn't feel a thing"). The Narrator used to meet with Mary then, underneath the marquees of the Uptown theaters [ABlues]; there they would drink and talk [AE] and nod off in the matinees (she likes the daytime theaters because the movies in the dark are like her nighttime visions [MN, OWL, BCrosses]; that was the deal, it was dark). Mary always claimed that she was from Tennessee, but that doesn't seem quite like a real-world place; it's like distance isn't a precise thing any more (in fact she's from "Graceland," as in "Hail Mary full of grace" [BCrosses], more than from Memphis the city or Tennessee the state). It's like gravity doesn't apply either, when they're there: everything's sparkling and floating ("And everything is sparkling and everything's soft / Everything's just kind of floating" [GOAH], "We're dust in the spotlights, we're just kind of floating" [SA]). In fact, they're in the world of Mary's angelic visions: it "feels like they're on wheels" because they're "sailing off with cherubim" [SPayne]; the cherubim are on wheels, and on the back of the cherubim is the Sapphire throne of God [Ezekiel 10] (cf. "wheelchairs" [PJ]). As we noted earlier, this sapphire throne is identified with the Virgin Mary, called in early church hymns the "living Throne of God." Mary is tapped into a vision of the end times that is very different from Charlemagne's "revelation songs" [CF] with "four guys on horses and violent red visions" [CatCT]; which way things are going to go isn't clear yet. St. Theresa showed up wearing see-through. It was standard issue. We went out to get some more wine. But it's a long haul to the corner store from the center of the universe. When you can't get your car off the curb. Back to the night on Hennepin, where the Narrator and Charlemagne and Jesse are passing around the thermos: Mary (St. Theresa) showed up wearing see-through; it was "standard issue" for her, who always went around in tight/skimpy/revealing clothing [Swish, HM, SPotC, NS, Weekenders]. The Narrator and Mary went out to get some more wine, because that's what she always drinks [MM, YGD, MN, LID, SPotC, Spinners, R&T] (for a reason having to do with her visions, which we'll get to when we talk about R&T). But it's hard to get from where they are, flying high at the "center of the universe," to the real-world corner store, when, unlike the fantastic cherubim wheels, they can't get her real-world car off the curb. We were living it. We delivered it. We didn't feel a thing. We were in heaven in The sweet part of the city. The parts with the bars and restaurants. So we shot ourselves out into outer space. It was tough to place the aftertaste. It was stark but it was spacious. It's a long way from Cedar-Riverside to Cedars-Sinai Three times St. Paul to Cheyenne. It's a long way from Sacramento too. We were bored so we started a band. We'd like to play for you. Continuing from the refrain, they shot themselves out into outer space with the strong stuff. They were pretty far out there: they didn't feel much ("didn't feel a thing"; "It was tough to place the aftertaste, it was stark but it was spacious."). And now the theme of unreal place and incalculable distance comes back. Just as Uptown is the center of the universe vis-a-vis the unreachable corner store, the Twin Cities are the center of the universe vis-a-vis the unreachable rest of the country. Cedar-Riverside (in Minneapolis) to Cedars-Sinai (in California) is approximately three times the distance from St Paul to Cheyenne, but you can't get to either place; Charlemagne can't make a success of his drug dealing (="California"), and Mary can't get back to the unspoiled purity of their first experience of the Cities (="Cheyenne"). They can't get Holly back either (who died in the baptism="Sacramento"). They're stuck in funny place here, and will be until trouble forces their hand. But in the meanwhile, in their boredom, they started a band; they'd like to play for you. (This, at the end, is what lets us know that the Narrator is the POV character). More tomorrow, and thanks for your prayers for Still Alive Carl.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 9, 2016 15:47:24 GMT -5
I wonder a lot about Lifter Puller, too, not going to lie. Funny you should bring that up today. For possibly obvious reasons, there are a lot of mornings when I wake up with a THS line on a loop in my head. (Woke up with "her claddagh ring was pointed at the people" three days in a row in August, a personal record.) This morning it was "Mouths and hands, hands and mouths / So many shows where nobody comes out," with that kind of metallic synth in the background, and I was remembering what bigontheinside said recently ( link), that Curves and Nerves is "very lifter pullery." I've seen the wild song titles, too, of course, so all these things have kind of combined in my head to form an idea, probably completely wrong, of what it must be like. But yeah, I'm curious. Funny you should mention it. I'm just home from my weekly tuesday pub quiz. Exactly a week ago I went home with my earbuds on, revisiting the (highly unauthorized) b-sides compilation for the first time in maybe a year. Curves And Nerves were one of the last Hold Steady songs I heard at all. It must have slipped when I was tracking everything they'd done in the winter of 2007. Somehow I mixed it up with Hot Fries and a couple of other b-sides, and thinking I had heard it and discarded it as not-so-great, I just forgot to actually listen to it till years on. Last tuesday the song really hit me. And the line that was spinning in my mind was "Where were you when the call came in?/ I was on a Rocky Mountain freedom binge/ with all the living members of The Cityscape Skins/ you and me and Gideon". And I remember thinking that this was early times, but still, a lot of the (lyrical) elements I would later fall for was allready in place. It must have been wedensday or thursday when I logged on to the board again, for the first time since early december. And then I discovered this thread. It felt pretty good. Without coming off as possesed, I must admit that your writing has been on my mind more or less constantly since then. I just want to highlight how much I appreciate it. I'm not agreeing on everything, and as I said, I think you maybe take it a little bit too far. But then again, it makes sense - at least within the boundaries you lay out. I'm not looking for The Answer, but I'm still beyond thrilled reading this. So thank you - I can't wait to read the rest of it. As for Lifter Puller: You should definitely not just listen to them, but consider making a (very) light version of this analysis on their material as well. In some ways their lyrics are even more well-written than the Hold Steady lyrics. Maybe not - if you're onto something - not as narratively dense, but funnier, tighter and more in-your-face. Some of the lines Craig wrote for Lifter Puller are pure poetry. And some resemble the best hip hop I've ever heard. There's crazy alliteration patterns, there's clever cross-rhyming and there's just beautiful, smart and funny language. It's rawer, harder and more punchy. Not just lyrics wise, but musically as well. And just as Tads monster riffs and licks fits the THS story in the best way possible, the thin, hard and synth-y sounds of Lifter Puller match up perfectly with the tales in the Lifter Puller universe. Look forward to it. You're gonna love it. I spent three or four years listening A LOT to Hold Steady before I really got into Lifter Puller. Since 2011 I think I've spent more time on the latter than on anyone else. Enough meta. Let's get back to the story. (Oh, and thanks for saying my english is good. Norwegians generally deal pretty good with english, and I know I can make myself understood. I just thought it was fair to point out when we're dealing with in-depth analysis of this kind. Just as an example: Until I read this thread, I always though "...when they jumped him in" meant that Gideon got beaten up. I kind of changes things if it actually mean that they got into his head in a more abstract way, So bear with me if some of my comments - and there will be more of them - come off as strange)
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 9, 2016 23:58:57 GMT -5
