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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 21, 2018 0:42:38 GMT -5
Time to take a crack at Entitlement Crew ...
Entitlement Crew is a little more straightforward than Snake In The Shower. It's told from the point of view of the Narrator, addressing Mary some time after the crucifixion and the other main events of the story are over, when he sees that she's rejoined the Skins.
Tequila Takeoff. Tecate landing.
Right off the bat, this is about Mary. Margaritas are Mary's preferred vehicle for launching into her druggy sexual ecstasies: "first Al Green" [CSunrise], "salt along the rims of the glasses / And when we drink then we all fall in love" [212M].
The "landing" then, like Gideon's "touchdown" in The Ambassador, must be her coming back down to earth after being high. Beer is the drink of pre-takeoff groundedness, both for Gideon ("Went down with a tallboy can and he woke up in a cargo van" [BBlues]) and the Narrator ("White wine and some tallboy cans / They powered up and they proceeded to jam, man" [YGD]).
The immediate contrast of these two states in the opening line sets up an entire song whose central theme (explored through the thoughts of the Narrator) is Mary in one state versus Mary in the other.
(Note by the way that while this is the first time we specifically hear about Tecate in any of the songs, it's been around from the beginning --- there's a Tecate can in one of the photos on the back of AKM.)
Sorry about the centerpiece. Thanks for understanding.
The "centerpiece" feels like a typical Craig puzzle with a pointed solution, but I have no idea what it's referring to. This line might also be setting up a read of "thanks for understanding" that could lead us to miss a more subtle meaning when it's repeated later, but so far I don't see that being a big deal either.
Soft salesmen. Hard branding. Campari. Commissions. I was sitting on the kitchen tryna guess where she was living now.
There's a lot here to suggest the Skins and particularly Gideon (soft but branded as hard) as dealers, but since the song is still getting started and nothing is really situated yet this is a little bit tenuous. Campari is a bright red liqueur, not blood red, but still maybe meant to suggest the vampire Skins in the same way that the Dark Bacardi bat fits the explicitly vampire context of the two verses of HM in which it occurs.
The explicit mention of the "kitchen" makes it tempting to think that the Narrator is back in the same place where the MPADJs/RP party happened, a place full of Skins now just like it was back then; this naturally sets him up to see the Skins (the Entitlement Crew) come rolling through, and Mary with them.
Hotel room in Houston with the shades against the sunshine. Or maybe still in Scranton like in 1999. When I saw her rolling through with the Entitlement Crew. I wasn't all that into it but there was nothing I could do about it.
Before he sees her, he's trying to guess where she's living now:
- Maybe in Houston: In Runner's High we get "Houston" as a metaphor for Gideon's "touchdown" (based on Houston as the location of NASA's Mission Control center; for "touchdown" see also Ambassador). The Narrator wonders if she's sober, back on earth; the "shades against the sunshine" suggest recovery from a bender, but also resistance to that vision of the Son of God (compare "setting sun" in MN) which pulls her into the drugs and ecstasy and the rest of it.
- Maybe in Scranton: In the post from a couple of days ago I speculated (based on the twin cities theme and some Lifter Puller lines) that Scranton, like Ybor City, is a metaphor for St. Paul and the crazy party world at the bottom of Lake Street. The definite echo of Prince's "party like it's 1999" in "Scranton like it's 1999" tends to support this reading.
In short the Narrator is wondering whether she's back down to earth these days, or high out of her mind again. And as he's asking himself this, in she comes with the Skins, which answers his question.
I'll have to leave the question *why* the Skins are called the Entitlement Crew for tomorrow, since I'm crashing. Please don't forget, if you have a moment, to think of Still Alive Carl. Thanks for reading along too.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 21, 2018 23:16:32 GMT -5
The Narrator continues:
Now here's the church, here's the steeple I like the party favors but I hate the party people.
These lines are obviously a reworking of the children's rhyme "Here is the church, here is the steeple / open the doors and see all the people." There are other places where the Narrator characterizes what he and Mary have together as a church ("With the lambs from my dreams looking up at your hands" [AE], etc., and compare "We used to have our own church" from Jester and June), and tries to get her to understand what he thinks they have ("All these kids they look like little lambs looking up at me ... some weird-talking chick who just can't understand / That we're hot soft spots on a hard rock planet" [MPADJs]). But the church has been invaded by party people dealers, by traders desecrating the temple (compare CatCT).
Got distracted by the chorus where the kids all sang along. Move to the rogue set. I always really liked that song.
You like that song too. I know that you do. I saw you mouthing all the words When you didn't know I was watching you.
This part is amazing. First, the references: "Got distracted by the chorus where the kids all sang along" is an allusion to "The kids are all distracted" in Barely Breathing; "Move to the rogue set" is an allusion to D4's song O.K.F.M.D.O.A.; the full lines are:
Move with the rogue set choking out the radio A thousand voices booming out in stereo
So what's happening here is this. The Narrator is at a party (in a situation very like the MPADJs/RP party, if not the same place), and sees Mary come in with the Skins, high and out of her mind (in takeoff/Scranton state, not landing/Houston). But then a great song comes on, and the kids all start singing along --- a thousand voices booming out in stereo --- and Mary, distracted by the sound from her vision, comes back down to earth. The key words are the elided half of the D4 line: *choking out the radio,* where the radio (as in SiM, 212M, etc.) is her visionary power.
This isn't a new thing: it's exactly what happened at prom way back in 1989, as described in OWL:
Sing, sing, sing every song we know Blowing out the speakers on your stereo You finally stopped talking about that boy back home Maybe that's just better, if you want you can sleep over
where her "stereo" is again her visionary power, and the "boy back home" is crucified Charlemagne (see discussion upthread). Just like then, when she was down on earth with the Narrator "sing[ing] every song we know," she's back and "mouthing all the words," connected to him through the song that he likes and she likes too. It's a glimpse of what they *could* be together, what they've been for fleeting moments; but it isn't what's lasted.
Now everything is brittle and it's breaking apart. Your sister's in Seattle and she's sleeping with the Sharps. I remember we used to play in this park.
Things now are hopeless. "Everything is brittle and it's breaking apart" refers to the destructive influence of the drugs on their world, as in "the scene's still splintered" [TMIT] with the "silver splinter" [R&T], "we got cracked" [Swish], etc.
I wrote about "your sister's in Seattle and she's sleeping with the Sharps" several posts back, but forgot to mention that cousins Holly and Mary are referred to as sisters in SShoes, so there's precedent for "your sister" here. Anyway, to repeat the earlier points in context, this line has references to
- Sleepless in Seattle (muzzle spotted this) - sleeping with the fishes / swimming with the sharks (doctoracula spotted this, and is right that this must *also* be present under "sharps") - sharks=gang (Sharks and Jets (from West Side Story) references in Lifter Puller, "great white sharks" [BCamp]) - sharps=skinheads, sharps=needles
where "sleeping with the fishes" means "dead" (and would, even if Holly's body hadn't been literally dumped in the river); but implied "sleepless" means that she's not really dead after all, as in fact she is not. What he's saying to Mary is still bad, though: Holly's sort of dead, and there's still a lot of Skin-fucking-related druggy shit going on.
I talked about "I remember we used to play in this park" a few posts back too; it's clearly a reminiscence about an earlier, more innocent time with Mary, just like the "in the park drinking Dark Bacardi" line of HM, as contrasted with the way things are now. Whether for the purposes of the present narrative it means that they're in or next to an actual park, I don't know; the loud music, the kitchen, the bathroom etc. all point to a "place" as RP puts it, a club or a house or some kind of building. There's probably a solution to this, but I'm not seeing it right now.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for understanding.
So "Thanks for listening / Thanks for understanding" is addressed, maybe a little bit ironically, to Mary: she listened to to the music, and finally she understood the thing that he'd been trying to explain to her. That is, this is a deliberate echo of, and contrast to, the earlier party, where she was the "weird-talking chick who just can't understand"; she understands now, but only for a minute, and of course it's too late for him, who's out of the picture now.
Can't you see how I feel a bit abandoned? Never got to say goodbye to you. Give my best to the Entitlement Crew.
These lines are the principal evidence that the events of this song take place after the rest of the story is over; Mary disappeared during the crucifixion, and even if the Narrator knows she's still in there somewhere, he was never able to reach her to say goodbye.
Tecate landing. Tequila takeoff. Colfax cookout. Pillsbury bakeoff. Too many cracks in the bathroom. Too many kooks in the kitchen. It would probably be easier if I knew where she was living now.
She's off again, from the brief landing back into her other world; as usual, the tequila takeoff opens the door to harder stuff, the Colfax and Sheridan intersection in high "Denver" that we see in SitS, the "Pills" of Pillsbury, the "cracks" of the bathroom. Apart from the really nice play on "too many cooks in the kitchen," "kooks" suggests the Skins via Holly's identification of Charlemagne-as-Gideon as the perpetrator of the stabbing [SK]. And now the Narrator, having gotten a glimpse of her back on earth for a moment, has to keep wondering whether she might not still come back to live here (landing/Houston) rather than off in her other world (takeoff/Scranton).