I can identify with not wanting to come off as possessed, ha. Anyway, your English is plenty good; it's also true that Craig uses a lot of subtle/ambiguous/technical language that can throw even native English speakers off. "Jumped him in" literally means "initiated him into the gang" with the implication of physical abuse, so you're right about that. The fact that they got into his head when they did that (as reported in YGD) happened as a result, but isn't part of being "jumped in" per se. But there are lots of these things. "Hit it again" in YGD had me confused for quite a while; it wasn't until I could line up all three prom songs that I was sure I knew which sense of "hit" was meant. "Pinned" was confusing too. And so on. Let me come back to your "origin" question: "whether Craig had all of this sorted out before AKM, or if the story kind of evolved as songs and albums went by." I'm absolutely certain that he had the fundamental story all sorted out before they ever started recording. The six main characters and most of the major events of the story are present in AKM already, even if some episodes only get a half a line. Most importantly, there's no way (IMHO) that these things could have been brought together in a satisfying story later, if they'd just been written out randomly at the beginning. With Separation Sunday we have even more proof of planning; not only do we again see all six characters present on the album, along with a lot more detail about the later events of the story, but we have Craig's own testimony about his preparation. In the 2006 Pitchfork interview ( link), he said: But having the fundamental story sorted out is different from having all the details in place. It's clear that he's added a lot of detail and decoration around the main bones of the story as they've gone along. For example: - Shepard is a new character from the Teeth Dreams timeframe [IHTWTDFY, SS, LA]; it certainly looks like Craig said, "hey, I want to talk a little more about the Skins now. They must have had a leader; let's put a name to that face and flesh him out a little bit." - In Heaven is Whenever, he poured a lot into the perspective of Charlemagne and the Narrator at an older age, in some complicated relationship situations. These things definitely fit the previously-constructed story. But they also feel like the fleshing out of something that might not have been more than a summary sentence ("For a few years ...") when it was first put together. - Sarah from Teeth Dreams certainly looks like a whole new chapter. - Gideon coming back to sanity was part of the story from the beginning, but the Houston/touchdown metaphor seems to be new with Teeth Dreams. - Gideon pulling a magic trick at a particular time (can't spoil yet) was always part of the story, but the detail about him using a pipe made from a Pringles can for the purpose seems to have been new with BAGIA. And so on, and so on. Plus, Craig can keep spinning out more stuff as long as he wants. But none of this conflicts with the idea that there's a well-architected story underneath it all, with motivations and dramatic developments that have been clear in his mind from the beginning. Does that make sense? Let me keep going with the story, I'll respond to the autobiographical thing, and maybe some of the other stuff too, tomorrow. Have to keep the forward momentum. We've covered the background [SM, CA], the general scene [TSPotC], the baseline situation with Jesse [HH, CSongs]. On top of those, we get some songs about relationship complications for the different "couples": Charlemagne and Jesse, the Narrator and Mary, and Charlemagne and Mary. There are three early "relationship complications" songs about Charlemagne and Jesse: 40 Bucks, Wait a While, and We Can Get Together. (Hurricane J, Magazines, and Big Cig are also about Charlemagne and Jesse, but seem to come later, since they all talk about an impending end to things, one way or another.) We've already talked about 40 Bucks and Wait a While. We Can Get Together is pretty straightforward; like Hornets! Hornets!, it's another story about Charlemagne and Jesse meeting in her room and listening to her records. But there are some lines worth noticing: She said Husker Du got huge. But they started in St. Paul. This is one of the pieces of evidence that Jesse lives, as well as works, in St. Paul. A second is "your Uptown friends came by the bar last night" [CF]; the Uptown friends are the Skins, dealing "Silver metal flake up on Lyndale and Lake" [R&T]; unlike Charlemagne and the Narrator up on Hennepin, Jesse doesn't live in Uptown. A third is "Tell her to stay in St. Paul" [AHfA]; we can't get into the context of this song yet, but even now we can see that "see if she'll send cigarettes" and "it's her favorite band" are tip-offs that the "she" of AHfA is Jesse. He wasn't just the drummer. He was someone's little brother. I still spin that single. But it don't sound that simple anymore. The "pure and simple love" that Jesse's looking for is proving plenty complicated; the loss of "someone's little brother" behind the complications seems to suggest the loss of Holly, Mary's younger cousin. And Charlemagne too is strugging with the complexity of his affection; that he has to "try so hard not to fall in love" [HH] is again shown when he thinks: Heaven is whenever We can get together. Sit down on your floor. And listen to your records. There are also two "relationship complications" songs about the Narrator and Mary: Most People Are DJs, and Rock Problems. Both songs are from the Narrator's POV, and there's lots of evidence that both are about the same party: - The girl who's got him cornered in the kitchen appears in both. - The trashbin/ice machine joke appears in both. - The writer of RP is clearly a critic in the MPADJs sense. - The Narrator wants to be ripped out of his "little world" in RP, and pleads that "it's a big world" in MPADJs. It's another story of the Narrator following Mary out to a party, pleading with her to understand him and to change how she's living; like in Cheyenne Sunrise, she refuses to "sympathize" with him. But in the end, for now at least, he realizes that he's happy to be with her anyway. The girls want to go to the party. But no one's in any shape to drive. So we called up your guy And when he comes we're gonna ask for a ride. The Narrator, Charlemagne, Mary and Jesse are up at the place on Hennepin. The girls want to go to the party, but like in TSPotC, where they can't get their car off the curb, no one's in any shape to drive. So they call up one of Charlemagne's "numbers" [HH] to get some party stuff delivered, and when the guy comes, they're going to ask him for a ride. We get to the place. And she don't want to dance. She says she's not really into this track. She wants to know what's going on in the room that's all the way in the back. The Narrator is bummed because Mary's not even trying to dance now (compare later "she ain't come out dancing in some time" [LID]; the arc that went from "I didn't know you could dance like that" [OWL] in high school to "thought she was a dancer" [BBlues] has progressed). She just wants the action in the room all the way in the back. Back home we were listening to Catholic Boy I got hung up on the people who died. I didn't even want to go out Because I was way too fried. She said I just can't sympathize With your rock and roll problems. Isn't this what we wanted? Some major rock and roll problems. The Narrator was hung up about Holly having died after getting too far into drugs [HF, BCamp, etc.], and is worried about the same thing happening to Mary. But when he confronts her once again about it [HM, CSunrise], she tells him that she just can't sympathize, and after all, isn't this rock and roll lifestyle exactly what he wanted? We recognize yet another variation on the "you gotta dance with who you came to the dance with" [YGD] theme; in fact, this theme is framed in the exact same rock-and-roll-singer context in Going on a Hike: We were hanging at a rock and roll club It was painted just like hell The bar was plywood painted black They have skull mugs up on the shelves They throw such killer parties But some nights you don't feel so well But you shouldn't be the singer in a be yourself band If you don't want to be yourself The lead-in to the GoaH variation is clearly an allusion to the metal bar, with the killer parties; with this for comparison, we understand that the Narrator is "frightened" [RP] of the Rock Problems party for a reason. But this is what you chose, Mary tells him. Back to MPADJs for a minute: Well, hold steady Ybor City You're up to your neck in the sweat and wet confetti If you want to get a little bit light in the heady It's gonna have to get a little bit heavy "Ybor City," the state of wild party insanity, might be getting light-in-the-head high, but things are going to get heavy along the way. To illustrate, the Narrator recalls the metal bar: They're jamming jetskis into the jetty now With some guy who looks like Rocco Siffredi And I've heard he's been dead once already It's going down right now in Lowertown They're skipping off the good ship U.S.S.S.S.S.S.S.S.S. Sexuality Searching for the merchant with the five second delivery They're slipping soft rock into their setlist now They got some new guy that looks just like Phil Lynott We're stumbling but I think we're still in it The "jetty" is the harbor; Charlemagne ("Rocco Siffredi," "dead once already") is getting pummeled. Mary's Unified Scene Sexuality is "going down" in Lowertown (adjacent to Payne Avenue); she's looking for the "merchant" with the instant high. Gideon ("soft" [SN, Knuckles], "rock" [Ambassador, BCamp liner notes]) was the "new guy" in the Skins that night. Things are getting