I know you probably feel the same way as I feel Like I'm not sure that we can pull off such an intricate deal.
The Narrator's still clinging to some kind of belief (obviously delusional in the face of things; compare "I'm sorry that you don't feel the same way as me" [Oaks]) that Mary feels the same way he does, with a pretty rich "probably" under the circumstances; but then in a kind of self-correction, he says that what he feels is doubt whether they can pull it off. At this point he knows better, even if he doesn't want to. The "deal" metaphor kind of poisons it, too.
Now all of it's killer but it's coming up quick. And your brother's in Boston and he's acting like a dick. I remember back before we knew he was sick.
The "killer" line is pretty generic, but I guess it means that the killer parties are going to take their toll soon, and for real, this time.
The part about "your brother's in Boston and is acting like a dick" has only one possible interpretation, which is that Charlemagne has become hostile to Mary/Narrator/both, or has cut them off; more literally, Charlemagne-in-Gideon's-body is back in the state of hostility (Boston -> Hostile, Massachusetts). Weekenders suggests that Charlemagne had been avoiding her for a while prior to their phone call, so maybe this puts EC before Weekenders chronologically.
There doesn't seem to be any strong reason to refer to him as "your brother" other than symmetry with "your sister"; I guess the WCGT parallel between singer : the-singer's-younger-brother :: Charlemagne : Holly rests in part on Charlemagne's chaste, older-brother-like relationship with Holly, so maybe that's what's being leaned on here too. Charlemagne never made it with either Holly or Mary, in either case.
Like "I remember we used to play in this park," the line "I remember back before we knew he was sick" recalls the innocent days in 1994-95, before things started going bad for Charlemagne. "Sick" seems like an odd way to refer to his hospitalization after the metal bar beatdown, but that's exactly the term used in TMIT:
It was so so sad with charlie in his sick bed He looked like hell and smelled like chemicals Maxing out on medicine and feeling all invincible ICU at Regions Hospital.
There's one more verse worth unpacking, which sounds to me like the Narrator taking in the scene and saying a final goodbye to it:
Distant systems in the dark and people dancing. Thanks for listening. Thanks for understanding. Nodding off to The American Ruse. Give my best to the Entitlement Crew.
"Systems" is used of Mary a few times [Swish, BBlues], and her dancing has been in the Narrator's focus from prom night on [OWL, BBlues, RP, LID]. The fact that he sees it distant and in the dark, now, makes this sound like a framed parting shot. "Nodding off to The American Ruse" seems more like a reproach for Holly or especially Charlemagne, whose aspirations to the California big time were described as a particularly American line of bullshit in On With The Business. So that's probably for the dealer Skins, the Entitlement Crew themselves, rather than for Mary.
Which brings us to the question, why are the Skins called the Entitlement Crew in the first place?
When we say "entitlement" we usually mean one of two things: either "an entitlement program" (a government program that disburses benefits) or "a sense of entitlement" (the unwarranted expectation of having a right to something). There's a third, more basic meaning too, which is literally just "the giving of a title."
The Skins, as it happens, are known to be the recipients of benefits from the government: they get methadone from some kind of community health program at Methodist Hospital [LA, SPayne, etc.]. So that's clearly one meaning of the name. It seems like this sense of the term is being deliberately raised to puncture the Skins' image of themselves as businessmen and militiamen, groups who are stereotypically against entitlement programs (the "American business" / "American ruse" theme would seem to lend support to this).
The "sense of entitlement" angle is a little more subtle. Usually you hear that expression directed at young people who think the world owes them something; it's the sort of critique at the heart of the Skins' "gonna show these kids some discipline" [SPayne]. So calling them the Entitlement Crew may again be meant to target their image of themselves as the sort who are authorized to call others entitled, when in fact there's some hypocrisy there. This is a much more tenuous take than the "entitlement program" reading, but it seems pretty likely that there's a double meaning in "entitlement" somewhere, and it makes sense to look for it. Of course it's also true that the act itself of titling the song "Entitlement Crew" makes them the entitlement crew in the third sense of "the giving of a title"; so maybe that's where the double meaning lies. It's also very likely that I'm still missing something.
That's it, not just for Entitlement Crew but for the whole catalog; I don't have anything else to write up. If I do come across something I missed or got wrong that should be fixed, like the Rathskeller, I'll add it. I'm going to update the calendar with the recently unearthed corrections, too. And maybe we'll see some new songs in 2018.
I started this whole thing because of my friend Still Alive Carl, who introduced me to The Hold Steady, and who as of this writing is still alive. It's shocking to me how such a fucked up medical situation can progress so slowly, but technically that means he has a chance until he doesn't. Superstitious or whatever, or not, it's been good for me to feel like I have something to do about it; and if you're along for the ride here and feeling good about it, and have the bandwidth for a prayer for Still Alive Carl, I'd be very grateful. Thanks for the rest to everyone who's participated here along the way, it's been really great.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 22, 2018 5:31:11 GMT -5
Once again, thank you so much for the effort you've put into this project. It's been a thrill to follow it all the way through. I can't express how impressive and rewarding the whole thing has been. Thanks!
I think I have a few remarks on the last couple of songs. I'll see if I get to write them up in the next couple of days.
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Here goes
Jan 25, 2018 5:37:24 GMT -5
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Post by nosferatu on Jan 25, 2018 5:37:24 GMT -5
“So what's happening here is this. The Narrator is at a party (in a situation very like the MPADJs/RP party, if not the same place), and sees Mary come in with the Skins, high and out of her mind (in takeoff/Scranton state, not landing/Houston). But then a great song comes on, and the kids all start singing along --- a thousand voices booming out in stereo --- and Mary, distracted by the sound from her vision, comes back down to earth. The key words are the elided half of the D4 line: *choking out the radio,* where the radio (as in SiM, 212M, etc.) is her visionary power.”
Ooh! Maybe a bit more evidence:
“And D4 is for the lovers And the hard drugs are for the bartenders and the kitchen workers and the bartender's friends And they're playing it again And Ellen Foley gives 'em hope And certain songs, they get scratched into our souls”
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Here goes
Jan 25, 2018 8:11:18 GMT -5
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Post by nosferatu on Jan 25, 2018 8:11:18 GMT -5
“Hotel room in Houston with the shades against the sunshine. Or maybe still in Scranton like in 1999.”
Maaaaybe... just a thought could be... $19.99?
The girl in Space Humpin’ $19.99 by LP watched a lot of Daytime TV - you’d literally need to shade the sunshine to watch TV during the day. She’s also blasting off and touching down:
“And she was bombed on the bass and the Bombay gin”
“She said it looks like a binge She said it felt like a blast Woke up in the grass with the assless chaps
Looks like a blast She said it felt like a binge Woke up with your friend in the Indian fringes”
Indian fringes - the edging of a rug - suggests crashing out on the floor at a party.
The Entitlement Crew could also be referring to the owners of the prying eyes in Space Humpin’ -
“I want everybody who's been eyeing my girl to slowly close their eyes Said "it's great getting high" I want everybody who's been eyeing my girl to slowly close their eyes And think about what you've got, compare it to what I've got, and ask yourself: What do you think my girl wants?“
This could explain the line “I wasn’t all that into it but there was nothing I could do about it”. The narrator’s girl in Space Humpin’ does whatever she wants in spite of the narrator. Perhaps the “centrepiece” referred to in EC is literally an ‘event’ at a party - in this case where the narrator from Space Humpin’ confronts the entitlement crew who’ve been - wrongly? - envious of his girl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 25, 2018 21:35:36 GMT -5
Maaaaybe... just a thought could be... $19.99? This is excellent, I totally missed this! It's a perfect fit for the above read of "Scranton like it's 1999": Mary's partying in St. Paul involves a lot of "humping," and she's described as going to "outer space" when she gets high in TSPotC. Plus, while "hoodrat chicks" [C&N] could be read as only strictly applying to Holly in context, Mary's in that song too, and $19.99 is definitely "pretty cheap." Great find. And you're right about the other stuff too: Don't call her lazy cause she's crazy about the daytime TV That sounds 100% like Mary too: Some Kennedy OD'ed while we watched on MTV [PJ] The only thing she talks about is TV [TOT] I swear they must get sucked up by the television [TL] and of course a "matinee" [MoC, SK, MN, TSPotC, OwtB] is a daytime movie. She said it looks like a binge She said it felt like a blast Woke up in the grass with the assless chaps Looks like a blast She said it felt like a binge Woke up with your friend in the Indian fringes Yes to the blastoff / landing metaphor, and actually muzzle posted these same lines to the thread way back, also making the point that this sounds like Mary with the Indian fringes (she's described as wearing "fringes and feathers" among the cowboy Skins in SShoes, and identified with White Swan the Crow Indian traitor in SN). I think that's the relationship of Mary and the Narrator exactly. Mary blows him off in HM ("Later on you wouldn't admit you did"), CSunrise ("Then I'll just go back out again"), RP ("She said I just can't sympathize"), etc. So I don't want to get too literal about reading Lifter Puller lyrics as applying to the THS universe, but I have to admit that with, for example I want everybody who's been eyeing my girl to slowly close their eyes the SH1999 girl is explicitly being framed as the centerpiece of the song. That's absolutely right. Why is the EC narrator apologizing for the centerpiece, though, if the centerpiece is Mary herself? He could be doing that line in someone else's voice, even the "soft salesmen" Skins' voice, but I don't think so, since "thanks for understanding" is a bit of misdirection setting up the listener to hear the later "thanks for understanding" in the sense of "sorry," which wouldn't work if the voices are different. Later "Tecate landing, tequila takeoff" also suggests that the opening line is in the Narrator's voice. Still, this is a better idea for a reading than any I've had so far ...
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Here goes
Jan 27, 2018 15:24:26 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by nosferatu on Jan 27, 2018 15:24:26 GMT -5
Maaaaybe... just a thought could be... $19.99? So I don't want to get too literal about reading Lifter Puller lyrics as applying to the THS universe, but I have to admit that with, for example I want everybody who's been eyeing my girl to slowly close their eyes the SH1999 girl is explicitly being framed as the centerpiece of the song. That's absolutely right. Why is the EC narrator apologizing for the centerpiece, though, if the centerpiece is Mary herself? Totally get why you wouldn’t delve too deep into the Lifter Puller world, it’s a dangerous game! I just heard that and with all the “Craig clues” you’ve written about so far I thought it was difficult to ignore... In terms of the centrepiece - I’ve been doing some thinking and I think I mean that the centrepiece is a confrontation derived from the narrator being uncomfortable with a situation involving Mary and the ‘crew’. I think the “thanks for understanding” line could be ironic. Like this was a key event in whatever path Mary ends up taking. Also - massive apologies if I’m picking up things that have already been discussed up thread, I’m playing catch up on this one - you and muzzle seem to be doing a great job! How about the space humpin’ - Space City (Houston) parallel? Anyone caught this already? I also heard the same reference as muzzle to “sleepless in Seattle” - in fact, SH$19.99 refers to “I know what you did last summer” (1997). I also don’t know if it’s already been referred to, but is the loud, dumb and bloody film in Almost Everything also from 1997... “Event Horizon”? 1997 certainly was a “blockbuster summer”.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 30, 2018 5:04:40 GMT -5
That Space Humping $19.99 stuff is great! I've brought up the she-character of the song earlier, but totally missed the 1999-thing.
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Post by pringlescanman on Feb 5, 2018 8:59:33 GMT -5
Skeptic- man, this is awesome work! I went down a rabbit hole reading all these posts from the past couple of years and then spent the weekend with Hold Steady on a constant loop. Hadn't done that in a few years, so thanks again for that part alone.
One point that I haven't really understood though: you have said that the crucifixion is Gideon holding the "Easter Mass," and that makes him the Priest from HaRRRF. So I'm on board so far, but, the lyric is "she crashed into the Easter Mass with her hair done up in broken glass," and you stated that the broken glass is from the car crash into the mall that takes place the morning after the crucifixion. Any clarity you can provide would be appreciated!
Finally, just again man, amazing amount of time you put into this and I have loved reading your posts and piecing the story together.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 6, 2018 23:41:55 GMT -5
Sorry for disappearing there! I got seriously tied up for a few days ... In terms of the centrepiece - I’ve been doing some thinking and I think I mean that the centrepiece is a confrontation derived from the narrator being uncomfortable with a situation involving Mary and the ‘crew’. I think the “thanks for understanding” line could be ironic. Like this was a key event in whatever path Mary ends up taking. I see --- not Mary herself as centerpiece, but something in a confrontation between the Narrator and Mary. And then both the apology and the ironic "thanks for understanding" fit easily. That's totally plausible; I need to think about this. The big "center" references in THS are 1) city center [Swish, YLHF, MN] This gets a key mention on Mary/Narrator prom night in "everyone was coming toward the center of the city" [MN]. Which I never quite understood, actually --- we know from both YGD and OWL that prom takes place at school ("south side of the gym" [YGD], "tennis rackets" [OWL], "the field" [OWL]), not some place downtown. And obviously the City Center mall, the literal reference in Swish and YLHF, can't be meant here. So I feel like this line is open to better interpretation. 2) the center = the central place of Charlemagne/Jesus, both in the Trinity and the crucifixion This one is always from Charlemagne's perspective: And in the center there is a hot soft light [HSL] I've been mostly living in the center of your most Holy Trinity [A&H] We were kissing in the center while the band played "Ice Cream Castles" [A&H] Oddly, there's also that line from Soft in the Center (outside the story) which sounds a lot like the HSL line above: But sometimes they get soft in the center and the center is a dangerous place [SitC] 3) center of the universe [TSPotC] 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 I feel like that last one has potential, since it's from the Narrator's perspective in a verse about Mary. But I need to chew on it for a while. No need to apologize! this thread is obviously getting way long and even I've lost track of some parts of it. On the contrary, it was cool that you and muzzle, who obviously know the Lifter Puller stuff better than I do, both went straight to the same verses of SH1999. And yes, the Space Humpin' / Space City Houston connection is new --- that would fit the Houston/touchdown [RH, Ambassador] theme of coming back to earth from space, which again ties into Entitlement Crew. Nice catch. My take on this upthread is that the AE movie is literally the movie they made of Charlemagne's crucifixion, which was both loud (clicks, hisses, "I still love you Judas") and bloody (the stabbing), and I guess dumb too --- there wasn't much else to it. The "wormhole" is either the time warp through which Holly reappeared after being disappeared for years, or else the space warp through which Charlemagne and Gideon switched bodies, or both. And the hero who ascended to heaven is either Charlemagne or Gideon or Mary, depending on whether you're looking at the public version, the non-public version, the "one of them was crucified" [JaJ] version, the "two of them were crucified" [BCrosses] version, etc. All of which happened while the film was running out into the clicks and hisses and white light of the projector. Pringlescanman, thanks a lot, I'm glad you liked it. That sounds like a pretty good weekend :-) One point that I haven't really understood though: you have said that the crucifixion is Gideon holding the "Easter Mass," and that makes him the Priest from HaRRRF. So I'm on board so far, but, the lyric is "she crashed into the Easter Mass with her hair done up in broken glass," and you stated that the broken glass is from the car crash into the mall that takes place the morning after the crucifixion. Any clarity you can provide would be appreciated! Yeah, this line along with the related parts about the car ride and crash was something that I remember being hung up on for at least a week. (And yes, you've got it right.) The other parts of it that were really problematic were the descriptions of time from MoC and CatCT --- I didn't know at first if it was "a few months" or "a few hours" or "a few years" [MoC] or "three straight days" [CatCT], or what. As I recall, it all came together in something like this order: - first, almost all of MoC describes events taking place in a car to the accompaniment of massive quantities of intoxicants and hallucinogens. Under the circumstances it's really not a stretch to understand the whole thing as referring to a single car ride, with "a few months"/"a few hours"/"a few years" a poetic/vision-questing account of an indeterminate amount of time spent driving around. - second, if "a few months"/"a few hours"/"a few years" aren't strictly literal, then "three straight days" doesn't have to be literal either. Certainly "three straight days" sounds like a metaphor for the time between the crucifixion and Resurrection at Easter, which is also strongly suggested by Holly continuing with "after I got born again" [CatCT] in the next line. Holly's resurrection isn't in doubt, thanks to HaRRF, so this is a pretty compelling reading; only problem with it is that it makes the Resurrection come at the *beginning* of the three days, not the end ("I was seeing double for three straight days / *after* I got born again"). But maybe this isn't a problem, since the "bona fide angels" section of NS makes it clear that Charlemagne disappearing from the crashed car is being played up as Jesus disappearing from the tomb, which means that there's an Easter Resurrection at the *end* of the metaphoric "three days," too. So the best solution seems to be to look at the entire duration of the car ride --- the metaphoric three days in the tomb, starting with the crucifixion and the escape in the car ("she stole it fast"), and ending with the crash --- as a *single Easter Weekend event*, unified by the car-as-tomb and a resurrection that can be identified either at the beginning or the end, depending on what or which character exactly you're looking at. - and once you get to that point, you have the solution to the "she crashed into the Easter Mass with her hair done up in broken glass" in hand: Holly's resurrection and the crash are both aspects of that "three-day Easter weekend" as a single event. So you have to go in and out of the Biblical metaphor, and the fact that Craig is overloading the metaphor with multiple threads of the literal plot, to get there; but that seems pretty much consistent with how he handles things throughout, so I don't have a problem with it. That's not to say that there can't be a better or cleaner solution, since I really might have got it wrong; but I'm satisfied with this one. Hope that clears it up.
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Post by pringlescanman on Feb 14, 2018 9:56:02 GMT -5
Thanks for the insight, and yeah, that makes enough sense for me. I also hadn't really thought much about it, but I also like the way the story comes around where Charlemagne was always worried about/trying to save Holly and Jesse, and with his crucifixion he did both: resurrected Holly and got Jesse to New York (even though maybe New York doesn't eventually end up that great for her). It's a nice touch.