heavy tonight too, and they're stumbling; but they're still in it. It's a big world, girl, and I can't understand it We're tiny white specks on a bright blue planet I was a teenage ice machine I kept it cool in coolers and I drank until I dreamed And when I dream I always dream about the scene All these kids they look like little lambs looking up at me I was a Twin Cities trash bin I did everything they'd give me I'd jam it into my system She got me cornered by the kitchen I said I'll do anything but listen To some weird-talking chick who just can't understand it That we're hot soft spots on a hard rock planet Here again the Narrator has a confrontation with Mary ("weird-talking chick"). He tries to explain to her about his rock and roll dream of the Unified Scene, with all the little lambs looking up at him on stage; he tells her how he felt they'd arrived there together, back on prom night years before [OWL, MN, SPositive]. But she can't or won't understand what he's saying, and for his part he doesn't understand what to do as a tiny white speck on her bright blue (Mary/Sapphire) planet. He fires a parting shot: Baby take off your beret Everyone's a critic and most people are DJs And everything gets played He calls her a DJ, playing the "records and tapes" [R&T] of her visions over and over. Take off your beret, he says; take a risk, make your own music! Working backwards from the doctor to the drugs From the packie to the taxi to the cabbie to the club A thousand kids will fall in love in all these clubs tonight A thousand other kids will end up gushing blood tonight Two thousand kids won't get all that much sleep tonight Two thousand kids they still feel pretty sweet tonight Yeah, and I still feel pretty sweet The song ends with a description of this party going wrong like others, and what was "recreational" once again ending up "kinda medical" [HSL]. But in the meantime, if you can rewind from all the bad things in the wind --- - Mary ("A thousand kids will fall in love in all these clubs tonight") - Charlemagne ("A thousand other kids will end up gushing blood tonight") - Gideon ("Two thousand kids won't get all that much sleep tonight" [see Knuckles, R&T, TL]) - the Narrator ("Two thousand kids they still feel pretty sweet tonight") --- then the Narrator still feels pretty sweet. And this (skipping the rest of the confrontation in the kitchen, and the encounter with the critic) is the same way Rock Problems ends, too: Didn't want to go out But it felt really right When someone put on Heaven Tonight. Had a moment in the middle of In Color and In Black and White. Sing along to the Southern Girls. Rip me out of my little world. He didn't want to stay in "because the walls were so grey" [RP]; that "grey" world with the "tiny white specks" [MPADJs] is the "little world" of "In Black and White"; he didn't want to go out either, "because I was way too frightened" [RP], but when he did go, he had a moment of breakthrough into the "big world" [MPADJs] of "In Color," the "bright blue planet" of Mary, Queen of Heaven ("Heaven Tonight"), his "Southern Girl" from Tennessee/Memphis/Graceland ("Hail Mary, full of grace"). I'm kind of flying through this stuff just to get it out and get on with the story. I hope I'm not being too quick about it, and that piling up things we've already dealt with (like in that last paragraph) is acceptable shorthand. Will wrap up with the "relationship complications" for Charlemagne and Mary tomorrow, and then go further. Thanks for reading along and, as always, for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 10, 2016 16:00:31 GMT -5
I buy your take on Craig's masterplan. There was a story from A to Z, and then new angles and more details have been added as time flew by. I don't think there can be any doubt about that. And by all means, keep doing the story rather than reply to every aspect of my comments. I think I just have a need to write them down as I read, and I guess some of my questions or doubts will be covered in the following posts anyway. Still, a couple of things: Here's another Swish line that you might have a take on, by the way: "Moving pictures got us through to September." (...) Or, here's another thought. I've stated that films/videos/records/tapes/DVDs are all metaphors for visions, and "moving pictures" obviously fits that list. Is Holly saying that Mary somehow got them through to September? I don't really have any other evidence for that, so I don't know. Craig doesn't waste space, though, so there's a point to it somewhere You sit with the whole picture here, so if you don't get it, I don't think I do either. But it1s Mary in Chips Ahoy!, right? She uses her visions ("moving pictures") to make money. When Holly says that "moving pictures got us trhough to September", it seems reasonable that Mary was earning them the money for the drugs needed to fuel a blockbuster summer. It might be a stretch, but Holly saying this could maybe give the "I got a girl, and she don't have to work" further depth. Mary doesn't have to work, while Holly is working like hell to earn back Charlemagne's money. I'm not sure if your timeline is detailed enough to map out the events of each month between the blockbuster and the cocksucking summers, but if Marys willingness or ability to finance the blockbuster stuff dried up in September, it could mark some sort of line between good times and bad times. You've probably been over this somewhere in your analysis, but my initial though is that "moving pictures got us through to September" = Mary's visions earned them enough money to enjoy a blockbuster summer all the way through August - but not further. I don't think you've been over this, but is Hard Corey = The Narrator? Or some of the other characters? Or just a guy appearing here, and only here? Does this mean that Bay City is a) both a metaphor and a geographical place, or b) always a metaphor? In Sweet Payne it sounds to me like Gideon is physically present in Bay City, Michigan, working with tires ("at the Michelin"). And I recall you saying that all the Texas metaphors doesn't apply to Houston, who should be understood as something else than Dallas or Texas in general. Craig has been quoted on The Ambassador being a sequel or a follow up to Sweet Payne, a quite rare example of him explicitly connecting two songs that tight together. And Bay City, Michigan does actually exist, as far as Google can tell me. While writing this, I guess it's not very important where Gideon went after his departure. But when Craig in Sweet Payne not only refers to this place as Bay City, but "Bay City, Michigan", you'd think he talks about the actual place. And while talking about Michigan, and just to round this up (and to tease further on the Craig Finn solo material and the amazing Lifter Puller catalog): My mind has wandered to these lines from Roman Guitars (Craig Finn, Faith Of The Future) the last couple of days. Touch My Stuff is a Lifter Puller track. As I've said before - you're in for a hell of a ride: The pigs all stormed the Bennigan's The band played "Touch My Stuff" again We were living up in Michigan back then
The only cats we ever met Were mangy lame and dripping wet These are not the kind of cats you pet
I bet when all the lights come up This club is covered up in cups Counting cash and coins and gushing blood
The only songs this singer sings Are songs about his victim things No one ever loved him like you did And then he points at every kid
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 11, 2016 0:46:24 GMT -5
No worries, and yeah, doing a bit at a time is probably easiest. I'll catch up. Earlier, you asked about separating the Narrator from Craig. There were a lot of substantial thoughts in there, so let me take what you said a little out of order: Like you, when I first heard the song Stay Positive, I figured it was just Craig from the Hold Steady addressing the fans. Later on I put together the line "when the chaperone crowned us the king and the queen" with Massive Nights, and realized that at least that much of it was from the story. The truth is that I only ever made progress through this thing a line at a time anyway, so I wasn't really thinking about which lines in the song were whose yet; and then soon afterward I heard the Brian Koppelman interview with Craig and Tad ( link), in which Craig specifically talks about the song Stay Positive. Here's an excerpt starting at 55:00: So there you go. I think the "we couldn't have done this if it wasn't for you" part is Craig Finn singing. But there's also a block of lines, including "the chaperone crowned us the king and the queen," that are related to the story and that come out in the Narrator's voice. I think Craig's definitely having it both ways, and "blend" is a good word. Lines like "we opened for the Stones" [AHfA] and "I'd already moved out to New York City" [CSTLN] are obviously true of Craig Finn. But the same songs have "Now Holly won't say hi to me" [AHfA] and "When St. Theresa came to Holly / I