Another thing I've been having a problem with is YLHF. You posited that Charlemagne is talking to Mary, with the LHF being Jesse. Maybe you covered this earlier and I missed it, but one line gives me pause in buying into that theory: "Your little hoodrat friend got me high though. We were 17 and stuck up up in Osseo." Charlemage definitely doesn't know Jesse when he's 17. The only other person he would've been getting high with at that age was Holly. Having paused at that line, it also then made sense that it would be Mary talking about Holly washing up in the Mississippi river since that's where she was drowned. Then, the tattoo saying "damn right I'll rise again," rather than being a reference about Jesse and Charlemagne's sexual relationship, is just Charlemagne referencing Holly's resurrection.
I know the cigs and being broke description is typical Jesse signaling, but 1) Charlemagne really never did get with Holly, 2) he's with the hoodrat friend getting high when he's 17, 3) he was always rightfully worried sick about Holly, and 4) the potential references to both her drowning and her resurrection make me think the hoodrat friend is Holly. We also have the line from HaRRF that "Holly was a hoodrat, and now you finally know that." All of these clues seem much more straightforward than Charlemagne lying and mixing up Jesse with Holly since he eventually sees Jesse as a new Holly.
I read your analysis saying "the gentleman doth protest too much," but he really does want to get with Mary as she keeps denying him, he really never did sleep with Holly, and his tone could just as easily be read as someone wrongfully getting accused of cheating/sleeping with someone and becoming exasperated because it's not true. Let me know what you think.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 19, 2018 6:29:45 GMT -5
Another thing I've been having a problem with is YLHF. You posited that Charlemagne is talking to Mary, with the LHF being Jesse. Maybe you covered this earlier and I missed it, but one line gives me pause in buying into that theory: "Your little hoodrat friend got me high though. We were 17 and stuck up up in Osseo." Charlemage definitely doesn't know Jesse when he's 17. The only other person he would've been getting high with at that age was Holly. Having paused at that line, it also then made sense that it would be Mary talking about Holly washing up in the Mississippi river since that's where she was drowned. Then, the tattoo saying "damn right I'll rise again," rather than being a reference about Jesse and Charlemagne's sexual relationship, is just Charlemagne referencing Holly's resurrection. I know the cigs and being broke description is typical Jesse signaling, but 1) Charlemagne really never did get with Holly, 2) he's with the hoodrat friend getting high when he's 17, 3) he was always rightfully worried sick about Holly, and 4) the potential references to both her drowning and her resurrection make me think the hoodrat friend is Holly. We also have the line from HaRRF that "Holly was a hoodrat, and now you finally know that." All of these clues seem much more straightforward than Charlemagne lying and mixing up Jesse with Holly since he eventually sees Jesse as a new Holly. I read your analysis saying "the gentleman doth protest too much," but he really does want to get with Mary as she keeps denying him, he really never did sleep with Holly, and his tone could just as easily be read as someone wrongfully getting accused of cheating/sleeping with someone and becoming exasperated because it's not true. Let me know what you think. I've been thinking about this one as well. I'm gonna let Skepticatfirst speak for himself, but I dug up the part where he goes through this. The only way I can make it fit is if the line about Osseo is in invisible quotation marks - as something Mary is saying. If not, why would Charlemagne use "we" about the Mary/Gideon incident back in the day? Anyway, the line can't be about Holly and Charlemagne because of the Osseo thing (if not that itself is a metaphor). "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]. "
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Post by muzzleofbees on Mar 27, 2018 15:19:50 GMT -5
Since London I've sort of forgot that we got two brand new songs to not only listen too, but also run into this thread. I'm pretty far off a full understanding of what those songs could mean, but some initial thoughts:
ESTHER
There's plenty of hints to Esther being both Jesse (especially that part about her parents, which fits 40 Bucks pretty well) and Mary/Mary-as-Holly (kitchen, shaky, getting older, , but I think I'm leaning towards the latter. More specific, The Narrator kind of making a summary of (one side of) his relationship to Mary. Both the bliss when they were kids, and the frustration, confusion and desperation after the crucifixion. Here we have Mary-as-Holly, but the Mary part of her keep coming through. She's still in there. But she "feels like someone else" - I read this as a way of saying that she don't feel quite like Holly, nor getting fully in touch with the Mary deep inside. She's different. And she starts to call herself Esther. I can't quite decipher the biblical meaning of Esther into the narrative, but I'm sure there's a reason. The most Narrator & Mary-esqe part of the song is "at some point I fell in love/ then she heard a song she liked and lost me".
I'm not sure if this fits the narrative, or if I'm stretching it here, but to me this (like The Only Thing) sounds like a glimpse into the afterlife of the main events in the story. How the characters think about what happened, and especially how Mary-as-Holly copes with her new persona. I kind of got that feeling from parts of Entitlement Crew as well, and definitely from Snake In The Shower. And that might be a convenient way to fit not so obvious pieces into the puzzle, but still, that's what I get from it right now.
EUREKA
Skepticatfirst has laid out that here are two Californias in the narrative: 1) The metaphorical one, a signifier of Charlemagne's vision of "making it big", and 2) the physical and literal Californica, where Holly heads out to do porn. I think the most intuitive way to read Eureka is to think of it as the last one - another and more broaden tale about Holly's trip to the west coast. There's references to the dick she left behind (see "dick" in Entitlement Crew), she has a "sister" talking about angels, the phone booth reminds us of the call in Curves And Nerves (a song who explicitly puts Holly in Hollywood), "five in one room, four in one bed" sounds porn like, the photo/camera image that runs through the song - I feel this is the most natural read, although I struggle to pick it a part line for line.
When we get to the "guy at the door/gun on the bed"-part I get a little confused. But there could be a hop in time here. The last part of the song has a feeling more like the events leading up to the crucifixion. Could it be that The Narrator mirrors Holly's trip to California with the journey she's making in Mary's body during those two weeks undercover with the Skins? I don't know.
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Post by clicksandhissesmatt on May 17, 2018 10:35:36 GMT -5
Hi Andrew - I'm Matt, the creator of the Clicks and Hisses site. I've spent the past few weeks working through this thread (still have a bit to go), and just wanted to comment on how incredible all this analysis is. Amazing. I actually found your entries awhile back while compiling the lyric sheets for the bonus tracks (I credited you for transcribing the liner notes on "The Most Important Thing" [ link]). I initially put off reading through this odyssey because I knew it would make me reconsider many of my own thoughts about the discography. Truth be told, I was too far along to start over -- plus, I didn't want to alter any of the other annotators' work. While revisiting all of these songs for the project (especially the Almost Killed Me bonus tracks) I started developing a sense that I was approaching the THS narrative incorrectly. My default was to treat songs as vignettes (unless otherwise obvious) and trust that the band has given us some sense of chronology through album and song sequencing. This is (of course) debatable -- Craig has told us that we got some stuff right and some stuff wrong -- but I do hope it's another enjoyable way of looking at the THS body of work (more thoughts here). At the end of the day, I can reconcile this approach by accepting that Clicks and Hisses is a sort of entry-level look at the band's entire songbook (the references and easter eggs and callbacks and cross-references). It is my hope that people can use the site to dig deeper into the lyrics and find more thorough analysis (like yours) or reconsider their own. For example, a fan recently commented " This site dragged me to a Unified Scene forum post of this guy chronicling his views on the THS story. Best read ever. After a couple of weeks reading it, I'm convinced Craig is the best songwriter ever to grace this planet. Totally recommend it." This is what I was going for. Good stuff. Anyway. Just wanted to thank you for this massive effort (I can certainly relate). We're sending good vibes to Carl. -Matt
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Post by dannemann on Aug 7, 2018 7:59:37 GMT -5
Hey Andrew! I can't stress how absolutely fun this thread was, from the very beginning until the end. Watching the story unravel right in front of me, as some of my beliefs came true and others were shot down, was an experience that I just can't describe. I can very much say that THS changed my life, to the point I use "Stay Positive" as a personal motto (not the most creative motto, but full of significance nonetheless). So I'm really glad to have come across this epic. I made a point to not comment until I was absolutely done parsing through all the information you've thrown out there, and for that matter I copy-pasted every post on a Word document and read through them slowly and carefully, making sure to take it all in. The final version is 535 pages long. And I was thinking, an artist whose work can be expanded upon and discussed to fill five hundred and thirty freaking five pages deserves all the praise and recognition in the world. Now I'm done reading through, I've applied The Test to myself, and I must say I'm absolutely satisfied with the result. Of course, some stuff flew above my head, but I did (and am doing) my best to reach out to it and understand. In some places the lyrics are so dense that this becomes a Herculean task; in other places, the story is being told without using lyrics at all (the saxophone connection in HM and OWL blew my mind!). But I guess you know that better than I do That was me. I was trying to make sense out of some lyrics I had recently heard (more specifically, the final verse of C&N) when I came across Clicks and Hisses, and it led me here. So thanks Matt, for carrying on such an awesome project! Back when I wrote that (it was a Facebook comment on the THS official page, on a post about the Clicks and Hisses website), I was halfway through the story, about when you started tackling Gideon's plan to fake the crucifixion and before Charlemagne, Mary and the Narrator joined the Skins. Then stuff got really heavy at college and work, and I stopped reading for some time. Came back just this week, reading through what I'd already compiled and following through with the rest of the story. And I wish there was more to go through, but it ended on a very satisfactory note nonetheless. I've got a couple of questions, if you don't mind me asking after such a long time: 1) Way back upthread, you and muzzle were talking about the songs that weren't part of the story, of which you mentioned there were 8, and then one in specific that you thought wasn't part of the story but turned out to be central to it. I've been trying to find out which song that was, and I've got a couple of guesses: - Constructive Summer? At first listen, it sounds like a story of a feel-good summer, even with the connections to CSTLN ("gospel"), Slapped Actress ("we are our only saviors" / "we make our own movies") and more. But some of the story elements you unraveled from it depended on the confirmation of the location of the Party Pit, which I think was one of the (if not the) biggest aha-moment in the whole thing ("water tower", "work at the mill"). - Citrus? I absolutely adore that song, and the chorus is perhaps my favorite moment in the THS discography. There are a lot of mentions of Judas and Jesus, but they can feel kind of spread out at first glance. Then the whole "whiskey"="Jack"=Gideon metaphor kicked in, paired with the car ride scene to situate the context of the chorus, but I don't know if this qualifies as "central". - Stuck Between Stations? Might be my best guess... The whole song is brimming with references, stacked metaphors and tough passages, but I think you tackled it brilliantly in your line-by-line analysis. It always sounded to me like it was describing the overall elements of the story without adding much, though when you think about it, that second verse with John Berryman might be the best Craig has ever written. And that's saying a lot. 2) Speaking of which, on a personal note, having listened to the catalog a bajillion times by now, has any line or verse struck you as your favorite? I know this must be a tough call, but like I wrote above, the John Berryman verse on SBS is mesmerizingly brilliant to me, so there must be one that you feel like that about too. 3) Slapped Actress is another fantastic song that I love. I missed a line-by-line analysis of it, even though a lot of the lines in it can be worked out after getting the full context. I just can't put my finger on where it's located in the story, if it's before the crucifixion (if so, Holly must be the "sister" whose family is "wicked strict Christian", but that would put it after the metal bar beatdown) or after the crucifixion (fitting with the context of the trial and Charlemagne praying that Holly doesn't say anything incriminating in DLME). The choruses and bridge are clearly about the metal bar and the crucifixion, though ("stadium seating", "we're the projectors/directors/actors"). 4) Finally, the lines in CiS "Do you want me to tell it like boy meets girl and the rest is history / Or do you want it like a murder mystery / I'm gonna tell it like a comeback story". I always understood these as Craig speaking about the THS catalog (note that these were my past thoughts, before I came to believe that there is a single intertwining story between all the albums): - "boy meets girl and the rest is history": Almost Killed Me ("They met as kids", "Wandered out of Mass one day and faded into the fog and love and faithless fear"); - "murder mystery": Stay Positive ("When one townie falls in the forest, can anyone hear it?", "She saw them put a body in the bag in the trunk"); - "comeback story": Separation Sunday ("She's been disappeared for years / Today she finally came back"). But now I'm inclined to believe this is the Narrator talking to an unspecified third person about his crazy adventures. He asks if the third person wants to hear a simple love story ("boy meets girl and the rest is history"; could apply to any couple, really, but by my interpretation would be himself and Mary meeting at the Party Pit, getting together at prom and then falling off after he left the Twin Cities) or a murder mystery story (the whole crucifixion scene). But in both stories he comes out as the victim in his eyes, failing to get together with the girl he loved, watching her slip away to addiction, then meeting her again just to find that she wants someone else, then hanging around her to try to change her mind, but ultimately watching her die on a role she had no business playing anyway. The Narrator doesn't want to tell those versions, so he "tell the one that make [him] look/feel better": a comeback story, not about Holly (who actually came back), but about Mary, who he's trying to reach out to and make a connection with and up until LID he still hopes will return to him. But then his hopes are dashed. Sorry to elongate the discussion after so long, but I felt like I had to contribute somehow to this amazing work. I can't thank you enough for putting this together and presenting it in such a solid and fun manner. You gave me something to do in reading your notes over and over again, try to make sense of them in my own head, and finally witnessing the pleasure of the aha-moments you talked about at the beginning. I'm Brazilian (sorry for any English mistakes, btw), so it's improbable that I'll ever watch a THS concert live. But if I do, and if it happens that you'll be at the concert too, I would be thrilled to chat over a couple beers. On me. (Now you've got two free beers, one from muzzle and one from me ) And about Still Alive Carl, I can't stress enough how glad I was to reach the end of this thread and find out he's still alive. Been thinking of him since the beginning. I've been through a similar situation before, witnessed a family member fight an uphill battle against a debilitating disease (not cancer), and he came out the victor. I find your gesture of doing this for Carl amazing, it showed a level of interaction and dedication that I think the world needs more and more these days. So, on top of my admiration for compiling such an extraordinary piece of literature, you have my respect for sticking to someone close in their hour of need. Best wishes to you and Carl!
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 19, 2018 15:07:50 GMT -5
I just had to check back in here to write a few words about Only The Good Die Young. I tried to do a quick search to see what Skepticatfirst had to say about the song, and even though I'm pretty sure he's digged into it, the only thing I could find is a reference to the content of the song underlines that the Both Crosses part about "shivering and smiling" is sexual. And then, of course, that it appears in Certain Songs, as one of the jukebox songs Jesse's "born into".
I can't remember if there's drawn a line between the song and The Smidge/Lord I'm Discouraged. Billy Joel goes: "So come on Virginia, show me a sign/ send up a signal, throw me a line". It might as well just be phrases so common that it doesn't make sense to look for something else, but it at least make me think of "Oh, come on, send me up a signal" (The Smidge) and "Won't you show me a sign/ let me know that you listen" (Lord I'm Discouraged). The link between "Virginia" and virgin Mary explains itself, but it's worth noting that both THS lines could be heard as The Narrator trying to get through to the Mary deep down inside Holly's body (allthough I seem to remember Skepticatfirst reads The Smidge as a Charlemagne/Jesse song). And with Both Crosses and Certain Songs in the mix, I guess it's fair to assume that Only The Good Die Young was on Craig's mind more than one time during the writing of his own lyrics.
But when I heard it again today, it hit me that large portions of the entire lyrics could be seen as a "comment" on the narrative in the THS lyrics. It's not just single lines or motifs, it's almost as if some of the narrative is drawn from the picture Billy Joel is painting. There's a lot of Mary in here.
- "Sooner or later it comes down to faith" - yes, sooner or later Mary must decide if she actually believe her vision is a foresight. And even more, Charlemagne and the other guys must decide if they are going to act on it, or to let what comes come.
- "Aw, but they never told you the price you that you pay/ for things that you might have done" - no one told Mary about the full scope of the consequenses her vision, and subsequent actions, would have. If they knew the price, they might have chosen a different path.
- "You might heard I run with a dangerous crowd/ we ain't to pretty, we ain't to proud/ we might be laughing a bit too hard/ aw, but that never hurt no one" - Skepticatfirst had a interesting part about jokes/laughing a little bit further up here. In short: The jokes/laughing parts is a nostalgic throwback to happier times with less worries. I know the quoted Joel verse isn't proving anything at all, but it has sort of the same feeling too it. Yeah, they might laugh a bit too hard, but THAT has never hurt anyone. Their connection with the dangerous crowd known as The Skins, on the other hand, seems to be pretty damaging.
- "Come on Virginia, show me a sign" - see above
- "The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind/ never let's in the sun/ darling, only the good die young" - again, more of a feeling than straight connections. But this makes me think of both Records & Tapes and Cheyenne Sunrise, and how Mary decides to make her own movies instead of being a DJ of her dreams. In the dark behind the curtain she holds up, but when she let the sun in, she realise that it's time to take action. And it's sort of like a voice inside her head telling that someone (good) must die for others to live.
- "You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation" - not sure if it's nice, but Mary's mostly portraited in white clothes. And I'm not sure if this fits well with the other catholic images around here, but the events (or the party, if you will) down at Party Pit is certainly a ceremony of some sort.
- "You got a brand new soul and a cross of gold" - well, this is pretty obvious, right? She literally got a brand new soul that night. And if I remember correctly, she also appears with a cross around her neck later that night.
- "But Virginia, they didn't give quite enough information" - a follow-up to the lack of knowledge about the price about to be payed. They (her visions?) didn't tell her everything about how crazy acting out on them would turn out to be.
- "The say there's a heaven for those who will wait/ some say it's better, but I say it ain't" - again, the debate about waiting things out or take action right away. See also: Ascension Blues and plenty of other songs.