wasn't even at that party" [CSTLN], which are obviously part of the story. It doesn't seem like this is "flipping in and out of the world" in the SPositive sense --- both statements belong to sentences that are clearly in-story, and after all there's no problem with believing that the Narrator, the character, opened for the Stones & moved out to NYC. In short, it seems to me that Craig is using autobiographical elements in a two-sided way. Part of that is just that he likes the double entendres. Part of it is that, like Odysseus, he's using a story about himself to enhance his mythic status & the status of his vocation. The strict premise should probably be that the Narrator is a fictional character who happens to reflect on Craig Finn at points. But there still seems to be a lot of blending at the edges. Last thing I'd say about this is that there's no rule to tell whether something is in-story or not; the Test for that gets applied afterward, after you pay close attention to everything and see which interpretations get you the furthest without blowing up. For example, like you, I can't see anything that makes Touchless fit the story (he reuses a couple of common ideas, maybe, but there's no other relation I can see). But closer listening might reveal that I'm wrong about that. For the record, out of the 86 Hold Steady songs I'm aware of (excluding Ballad of the Midnight Hauler and covers), I believe only 8 are strictly unrelated to the story (note in the Koppelman interview above how Craig struggles to come up with a second example after Soft in the Center). I've mentioned that Soft in the Center, Spectres, For Boston, and Touchless are on that list of 8. More about the others soon. I agree with that; at this point Craig has clearly shifted his focus to the parts of the story where Mary, the Narrator, and Charlemagne are in their 30's, and away from the crazy stuff in their 20's. (There's a lot of material from their 30's on BAGIA, too, but subtler episodes get more play on Stay Positive.) Part of that might be that he has more to fill in around the later parts of the story. But it's surely also true that, with time, he's become less interested in writing about, say, Charlemagne in the ER than he was early on. And that seems normal to me. We all develop, and he's been living with this story for a really long time. The only literary parallel to this kind of narrow long-term focus I can think of is James Joyce, who turned a short story written in 1904 (there are a dozen or so pages which survive) into a series of longer treatments that finally ended up getting stretched out into Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, finished in 1922. That's 18 years working mostly on one story, and if "Charlemagne in Sweatpants" was first put on paper in 2001 or so (see the 2008 Independent interview: link), then Craig's not far behind. It's not surprising to see him try to come at it fresh. So, back to the story. We were talking about songs that detail "relationship complications" in Act III. There's one of these songs for Charlemagne and Mary too: Your Little Hoodrat Friend. Let's review for a minute what we know about the context of this song: - Mary and Jesse regularly meet up with Charlemagne and the Narrator to drink and to go to theaters & parties. - Mary's in love with Charlemagne but won't let him touch her (substituting the townie Skins as lovers instead). - Jesse's in love with Charlemagne and is waiting for him to go to New York with her. - Charlemagne seriously wants Jesse to go to New York, but won't go with her because he's sticking around for Mary, with whom he's in love in his turn. - Charlemagne and Jesse (always with Jesse taking the lead) are in the meantime having a lot of "pretty big" sex. It's a total jealousy clusterfuck. The girls are seeing each other in Charlemagne's company all the time, and though nothing is open, each of them knows damn well what's going on with the other. Mary's jealous of Jesse because she's got Charlemagne's body. Jesse's jealous of Mary because she's got Charlemagne's soul. We understand now what the formerly puzzling lines from Criminal Fingers are about: Doing dishes in the kitchen I had the first of many visions I see trouble for the both of us Jesse doesn't have visions, of course. Like her lies in 40 Bucks, this one is transparent: she only claims (lamely) to be seeing them in a desperate bid to compete with Mary (desperate, because she's alarmed that she's really lost him this time: "this time I don't think that I can wait for you"). So now let's look at Your Little Hoodrat Friend itself. We already went over the early part of this song, with the argument that the "little hoodrat friend" (just in this song, not any of the "hoodrats" in C&N, HH or HaRRF) is Jesse. But now that we know the context, we can unpack most of the rest, including some things that we missed in the first few verses. Again, the POV character is Charlemagne, responding to Mary's jealous accusation that he's getting with Jesse. Your little hoodrat friend makes me sick But after I get sick I just get sad 'Cause it burns being broke, hurts to be heartbroken And always being both must be a drag Charlemagne protests to Mary, and protests far too much, that he's not doing anything with her little hoodrat friend Jesse. She makes him sick, he says; she makes him sad too, because she's always broke (true, but only true because she spends all her money to get high with him [HH] and other boys [40B], or on cigarettes [SM, 40B, BCig]) and always heartbroken (over boyfriends, but mostly over him [SM, 40B, WaW, Spinners]). (The words "burns" and "drag" have additional force in reference to Jesse the cig girl.) She's been calling me again She's been calling me again She's been calling him, he complains; then he repeats the complaint. The emphasis is a little funny, because Mary's been calling him too ("I was just about to call you when you called" [YS], "she wants to meet me back uptown" [ABlues]). Your little hoodrat friend's been calling me again And I can't stand all the things that she sticks into her skin Like sharpened ballpoint pens and steel guitar strings She says it hurts, but it's worth it Jesse's been calling me again, Charlemagne says; he can't stand all the things she sticks into her skin ("She pokes around with a paper clip" [BCig]), like sharpened ballpoint pens (from waitress gear?) and steel guitar strings (from her musician boyfriends [40B, JaJ]). She says it hurts, but it's worth it. It's kind of funny that Charlemagne would stop to psychoanalyze Jesse while he's pretending to be repulsed; what's that about? Well, Jesse can endure a little pain for something that's worth it; what about Mary? Maybe he's suspecting that the "migraine headaches" [CA] are kind of bullshit after all? Tiny little text etched into her neck It said "Jesus lived and died for all your sins" She's got blue black ink and it's scratched into her lower back Says "Damn right, He'll rise again" Yeah, damn right, you'll rise again Damn right, you'll rise again Charlemagne alleges that Jesse also has a couple of homemade tattoos. There's one on her neck that says "Jesus lived and died for all your sins," an echo of the forgiveness Jesse described when talking about Charlemagne as her Jesus [SM], and another on her lower back that says "Damn right, He'll rise again." Damn right you'll rise again (with the obvious sexual overtone), Charlemagne thinks to himself, even if you think you're done: "this little tryst is hard to quit" [BCig]. But now this critique is really starting to hit close to home. We know about Mary's "sleeveless lifestyle / Girl you gotta cover that" [HM] tramp stamp; "the scratches on my back, they formed into a choir / and belted out a chorus" [SK] and the "belt it out like backscratch choirs" [NS] are also hers, and as we listen to "Damn right, you'll rise again" we get an idea of what the chorus being belted out is (this is another crazy thing like the Narrator in OWL referencing the saxophone in HM). The girl in One for the Cutters wears a "turtleneck sweater" [OftC] in court for a reason; it's a good bet she's got a tat on her neck too. Who is Charlemagne actually talking about here? As in similar cases (for example CSongs or HJ, where he's talking ambiguously about Jesse and Holly at the same time), it looks like he's talking about *both* Jesse and Mary. Just as Jesse claimed to have visions in imitation of Mary [CF], it looks like she got herself some copycat tattoos; so Charlemagne's description of her is clinically accurate. But the vehemence of his protest is directed straight at Mary. The definite proof of this is in the next two verses (skipping "dusted in the dark" and Charlemagne's three-times denial of Jesse): Your little hoodrat friend got me high though We were 17 and stuck up up in Osseo She said it's funny how true love gets troubled by stillwater And washed up in the Mississippi River Her claddagh ring was pointed at the people She said St. Theresa came to me in dreams She said I ain't gonna do anything sexual to you I'm kinda saving myself for the scene The killer line here is "We were 17 and stuck up up in Osseo," honestly one of the hardest lines in all the songs. When I first tackled it, I had understood that everything up to this point was talking about Jesse, and that "Your little hoodrat friend got me high though" was a reference to Jesse paying for Charlemagne's drugs in HH. But with "we were 17" I was at a dead stop. It is absolutely clear that Charlemagne is much older than Jesse, even before you do the math; it is equally clear that Charlemagne was in Lynn at 17. I probably checked the liner notes four times to check that it really was "stuck up up" and not "stuck up." And Osseo totally baffled me. Finally, finally, I realized what I had not before, that these two verses are a massive volley of sarcasm being unloaded straight at Mary (and it's only from that point that I was able to work back through the song and see her as the increasingly direct target of "she's been calling me again," "it hurts but it's worth it," and the tattoo comments). Charlemagne doesn't have the firmness of character to make his protest head-on, but he's a genius of ass-backwards innuendo. Look at what he's saying here: - "Your little hoodrat friend got me high though"; it's true that Jesse has gotten him high up in her bedroom [HH], and on the face of it this is just another admission, like the earlier ones, that it's all right because it stops short of him "getting with" her. But what he's really referring to is to Gideon getting Mary high when they were 17 [ASD, SN], both of them stuck up (her a "priss" and a "princess" [YGD, C&N, A&H, ASD], him a townie from Osseo, MN but claiming to be from New York City [BCamp liner notes, ASD, CatCT "small town cops are like swarms of flies," as if he weren't from a much smaller town]. For "stuck up" see also "stuck around with all those stickpin dolls" [PP]; if in fact Mary was still 17 in the ASD timeframe, as seems likely from this, then Charlemagne's specifically talking about Gideon introducing her to speed shooting [ASD]. - "She said it's funny how true love gets troubled by stillwater / And washed up in the Mississippi River ([liner notes] And she washed me in the Mississippi river)": this is exactly the kind of innocent double-entendre that Jesse lets drop in HH, and on the face of it he's saying that she's actually given up on her love for him since nothing is happening (still water); but the ulterior meaning is a reproach to Mary for getting with Gideon who later, he thinks, couldn't stand Holly's awkward silences when high, and murdered her by drowning [CatCT, "stillwater" = "awkward silences / banging stops" in BCamp, "Holly can't speak / has to go to get some sleep" in BBlues]. (For "it's funny how ..." see also "Thinking things are funny when they really ain't that funny" [HM].) - "Her claddagh ring was pointed at the people": It's true that Jesse's not in a relationship (the meaning of the claddagh ring when worn pointing away from the wearer), or, more to the point, that her ring is pointing at practically everyone, and not at him; but again, the real point is a barb at Mary, who is living at the club and fucking all the townie Skins there [Ambassador, ABlues, etc.]. The claddagh ring, together with "Ginger" [Swish], identifies Mary as an Irish redhead. (If the running ambiguity continues to hold here, maybe Jesse is Irish too.) - "She said St. Theresa came to me in dreams": he gets it wrong in saying that St. Theresa appeared, rather than Jesus, not unlike how Jesse gets it wrong when she claims to be having visions [CF]; but again the point is the same, it's Mary who is the target, with her pious claims and impious behavior. - "She said I ain't gonna do anything sexual to you / I'm kinda saving myself for the scene": It's true that Jesse has been fucking the music boys down at the harbor bars, but this pales next to Mary; and the exasperating thing for Charlemagne is that, while as an attribution to Jesse it's completely over the top, as a reproach of Mary it's dead literal --- she really *won't* do anything sexual with him [AB, OftC, CA, YS], and she really is saving herself for the scene [Ambassador, ABlues, etc.]! Skipping "dusted in the dark" again (and "waiting for my ride" later): She said city center used to be the center of our scene Now city center's over, no one really goes there Back then we used to drink beneath this railroad bridge Some nights the bus wouldn't even stop, there were just too many kids But after all that, Charlemagne goes on to say something about Jesse that's a little separate from the other assertions (the protest and the reproach), namely, a matter-of-fact report of her innocence. She said they used to party in City Center (scene of Holly's prostitution [Swish]), and then under a railroad bridge down near Payne Avenue/Lowertown/Railroad Island in St. Paul (see "railroad yard" [LA]); she's grown up, oblivious, in the middle of the world that led to Holly's death (these are the same bright comments that she makes in HH, and his reaction is the same). What's going to happen to her? That's enough. Tomorrow we can start talking about how the events of the crucifixion are set in motion. Thanks for reading all of that, and please remember Still Alive Carl if you can.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 11, 2016 15:39:52 GMT -5
I had originally written a post, but it disappeared when I managed to hit backspace. So in short: I think we're pretty much on the same page regarding Craig's role in the songs, and it seems reasonable that he and The Narrator overlaps here and there. I look forward to follow this and other subjects in the following posts! Just one more thing: . I've mentioned that Soft in the Center, Spectres, For Boston, and Touchless are on that list of 8. More about the others soon. This is interesting. And I think it would be stupid not to try to make a guess on the remaining four songs. First of all, I'm not quite sure which songs who qualify here. I take for granted that cover songs is excluded. That should exclude The Bear And Maiden Fair as well, as Craig - as far as I know - has nothing to do with the lyrics. Take Me Out To The Ball Game is a bit harder. If my information is right, he has modified the lyrics of the original. And it is a Hold Steady song, right? I'll take a guess that you don't include it. Don't Call Them Twinkies is all Craig on the lyrics side. But then again, it's not a Hold Steady track, if I remember correctly? Of the remaining songs I've revisited some tracks I though might be off-story. I went to You Can Make Him Like You, who easily could be a stand-alone story. But there's so much relationship stuff, so much getting high and that line about "hang in the kitchen". I guess you find a way to make it fit to the arch. Constructive Summer is another one who seems a bit off. Mainly because it sounds a lot like Craig. It's not about getting high, it's a pure drinking song, and the references to The Clash and D4 also points more to Craig than any other character. But then again, there's that think about the ten bucks and the tennis shoes. I'll take my chances that it has something to do with the events in high school, You Gotta Dance and massive nights. Two Handed Handshake is another tricky one. It has some similarities to Soft In The Center, with Craig appearing as the wiser uncle handing out advices to the kids. But there's quite a few lines who at least seems to be rooted in the story universe. "New trick", a dance, kids who don't come back and tons of references to movies and TV, who you'e convinced me is connected to the visions. I'm staying clear of that one as well. And what about Positive Jam? With the rest of AKM being so lyrically dense and filled with references, I guess it's fair to assume that the history lessons there bears some deeper meaning. Finally, I remembered Separate Vacations as detached from the universe. Re-reading the lyrics, it's pretty obvious it's well connected to everything else. That leaves me with... Chillout Tent. Could easily be a scene from the story, but none of the characters or references sounds familiar. I guess it's a story in itself. A simple tale about boys and girls in America. Just Sayin'. I haven't found the lyrics on this one, and should maybe hear it again before I put it on the list, but I'll take my chances. Two Handed Handshake. In lack of better options, I reconsider what I wrote earlier. It's general and universal enough to be "just" a song about guys and girls, drinking and dancing. That's three. Unless you can confirm that one of the baseball songs and/or The Bear And Maiden Fair is among your selection, I think I'll just have to save my last guess. Again: This thread is so damn rewarding. The rest of the board just have to excuse my fanboy tendencies, but I think it's only fair to say it again. This is just fantastic, and has revitalised my thoughts on, and interest in Hold Steady. Sending good thoughts to Stay Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 12, 2016 0:55:12 GMT -5