I don't know what I'm trying to show here. I'm certainly not saying that Billy Joel preceeded the narrative or anything. It's just that I get the feeling that Craig has been more inspired by the lyrics of Only The Good Die Young in creating Mary and the events of the narrative than what we might have discussed earlier. And while Skepticatfirst might see this differently, I figured I might as well could throw it out here.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Dec 31, 2018 15:17:31 GMT -5
Wow, I came back to the thread because I wanted to get some updates in before the end of the year, only to find that a bunch of stuff happened since the last time I posted. Pringlescanman, clicksandhissesmatt, dannemann, my apologies for the incommunicado. Let me get one post written to get my feet back in the water, and then I'll respond. I do want to get at least one new thing out before 2018 comes to a close.
First, Still Alive Carl passed away this summer. This had been expected for a long time, and was even kind of a merciful thing by the time it happened. But at any rate, he didn't make it, and with him my THS-only fast came to an end. Most of what I have to say about him, and about the things I learned through this experience, would be for a different conversation at this point. I'm listening to music through very different ears now, for which I'm grateful. I think I should probably leave it at that.
In the meantime The Hold Steady has become a pretty active band again, which kind of puts me on the spot. I can let the 'Here Goes' account of things stand as it is now, frozen in time; or I can take a shot at bringing in the new material, even though my original purpose for working on it is no longer there.
I was inclined for a while to let it stay as-is, which would be easier for a lot of reasons. But a couple of things happened since the summer to tip the scales the other way. First, in an offline discussion about The Stove and The Toaster, muzzleofbees showed me something big that I missed, and it's hard to let that stand without correction. Second, I started listening to Lifter Puller, which, besides being pretty incredible in its own right, has added clarity to a whole series of things that until now have been difficult or messy. At the end of the day, I want to have done justice to these stories, and at the moment it feels like I need to do at least a few things to tighten that up.
So I'm going to try to keep going with the project, just in a different gear. I won't (can't) work on it with the same focus I had earlier, or put something in writing every day. But I can add a post now and again when I've got something solid.
On that note, let me dive in with the big thing that I missed before: namely, the kitchen.
My first reaction to The Stove and the Toaster was to think that it had to be a Chillout-Tent-style short story from outside the main narrative. The "wholesale crew" (compare the "crew [running a] business [providing] supplies" of OwtB, YGD, etc.) in the "fortified fortress" (compare IHTWTDFY, Ambassador) seemed clearly to refer to the Skins, with their distribution network and home base in the abandoned brewery. But the robbery and the shooting looked so completely different from anything I recognized that I was inclined to bracket the song off and more or less leave it alone.
Then muzzle pointed out that the kitchen (which with Entitlement Crew and Esther has recently become a pretty insistent fixture of the songs) is really developed as a motif here, and that the "chef" of TSatT should probably be understood as a cook in the sense of "Militia men cooking up a batch of the crystal meth" from Knuckles; which would mean that "kitchen" in the THS sense is a meth lab, and in this case specifically the metal bar (the abandoned brewery) itself.
And he's clearly right. In fact, this is a watershed, leading to a whole series of aha's that eluded me before.
With this, a lot of things in the THS universe get much darker. What used to be just a regular kitchen in some apartment now locates the Most People Are DJs party in a much more sinister place, and with it the Rock Problems party (that that wasn't just some apartment was already hinted at by "the room that's all the way at the back" [RP], but now we get confirmation).
Next stop is "the kitchen workers" of CSongs, and "in the kitchen" of CFingers. Both of these clearly refer to the restaurant where Jesse works. But if the "kitchen" is actually a meth lab, not a kitchen as such, then the "restaurant" clearly isn't a restaurant as such, either. I'd just started listening to Lifter Puller at this point, and it was one of the lines from Lake Street is for Lovers that popped in here to close the loop:
Standing on the corner making eyes at the commuters making eyes
The expression "making eyes" is used of Jesse working as a waitress in CSongs (and in Wait a While, which again is an elaborate play on her both waiting "tables" and waiting for Charlemagne). And in Oaks we get a related line that I hadn't connected before:
The kids on the corner making eyes at the cars. If you want to be saved all it takes is a wave.
The "restaurant," then, is a drive-by corner where the "waiters" are kids, who fill orders from the passing cars with pills/powders/crystals/etc., which have been supplied by the Skins' meth lab in the abandoned brewery, and which (at least in some cases, see below) they carry hidden in their clothing.
This provides a much clearer explanation of the line from The Smidge that clearly implies Jesse's involvement in drug dealing, but otherwise gives no context:
She's got a bandolero belt filled with kamikaze shooters She touches every table in a total eclipse, it costs an awful lot for just a little bit
The "tables" in this metaphor are cars; she carries the "shooters" in her belt. We get more about this picture --- literally from the other side of the car window through which the "commuters" are waving --- in Craig's solo song Trapper Avenue, off Faith in the Future:
If you want to know the truth They got girls who'll come right up to your windows ... I used to cruise I used to walk around with rubies in my shoes Dude, they used to call me "Jewels"
The "rubies" here are like the "diamonds" elsewhere; as the narrator of Nice, Nice is at pains to clarify, they're talking about *crystal*. There's obviously a suggestion of prostitution in these lines too, but the theme of hiding drugs in clothing generally and in shoes particularly is very strong and definitely present here. More on these points later.
There are also suggestions in a number of places that the "restaurant" is more than just the waiters themselves --- that there's an actual drug house to which the kids bring orders, and run them back filled, for example in Oaks:
There were kids at the car wash That said they could get it. Gave them half but they never came back.
or Magazines:
When she storms out of the restaurant I think you're supposed to chase her to the lights
or possibly in Secret Santa Cruz (assuming that this could be a shared feature between the LP and THS worlds):
you don't have to go inside to buy, you can buy it off the porch
Whether these are all variations on the "restaurant" scenario or aspects of a single, uniform image, they seem to be firmly based on a concrete model. I'll have more to say about all of this later as well.
A final thing that's neatly cleaned up by this understanding of "restaurant" is the full level of irony underlying The Sweet Part of the City.
the sweet part of the city the part with the bars and restaurants
It's been clear for a long time that "sweet" is a two-edged word with deadly overtones, and that "bars" is a dark nod to the metal bar, firmly located in the abandoned brewery in St. Paul. With this, now, it's clear that "restaurants" has exactly the same subtext that "bars" has. Like he does in so many other songs, in TSPotC, Craig leads with a feint (the "long black shawl" making it seem that Stevie Nix is addressed to a woman, rather than Gideon; "sorry about the centerpiece" making it seem that "thanks for understanding" is an apology, rather than appreciation for the fact that her synapses momentarily aren't dimed): "back when we were living up on Hennepin" seems to make what follows refer to Uptown in Minneapolis, but in fact it's Lowertown in St. Paul that's implicitly in focus. (Somewhere upthread, we located Jesse's restaurant in Lowertown/East St. Paul on the strength of AhfA, "tell her to stay in St. Paul," CFingers, "Wednesday night I saw you driving around with Walter/ We all know what you were looking for," the "harbor bars" of CSongs and HJ; more on this in the original post.) At this point in the story --- the early 2000's --- the characters' lives really are dominated by drug addicition. And Charlemagne's concern that Jesse is going to die like Holly did is bolstered --- she's not just dating/fucking the Skins [Magazines, HJ, WaW, 40B], she's working with/for them, too.