Haha, shit, this is good. I think I can catch up in one shot here: Now that you say it, I think this has to be the right answer, and no I hadn't figured it out yet. To be honest it wasn't until I sat down and did the Act II timeline (after the "moving pictures" discussion) that I really got a clear idea about the progression of Holly's drug addiction early on. Like you say, they had to get the money for that first, virginal-in-the-theaters summer (both for drugs, and just to live on) from somewhere, and the whole point is that things only started going bad when Charlemagne decided to strike out as a businessman. Excellent catch. I'm adding this to the timeline. I don't know if Mary gets money from her rich father with the lawyers [OftC], or from the horses, or both. I had always imagined the horses as something she came up with just to reel in Charlemagne, but in fact it could be either. This is spoiler stuff, it has to wait. When I first heard HM I thought it was about Charlemagne meeting Holly at a party, and that Hard Corey was some "clever kid" talking who just gave Charlemagne his opportunity to say to Holly "let's get out of here." But that's all wrong, in fact it comes from near the end of the story. Let me not say more than that just yet. I think I'm only a few days from getting to this in the story, but let me answer your question this way. Just like the saddle shop of SS refers to the real Schatzlein Saddle Shop in Minneapolis, the "tire shop" of SPayne and Ambassador refers to a real tire shop in the Twin Cities. It's not a Michelin now, and maybe it never was, but it exists. So the tire shop is a real place, but the city/state names with which it's identified are metaphors. It's called Michigan because of a feature of the block on which it's located (there's a hint about this, and a really funny one, in Sweet Payne). It's called Houston because that's where Gideon was when "touchdown" brought him back to Earth (you know that Houston is where Ground Control for American space missions is traditionally located, right? Don't mean to assume too much of an international audience ...). And Bay City is a Bay City Rollers=Tires joke, or an auto bay joke, or it even works as part of the Michigan geography joke (or, because it's Craig, maybe it's all three). It even gets a third city name later, but we'll get there. You are blowing my mind with Roman Guitars referencing Lifter Puller, and yeah I see the Michigan thing. Just reading that I have no idea if there's a story going on there, or whether it's related if there is; but yeah. Clearly this is something I'm going to have to look at. I mean, under the circumstances I am going to be happy to drag out my THS listening as long as it takes. But I'm hoping for a positive outcome. So the only reason I didn't give the whole list is because one of the very biggest aha moments I had was the realization that one of the songs that most clearly seemed to be outside the story is actually central to it (if I specify what's not included, then of course you'll know what is included also). It might be my favorite Hold Steady track so I'm probably biased toward seeing this as a big revelation. But here's a compromise. Like you, it seems to me that Chillout Tent and Two Handed Handshake are outside the story; those are two more of the eight. And let me give a list of the 86 total that I'm counting:
Almost Killed Me | Separation Sunday | Boys And Girls In America | Positive Jam The Swish Barfruit Blues Most People Are DJs Certain Songs Knuckles Hostile, Mass. Sketchy Metal Sweet Payne Killer Parties | Hornets! Hornets! Cattle And The Creeping Things Your Little Hoodrat Friend Banging Camp Charlemagne In Sweatpants Stevie Nix Multitude Of Casualties Don't Let Me Explode Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night Crucifixion Cruise How A Resurrection Really Feels | Stuck Between Stations Chips Ahoy! Hot Soft Light Same Kooks First Night Party Pit You Can Make Him Like You Massive Nights Citrus Chillout Tent Southtown Girls | Milkcrate Mosh Hot Fries Curves & Nerves Modesto Is Not That Sweet You Gotta Dance | 212 Margarita | For Boston Girls Like Status Arms And Hearts Teenage Liberation | Stay Positive | Heaven Is Whenever | Teeth Dreams | Constructive Summer Sequestered In Memphis One For The Cutters Navy Sheets Lord, I'm Discouraged Yeah Sapphire Both Crosses Stay Positive Magazines Joke About Jamaica Slapped Actress | The Sweet Part Of The City Soft In The Center The Weekenders The Smidge Rock Problems We Can Get Together Hurricane J Barely Breathing Our Whole Lives A Slight Discomfort | I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You Spinners The Only Thing The Ambassador On With The Business Big Cig Wait A While Runner's High Almost Everything Oaks | Ask Her For Adderall Cheyenne Sunrise Two Handed Handshake 40 Bucks Spectres | Touchless Ascension Blues Going on a Hike Separate Vacations Criminal Fingers | Records and Tapes Saddle Shoes Look Alive |
You're right that I don't include The Bear and the Maiden Fair or Take Me Out to the Ball Game. But more importantly, I've never heard of Don't Call Them Twinkies or Just Sayin'! So I'm going to get on those pronto. And obviously it's possible that there are other tracks I've missed, too. With the whole list out there, maybe you see something else I've passed over? And in the meantime, back to the story. We covered a lot of Act III already: the songs that I've classified as background (SM, CA), general scene (TSPotC), Jesse relationship baseline (HH, CSongs), and relationship complications (40B, WaW, WCGT; MPADJs, RP; YLHF). We've also basically covered everything in the next bucket, which I'll call "problems intensifying": on Jesse's side, we have Hurricane J, Magazines, and Big Cig; on Mary's side, we have Yeah Sapphire. Just a few notes here to add to what we said before: Obviously the jealousy situation is unsustainable, and there are other pressures. Jesse's threatening to leave [Magazines]: Second dates and lipstick tissues New York gets pretty heavy, girl, I hope it doesn't crush you and in the meantime she's a ticking time bomb [Hurricane J]: Hurricane Jesse's gonna crash into the harbor this summer. She don't want to wait till she gets older But Charlemagne is stuck in his holding pattern, and can't break out of it [BCig]: This little tryst is hard to quit. So we just sit here and live with it. In fact, Jesse's half crashing into the boys in the harbor bars already ("she's got boys on board and boys on deck" [Magazines]); 40 Bucks tells us one of these stories, and implies the existence of others; "Second dates and lipstick tissues" [Magazines] alludes to ongoing episodes of blowjobs on second dates, and fixing her lipstick afterwards (see "Sucking off each other at the demonstrations, making sure their makeup's straight" [SBS]). I had thought before that Charlemagne's "She used to fool around with some friends of mine" [BCig] referred to the fact that she'd jumped the Narrator early on [SM], but that was just a one-time thing; on further consideration I think he must be referring to his so-called "Uptown friends" [CF], that is, the Skins. He pulled Jesse out of that St. Paul harbor scene and got her off the speed once [SM], but she's going to go back to it for real if he doesn't make up his mind soon. For her part, Mary's growing increasingly unhappy, even desperate. She wants Charlemagne but believes she can't have him, and has to sit by while Jesse does everything in her power to take him away. She also sees the future of her visions drawing nearer --- she knows that the things in her dreams will come to pass, and that Charlemagne is going to be crucified. Yeah Sapphire gives us information about both these points. Mary's the POV character of the song, and it's a vision of the future she's having, so there are a few things in it that we can't yet explain (including *why* she sees Charlemagne addressing her as "Sapphire"; we figured out the Mary / Sapphire Throne identification, but that still doesn't explain why he's not calling her by her own name). But to give a short summary: The whole song is framed as the portrait of a lousy boyfriend talking his way into another chance (I'm a mess; what am I supposed to do? yeah but you needed it; it turned out all right didn't it? blah blah empty promise), and concluding on the same note (cheap excuse): "I was just about to call you when you called." Again, this isn't an objective account of reality, this is Mary's perspective, with a heavy dramatic slant. But she's unhappy with Charlemagne, isolated and unhappy, and she's clinging to the hope that one day he'll come around and see how important she really is to him. With the hanging "dreams" at the end of the first part, her fantasy of the bad boyfriend turned appreciative shifts into a higher register: "It went just like you predicted / I swear there must be something in your dreams / And it all went down exactly like your visions." Suddenly he's grateful; he knows that she's saved his life somehow. "And I know you said don't call until I'm clean" ... but "I'm not drunk, I'm cut, I'm gushing blood" (it's yet another variant of the crucifixion vision: "she saw him gushing blood from wide open wounds and she decided that she loved him" [HM]) ... "And I need someone to come and pick me up." He sees it all now, he needs her and loves her now: "I was a skeptic at first, but these miracles work." In the dream, she both saves his life and gets him finally for herself. But in reality, she's running out of time. There isn't a date attached to this song, but like the others in the early Act III timeframe it's somewhere around the summer of 2003. Charlemagne's 32 years old now. The crucifixion of Christ is a year away. Next up: Mary hatches a plan. Thanks for hanging in there, and thank you for remembering Still Alive Carl too.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 12, 2016 14:36:15 GMT -5
Glad to be able to add something to the story! I hadn't really though about that Mary's the girl with a loaded father in Cutters, but it could easily be those money they talk about. Still, if it's the "moving pictures" who help them out, they sounds like they're made using the ability to see at least a few seconds into the future. Totally fine with that. Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with Houston as a space city, and also as a pretty common symbol for what you talk about. And I wasn't really meaning to question your interpretation, I just got a bit confused about whether Gideon actually went to Michigan or not. I'll try to figure out that Sweet Part of the City Sweet Payne hint now. And I'm sorry to keep bothering you with Lifter Puller lyrics. But talking about Gideon, Sweet Payne and all that, I thought you might like this. I've pointed out the best part, but I guess you'll notice some cowboys and those magazines and videos as well: Woke up at some hedonistic rodeo With cowboys kissing cowboys, trading magazines for videos God bless the radio, all that fine fine music without all the messed up musicians And Dwight's a magician, he gets sensible people makin' terrible decisionsI might just have to post another lyric or three later on. With the right perspective, I think there's tons of references to be found in the Lifter Puller catalog. But that will both make a mess of this thread, and might not add anything substantial. Still, I'd like to take a look at the three songs (Secret Santa Cruz, quoted in the previous paragraph, is one of them. The other two is 4 Dix and La Quereria) released in the year-and-something following the Lifter Puller breakup. The universes might not be connected, but they show that Craig at least had some of the images who would later appear in the front of his head. It's probably just Craig giving a wink to people paying attention. I don't really think the Lifter Puller or solo universes are narratively connected to the Hold Steady universe. But there's some pretty sweet winks and references dropped here and there. Yeah, definitely hope you'll get to stick around with Hold Steady for a long time. Or, we should just hope that Carl gets well - that's a good two-for-one! I like that you don't give it away. I'll think long and hard on the two remaining ones. And I'll check out the lyrics of Just Sayin', and see what they reveal. I've only heard the songs a couple of times, and it's tucked away on a pretty obscure soundtrack. Not that weird you hadn't heard (of) it. I think this list contains everything. And I think that with the ones I mentioned in my post, and the theme song to The Awesomes (which don't hold that much lyrics anyway), you got it all. But you might as well check out the complete list: holdsteady.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_songs_Craig_Finn_has_sung_onReading the Mary/Charlemagne thing with interest now. I might come up with a few more questions/issues during the evening. Till then: Keep up the (damn) good work.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 13, 2016 2:13:27 GMT -5
Agh, of course, you're right! Sorry, I was thinking more about the calendar than the actual words being used, but clearly what you say makes sense. I haven't updated the timeline yet but I will include this too. I have to say that, not being able to imagine the rhythm, the Lifter Puller lyrics I've seen seem pretty insane. I mean that in a thoroughly positive way :-) So I have been thinking about "Craig giving a wink to people paying attention"; there is certainly stuff in the non-story THS songs that at least meets that standard, and probably more. Like this line in Two-Handed Handshake: I know some kids who didn't come back From the plywood painted black which is definitely a reference to the metal bar, as described in Going on a Hike: We were hanging at a rock and roll club It was painted just like hell The bar was plywood painted black They have skull mugs up on the shelves They throw such killer parties But some nights you don't feel so well But you shouldn't be the singer in a be yourself band If you don't want to be yourself I've said for example that Holly was drowned on the banks of the river in St. Paul, just below where Payne Avenue ends, so "some kids who didn't come back" from there could be said to fit the story. (Forget about the fact that this seems like a stretch; I'm not done with the geography or the story yet, and it'll look better before we're done.) The thing is that we don't learn anything new here. At most, especially in context ("it's such a gossipy office"?), it seems like a remote reference to the story. But since we've been talking about this, I spent today listening to the non-story B-sides, and you've convinced me that I should go over them a bit after I've finished with the story, just to make a note of these "remote references." Some of them are frankly really good (Spectres has some impressive ones), even if they don't give us any new information about the story per se. I actually found the List of Songs that Craig Finn Has Sung On link after I posted last night, and that took me to the Don't Call Them Twinkies lyrics; I was looking for something about playing dead for the Yankees :-) but no dice, and I'm going to say it's unrelated, like Take Me Out To the Ballgame. Just Saying, which I found on youtube, is more interesting. By the "new information" standard it definitely seems unrelated to the story. But it's not hard to see solid "remote references" in the lyrics, either. So I'll give it a once-over when I'm done with the story. And with that, back to the story. We've talked about how Mary's living in the Act III timeframe; like Charlemagne, she's stuck in a holding pattern and unhappy. Like him, she sees that that pattern can't last. He's under pressure because Jesse's going to crash into the harbor come summer. She's under pressure because he's going to be crucified soon. Someone has to do something, and it's pretty clear that it's not going to be Charlemagne. Records and Tapes tells the story of Mary's decision to do something herself, with hints at the actual idea she comes up with. We never get an upfront description of her plan; we have to put it together from bits and pieces and consequences after the fact. But the hints begin here. The song is sung from the POV of the Narrator, about Mary; he's the one who knows the earliest history of Mary's visions, who's watching Mary struggle with the "silver splinter" of meth, and who remembers the song "Self Destruction." She appeared as a wraith in the drapes Still life with cigarettes, morbid mistakes Trying to suppress a small case of the shakes Some nights St. Paul seems so holy Mary stands at the draped window of the upstairs room at the Ambassador club (the metal bar) in St. Paul [SPayne, Ambassador], smoking, reflecting on her life: it was a morbid series of mistakes by which she got here, and she's badly addicted now; but even in the middle of this, as she looks out on the city, she experiences again the sense of holiness that she feels some nights in St. Paul. (This is not the first such night; there's a long series of them going back to the night of the metal bar beatdown.) Fell in love with the records and tapes Staying out late, summer '88 She disappeared with some kid in the cape He's the one that always gets her the highest We were nervous and restless, but not really bored We brushed our teeth, but it gushed from our pores Falling on the floor just like Saul on his sword Spooked by the spirit of Samuel Mary fell in love with the "records and tapes" of her visions (again, not actual music) in the summer of 1988 (dating from her first high & first vision by the banks of the river at 17 [SN]). The rest of the verse alludes to future events, and we have to come back to it when we know more, but some notes are worth making even now: - "She disappeared with some kid in the cape / He's the one that always gets her the highest": this looks superficially like