I'll try to get back tomorrow, to kick off 2019 with answers to Pringlescanman, clicksandhissesmatt, and dannemann (and muzzle; we've talked offline, but not about Billy Joel). And then more new stuff, if not tomorrow then sometime soon.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 13, 2019 17:40:42 GMT -5
Another thing I've been having a problem with is YLHF. You posited that Charlemagne is talking to Mary, with the LHF being Jesse. Maybe you covered this earlier and I missed it, but one line gives me pause in buying into that theory: "Your little hoodrat friend got me high though. We were 17 and stuck up up in Osseo." Charlemage definitely doesn't know Jesse when he's 17. The only other person he would've been getting high with at that age was Holly. Having paused at that line, it also then made sense that it would be Mary talking about Holly washing up in the Mississippi river since that's where she was drowned. Then, the tattoo saying "damn right I'll rise again," rather than being a reference about Jesse and Charlemagne's sexual relationship, is just Charlemagne referencing Holly's resurrection. I know the cigs and being broke description is typical Jesse signaling, but 1) Charlemagne really never did get with Holly, 2) he's with the hoodrat friend getting high when he's 17, 3) he was always rightfully worried sick about Holly, and 4) the potential references to both her drowning and her resurrection make me think the hoodrat friend is Holly. We also have the line from HaRRF that "Holly was a hoodrat, and now you finally know that." All of these clues seem much more straightforward than Charlemagne lying and mixing up Jesse with Holly since he eventually sees Jesse as a new Holly. I read your analysis saying "the gentleman doth protest too much," but he really does want to get with Mary as she keeps denying him, he really never did sleep with Holly, and his tone could just as easily be read as someone wrongfully getting accused of cheating/sleeping with someone and becoming exasperated because it's not true. Let me know what you think. Thanks for following up on this and I'm sorry that I didn't respond earlier. Muzzle correctly parsed my answer but you guys make me realize that I could have been a lot clearer. Let me take another crack at it, trying to be a little more explicit while I respond to your points. Just to recap the starting point: I've made the claim that this song is from Charlemagne's perspective, who's being accused by Mary of getting with Jesse, and is having an argument with her about it. The variation you're weighing is whether Mary might not be accusing him of getting with *Holly* instead, which would make his "I ain't never been" protest true, instead of a lie. As you point out, the ground zero difficulty in this song is the line about "17 and stuck up up in Osseo." My take on this is that these two verses are being delivered sarcastically by Charlemagne. He doesn't have the guts to say directly, "you're criticizing me for getting with a little hoodrat, but look at you!"; instead, he layers his first bullshit critique of Jesse (bullshit in the sense of protests-too-much; obviously she doesn't make him sick, etc.) with a second one (bullshit in the sense of backhanded irony), where all of the allegations actually apply to Mary, not to Jesse: Your little hoodrat friend got me high though We were 17 and stuck up up in Osseo Here he's referring to how Mary, at 17, got with her little townie friend Gideon and let him get her high, as recounted in SN and especially ASD. (The first line starts out like he's making an admission about Jesse in HH, but "we were 17" clarifies that he's really talking about something else.) Note that "townie" is a Boston-area expression which (besides being a class expression) refers particularly to locals from the small towns in the periphery of Boston proper, and "Osseo" is a small town in the periphery of the Twin Cities. (I've said earlier that this line means "Gideon's from Osseo," but I think in retrospect I'd prefer to soften that, and just say that "Osseo" is a metaphor for "Townie-town" in the same way that Ybor City is a metaphor for "party-town.") Note too that "stuck up" identifies the object of his reproach as "princess" Mary [ASD, A&H, C&N, and now CitM too!]. She's the rich girl partying with townies. She said it's funny how true love gets troubled by still water And washed up in the Mississippi River Here he's referring to how Mary was happy to see Holly get killed ("it's funny how ...") just as long as it meant getting her out of the way. It was Mary who engineered Holly's hookup with Gideon [MM, etc.] in order to pry her away from Charlemagne; "true love gets troubled by still water" refers to the consequences, when Holly, getting high, retreated into her "still water" awkward silences and didn't want to speak to or fuck Gideon, who, enraged that she wasn't keeping up her end of their "true love" bargain, drowned her in the Mississippi [BCamp, etc.]. Her claddagh ring was pointed at the people She said St. Theresa came to me in dreams It's true that Jesse pretends that she has visions in CF, and I seem to remember (can't recall now) that there might have been other evidence of Jesse being Irish and thus someone who might wear a claddagh ring; but the bottom line is that these lines do both definitely apply to Mary, who is a redheaded ("Ginger" [Swish, Citrus]) Catholic girl, has visions, and is of course a hoodrat in her own right (the ironic second sense of "pointed at the people"). She said I ain't gonna do anything sexual to you I'm kinda saving myself for the scene Mary's the only one withholding sex that Charlemagne wants [CA, YS, etc.]. His reluctance to touch Holly seems to have been his own, even if it was in response to her disinterest in anything but getting high. And he is definitely getting with Jesse, even though it's Jesse who's the instigator (BCig, HH, etc.). All three girls meet the technical specification of hoodrat, but Mary's the one who's most wholeheartedly doing the scene. It's funny, but I'm sure I've heard Craig sing some of these particular lines in a higher pitch that sounds a lot like Homer Simpson's sarcastic voice ( link). I don't want to go back and search for examples, and it would be hard to make an argument based on that anyway. But I guess it's worth noting. A couple of notes on other points you raised: So I hope I've clarified now that I think this line is a sarcastic reference to Mary and Gideon, not to Charlemagne and anybody else. But a second point I would add is that Charlemagne is much older than Holly --- remember the thing somuchjoy figured out, that Holly was born in July 1977, while Charlemagne was born in 1971 along with Mary, Gideon, and the Narrator (the evidence for all of this is in the 1971 part of the timeline upstream). Charlemagne and Holly, unlike Mary and Gideon, were never 17 together. It's possible that there's some, I guess you could call it "dramatic irony," in the fact that it was her visions of Charlemagne that Mary was thinking of when she was first shooting speed with Gideon [SN], since in fact both Charlemagne and Mary were 17 at that time (see "they met as kids" [CiS], and the allusions to "Edge of Seventeen" in SN). But there are enough layers to keep track of even without that. The tattoo is pretty complicated too. In the Separation Sunday liner notes, the lines are written twice --- first typed: it said "damn right he'll rise again" damn right you'll rise again. and then handwritten by Craig in big letters for emphasis: He'll Rise Again You'll Rise Again I know that in some recorded versions of the song, the words come out in ways that could be heard as "she'll" or "I'll" as well as "he'll" and "you'll"; but the above is how it's written. I don't know if Craig wrote it out more emphatically because he kept messing it up in performance, or what. There's certainly a suggestion that Jesse got the tattoos in imitation of Mary, in a bid to get Charlemagne to want her instead, and maybe Craig himself got tripped up in some of the multiple levels of reference here. But in any event, tattoo #1 "Jesus lived and died for all your sins" makes it seem awfully likely that tattoo #2 is supposed to follow up with "he'll," and so with all of that, I'm reluctant to make "I'll" a strong basis for interpretation. Yes, but there's lots of evidence that there's more than one hoodrat: there's the plural "hoodrat chicks" of C&N (referring to Holly and Mary), and "the hoodrats" plural of 212M (Mary's reported reference to Holly and Jesse). Beyond that we get "some hoodrat chick" of HH (referring to Mary), and the "little hoodrat friend" of MoC (which is resurrected Holly in Mary's body). Bottom line is that the story refers to a number of hoodrats, plural, and all three girls clearly fit the technical definition of the term. So I don't think the HaRRF line can be taken as a simple key to YLHF in this way. (And remember, too, that "you" here isn't the audience; the Narrator is talking to Jesse, see upthread.) I guess I should add one more thing, that I think the argument going on in YLHF can only have taken place after Holly's death. It's not just Charlemagne's reproachful reference to the fact that she's drowned; it's also that it's only after Holly's death that Mary gets close enough to Charlemagne to be openly harassing him about fucking other girls. I freely admit that "I got stopped by the cops and they found it in my socks/ And I got probed" seems to be a forward reference to something that, assuming I haven't got it wrong, takes place after the crucifixion; so I can't claim that the song is strictly limited to the perspective of a single point in time. But I don't think it can be rewound to the 1990's, when Holly is still alive, and Holly and Charlemagne are still technically an item. Hope that clarifies!
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 13, 2019 17:41:49 GMT -5
Hi Andrew - I'm Matt, the creator of the Clicks and Hisses site. I've spent the past few weeks working through this thread (still have a bit to go), and just wanted to comment on how incredible all this analysis is. Amazing. I actually found your entries awhile back while compiling the lyric sheets for the bonus tracks (I credited you for transcribing the liner notes on "The Most Important Thing" [ link]). I initially put off reading through this odyssey because I knew it would make me reconsider many of my own thoughts about the discography. Truth be told, I was too far along to start over -- plus, I didn't want to alter any of the other annotators' work. While revisiting all of these songs for the project (especially the Almost Killed Me bonus tracks) I started developing a sense that I was approaching the THS narrative incorrectly. My default was to treat songs as vignettes (unless otherwise obvious) and trust that the band has given us some sense of chronology through album and song sequencing. This is (of course) debatable -- Craig has told us that we got some stuff right and some stuff wrong -- but I do hope it's another enjoyable way of looking at the THS body of work (more thoughts here). At the end of the day, I can reconcile this approach by accepting that Clicks and Hisses is a sort of entry-level look at the band's entire songbook (the references and easter eggs and callbacks and cross-references). It is my hope that people can use the site to dig deeper into the lyrics and find more thorough analysis (like yours) or reconsider their own. For example, a fan recently commented " This site dragged me to a Unified Scene forum post of this guy chronicling his views on the THS story. Best read ever. After a couple of weeks reading it, I'm convinced Craig is the best songwriter ever to grace this planet. Totally recommend it." This is what I was going for. Good stuff. Anyway. Just wanted to thank you for this massive effort (I can certainly relate). We're sending good vibes to Carl. -Matt Hey Matt, thanks very much for this. I don't know if you got as far as the part upthread where I first discovered clicksandhisses and gave you a shout-out, but you guys saved me from a lot of mistakes, and beyond that the site is just incredible. Apart from the stunning layout and images, and getting the official lyrics to the new songs, and tracking down all kinds of obscure references, you've actually created a structure that does justice to the work of annotation (as opposed to the ninety pages of run-on prose I've got here). And I can guess what kind of effort you've put in to get it there. Hats off to you. Yeah, obviously I believe that there's a unifying narrative in the THS songs, and have some confidence that a substantial part of what I'm hearing isn't a coincidence. But it's important to me to emphasize that this isn't the one and final take --- I've had to backtrack way too many times to believe that I haven't made mistakes putting it all together, or missed important things along the way. (Just listening to Lifter Puller and the solo stuff now has brought major things to my attention that I couldn't hear before.) So the fact that you guys have done the work to actually make the exploration accessible is huge. People are going to love it, and if they come out of that exploration with corrections for things I got wrong, so much the better. Loved your note on Kids Are Ripping Into Sugar Packets, that's awesome (and a good example of something I got wrong, in fact. Because of the CatCT famine context, I figured that "sugar" was a reference to skipping real food when speeding. But having spent a little time now in the world of Viceburgh and the rest of Lifter Puller, I realize that reference to drug consumption in the THS songs is less literal than I'd originally thought. More on that in an eventual LP post). Hilarious too that you have trouble with Navy Sheets, I've told people that that's the hardest THS song for me to know what to do with, too. It doesn't surprise me that Craig was cool about not needing to supply corrections, either, and it's cool that you had a chance to talk with him about the project. Thanks again, and hope to catch you at a show one of these days.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 4, 2019 20:32:10 GMT -5