a description of Holly disappearing from her party with Gideon in his magician costume, but that "always" is a tipoff that something's different here. In fact, these lines are a trap, set by Craig to throw us off the main track. "She" is still Mary; we'll come back to the rest soon enough. - "We were nervous and restless, but not really bored / We brushed our teeth, but it gushed from our pores": the Narrator is describing a specific situation to come, which we'll get to shortly. The first time I heard this song I thought that "We brushed our teeth, but it gushed from our pores" was a runaway winner for the worst Hold Steady line ever; but in fact it's a nice little puzzle, and entirely self-contained. That is, there's only one interpretation that can make sense of the sentence, and once that clicks then it's clear what point in the story the Narrator is referring to. - "Falling on the floor just like Saul on his sword / Spooked by the spirit of Samuel": the meaning here is still obscure, but the reference isn't: he's telescoping two moments at the end of Saul's life into one --- falling to the ground in terror at the words of the spirit of Samuel [1 Samuel 28:20], and falling on his sword shortly thereafter [1 Samuel 31:4]. Everybody cried when they first saw the bride Right song at the right time The banquet seething with emotions and wine Same program on both sides The beat goes on in the swish and the glide Right song at the right time Over and over 'til the tape deck dies Over and over 'til the tape deck died There are several images laid on top of one another here, but we can sort them out. First, the "tape deck" with the songs refers to her visionary faculty (consistent with the overarching records & tapes metaphor). It's described as an old-school deck with auto-reverse, playing "both sides" one after another, "over and over," with the "same program" on both. This is consistent with everything we know about Mary: she's seeing her visions of Charlemagne-Christ over and over, and mostly (as earlier on this same night) fucking while watching them; from The Swish we understood that "swish" is a blowjob (rinse your mouth out), and the meaning of "glide" is clear by extension. The beat goes on. It's going to go on, too, until the tape deck dies ... and then, from his position outside of time, the Narrator informs us that it did die. The foreshadowing here is pretty obvious; it's made explicit in the next pass through the chorus. At the same time, there's a suggestion that something special happens when the "right song at the right time" is played, which by definition would seem to be something good. (More on this in a moment.) Finally, we get some interesting and surprising detail about the vision she's seeing itself. "Everybody cried when they first saw the bride" means a wedding; "The banquet seething with emotions and wine" must be the wedding banquet. In the context of her vision of Charlemagne-Christ, this can only mean one thing: what she's seeing is now not the crucifixion, but the Wedding at Cana [John 2:1-11], where Mary and Christ were guests, and Christ turned water into wine for his first miracle. (This is apparently also referred to when Jesus-Charlemagne is quoted as saying "Bless ... the water" [SM].) The wikipedia article on the Wedding at Cana ( link) makes note of a tradition and with that, we're back on familiar ground; the visionary sexual encounter that she describes having had with Charlemagne-Christ [ABlues] is here overlaid with the image of their visionary wedding. She's aroused by her visions for a reason. She also drinks wine for a reason, and now we know why: it's a token and a reminder of the wedding itself. (Like margaritas, "wine" in the songs is always and exclusively associated with Mary: she's drinking wine at Holly's party [MM], and at prom [YGD, MN]; they have to get more wine when she shows up in TSPotC; she's drinking fortified wine in LID; Jesse remembers her drinking margaritas and wine in Spinners, see "salted rims", "tavern wine"; and then there are these passages in R&T.) Saw the sun through a crack in the curtains She came up crooked all high and uncertain Every single story has a few different versions You tell the one that makes you look better You tell the one that makes you feel better Back to the present, upstairs in the Ambassador: Mary "saw the sun through a crack in the curtains," a "Cheyenne Sunrise" like the one after the metal bar beatdown so long ago (the sunrise predicted in CSunrise, and recounted by her later in "I stayed up till dawn at some raunchy magazine launch / Hit the open bar and got myself all turned on" [212M]). Returning (in the present) to the image of the looping tape deck, with the same program on both sides, she thinks: all of these stories, these visions, come in different versions. We've already seen that the visionary sexual encounter with Christ described in Ascension Blues was mixed with the vision of the crucifixion ("he knelt before the sword" [ABlues]), and more evidence of mixing will appear as we go further. Maybe it's up to her to choose a version, to choose between the Crucifixion and the Wedding at Cana. With that, we remember the words of the Narrator at the MPADJs party: take off your beret, he said; stop being a DJ, stop spinning your records, and make your own music. And that's what she's going to do. It goes on in an infinite loop Panic in private, disputable truth They killed some dude for his basketball shoes Remember that song "Self Destruction"? The sequence of visions goes on in an infinite loop, and privately, she's in a panic about it: she knows they're true, but maybe the truth they're showing isn't certain. The Narrator remembers "Self Destruction" from the Stop the Violence Movement, a song which urged kids to stop killing each other for stupid reasons and stand together, a song that might have saved the life of a kid like him ("they took ten bucks and my tennis shoes" [YGD]). Maybe the right song at the right time could save a life; maybe a deliberate telling could affect the outcome? Everybody cried when they first saw the bride Right song at the right time The banquet pierced [??] with [??] emotions and wine Same program on both sides I could see the silver splinter in your eyes Losing ground in a landslide Over and over until somebody dies Over and over, then two kids died The chorus (except for the "banquet" line, which is unintelligible here --- suggestions?) repeats, but now "right song at the right time" has a new meaning: could making the song herself, the right vision at the right time, not just bring hope, but affect reality? Seizing on this thought, Mary's spirits are renewed; from that moment, the Narrator could see the "silver splinter" of meth dependency in her eyes losing ground to faith in the future. Even so, the foreshadowing comes back, stronger now; this time it's not the "tape deck" that dies, but "somebody," and in the event, the Narrator tells us, "two kids died." The final verse describes the Skins dealing at Lyndale and Lake, and Gideon, "always awake," performing a magic trick. But it's Mary we want to focus on now. Exactly what she means to do is still not clearly formulated. But it's clear, by comparison with the account of MPADJs, that she's going to make music now; she's going to choose the version she wants, and do the telling herself. Over the next few days we'll find out exactly what that means. I'm sorry this one turned out so long. Thanks for reading this far, and if you can form a quick prayer for Still Alive Carl, thank you very much for that too.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 13, 2016 16:28:08 GMT -5
I went into this thread barely knowing that Mary had a role in this story. Now I'm terribly excited to find out what happens. I don't want you to spoil anything, but I think we'll soon get to Both Crosses (that's pretty gived) and Slapped Actress (which excites me even more). "Ww make our own movies" begin to make a bit more sense now. And I guess the distance between a fake slap and a real slap is some sort of metaphor for what Mary comes up with. Just to round up mye guessing on the non-story songs, and your clearification. Based on you criteria, I'm gonna come out and say that You Can Make Him Like You is unrelated to the story. Lots of it is possible to read as descriptions of well known characters, but as far as I can see, it doesn't add anything new or substantial. I will also state that I think Constructive Summer is either the last song on your list, or the song who is your favourite and gave you a real aha moment. I can't tell which part of it who eventually seemed revelatory to you, it's just that I feel that it on surface is pretty much Craig, and not all that much story connected. But then again, there's some lines there who might as well carry deeper meaning. As with everything else, you don't have to confirm anything. But I'd like to go on record with my (not so) early guesses
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