Hey Dannemann, Really sorry to take so long to answer this. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I appreciate the vote of confidence. I guess 500+ pages shows that I should have picked a different format to present what I found (like the clicksandhisses approach to annotation, only that site didn't exist at the time). On the other hand I had a lot of stuff to work out along the way, so it is what it is. Maybe someday I'll try to compile it down to something crisper. 1) Way back upthread, you and muzzle were talking about the songs that weren't part of the story, of which you mentioned there were 8, and then one in specific that you thought wasn't part of the story but turned out to be central to it. I've been trying to find out which song that was, and I've got a couple of guesses: - Constructive Summer? At first listen, it sounds like a story of a feel-good summer, even with the connections to CSTLN ("gospel"), Slapped Actress ("we are our only saviors" / "we make our own movies") and more. But some of the story elements you unraveled from it depended on the confirmation of the location of the Party Pit, which I think was one of the (if not the) biggest aha-moment in the whole thing ("water tower", "work at the mill"). Right, it was Constructive Summer. At first I thought just what you said, that it was a feel-good summer anthem outside the main story. Then at some point "we'll put it back together" clicked with the story of the three friends reuniting, and the rest opened up from there. Still probably my favorite THS song. 2) Speaking of which, on a personal note, having listened to the catalog a bajillion times by now, has any line or verse struck you as your favorite? I know this must be a tough call, but like I wrote above, the John Berryman verse on SBS is mesmerizingly brilliant to me, so there must be one that you feel like that about too. Yeah, I've thought several times that I should make a list of favorite lines from each song and then try to winnow it down from there. But it's probably more telling if I just say something off the top of my head, without having to think about it. There are three that instantly come to mind: - Mary got a bloody nose from sniffing margarita mix [BBlues] - It started ice-cream-social nice and ended up all white and ecumenical [HSL] - Baby take off your beret / Cause everyone's a critic and most people are DJs / And everything gets played [MPADJs] That first line is flawless. It's an awesome image, and the meter and vowel progression are unstoppable; I remember it blowing my mind before I even realized there was a story. And then for the story, we get the barely noticed but crucial mention of Mary that gives a name to the main character, and the unreliable reporting of the bloody nose, too. All in one line. Just incredible. The HSL line is perfect too, effortlessly landing these huge church and party words, and achieving a summary of the whole story at the same time. The last one I love because it's so complex, first turning the "everyone's a critic" cliche' 270 degrees, and then adding yet another twist just when you thought you might have a handle on the first one. Amazing writing. There are full songs that I think maintain a higher level of "holy shit" overall than the above, like CatCT, YLHF, CSTLN, and SBS; but those three lines stand out for me as individual lines. 3) Slapped Actress is another fantastic song that I love. I missed a line-by-line analysis of it, even though a lot of the lines in it can be worked out after getting the full context. I just can't put my finger on where it's located in the story, if it's before the crucifixion (if so, Holly must be the "sister" whose family is "wicked strict Christian", but that would put it after the metal bar beatdown) or after the crucifixion (fitting with the context of the trial and Charlemagne praying that Holly doesn't say anything incriminating in DLME). The choruses and bridge are clearly about the metal bar and the crucifixion, though ("stadium seating", "we're the projectors/directors/actors"). Time in the songs is difficult. There are a lot of songs that seem to belong principally to one particular point in time, but end up pulling in a reference or two to something from another point in the story (like "I got stopped by the cops/they found it in my socks" in YLHF, or the lines about Holly and about Gideon in BBlues). I take this to be a side effect of Craig's practice of framing individual songs as standalone narratives, built out of selected and reassembled fragments of the underlying THS story; sometimes he'll just play fast and loose with timeframe in order to get the effect he wants. This happens often enough that I don't think there's any other way around it (to take the above examples, Charlemagne getting busted, Gideon getting jumped in, and Holly turning tricks are all clearly recognizable incidents; you can argue that they happened in any order you like, but if you try to make each individual song fit a unified timeframe you're going to run into trouble no matter what). The out-of-order sampling is just part of Craig's technique. Having said all that, "don't tell them we went down to Ybor City again" and the "bloodshed" and the "angels" (Gideon is cast as the angel with the sword in BCrosses; the cops are cast as the angels announcing that Jesus' tomb is empty in NS) suggests to me that the main timeframe of Slapped Actress is after the crucifixion. It's a pretty broad song thematically, but your idea about urging resurrected Holly to not say anything ahead of the trial is a really good one. I'd have to review the trial evidence again, but I bet that holds up. 4) Finally, the lines in CiS "Do you want me to tell it like boy meets girl and the rest is history / Or do you want it like a murder mystery / I'm gonna tell it like a comeback story". ... The Narrator doesn't want to tell those versions, so he "tell the one that make [him] look/feel better": a comeback story, not about Holly (who actually came back), but about Mary, who he's trying to reach out to and make a connection with and up until LID he still hopes will return to him. But then his hopes are dashed. This is a solid reading. "Boy meets girl" works just as well for the Narrator and Mary as it does for Charlemagne and either Holly or Mary; and since Mary was one of the "two kids [who] died" at the crucifixion, under circumstances closely connected to the murder of Holly, that could be her too. And now, after the crucifixion (when they're driving around with the gun in the glovebox, and Charlemagne with the sweet stuff in his socks), he just wants her to come back. But it's not going to turn out like he wants. Fits perfectly with Craig's pattern of double meanings, in which the obvious meaning conceals a deeper and heavier one beneath. Well spotted. I'm Brazilian (sorry for any English mistakes, btw), so it's improbable that I'll ever watch a THS concert live. But if I do, and if it happens that you'll be at the concert too, I would be thrilled to chat over a couple beers. If it ever does happen that you make it up for a show, PM me; I'll take you up on that beer, and am good for a couple of rounds myself!
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jun 5, 2020 8:05:37 GMT -5
Mary's here described as looking like Patty Smyth. I've got the point of enough of these insane comparisons to celebrities that I'm certain they all have one, but some of them are tough to parse, and I honestly have no idea what this one's about. On the cover of The Warrior, Patty Smyth appears to have red streaks on her face; maybe that's supposed to recall ... That's all I got. Was looking up Patty Smyth's band Scandal and their album Warrior on Wikipedia... and noticed there's a song on the album called Only The Young...and it's written by Steve Perry & Neil Schon! Since all three of them are mentioned The Swish, it doesn't seem like a coincidence. Really nice find!
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jun 29, 2020 23:33:40 GMT -5
Also wondering, I can't remenber offhand, if there's any playing card imagery in the songs? [/div][/quote] None that I can think of. You have "hearts" and "diamonds" and "clubs" spread out through the songs, and at least two of them in Arms And Hearts. But mostly used in other ways than referring to playing cards. But there's some in Lifter Puller: I was feelin kinda lucky The Queen of Spades just fucked me She came with some Jack of Diamonds She's standing right beside him somewhere (Double Straps) and In walks queen of the clubs Five deep in her foam-dance thugs Dripping wet with haircare, drowning in designer drugs (Half Dead And Dynamite)
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jul 14, 2020 13:53:54 GMT -5
In the THS canon, there are many songs and moments in songs that act in that way. "Almost Everything", from beginning to end, is a great "hangout song." There could be any number of other songs and moments like that in the THS canon (I'd be interested to hear others that people can think of as well). To me, both Hornets! Hornets! and Sweet Part Of The City fills this description. Hostile, Mass too, really. These songs who describe the character just living their life, meeting up, making connections, tying strings to each other. And they are quite valuable in the story sense too, because they flesh out what drives and motivates the characters.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Dec 29, 2020 13:46:51 GMT -5
Hey @skywaywalker, Thanks for picking up this discussion while I was offline ... there's an awful lot to respond to in what you've said, and in the meantime I've already started the new Alright Alright thread to look at Lifter Puller, which involves a fresh look at enough things that my preference would be to leave off with things here and maybe take a fresh cut there instead. But just to respond to some things you've said that stand out to me: - You mentioned my working as a "commenter" at one point, and I guess it's worth saying that I think I'm looking at the problem of the THS story a little differently. For sure, you can't get anywhere without a clear, factual, substantiated account of what Craig's referring to in any given line, and in that sense the *annotations* are vitally important. But the annotations as such only get you so far; what I'm really trying to get to, for which the annotations are only a means to an end, is *narrative synthesis.* For a lot of things we're talking about here that might just be a technical distinction, but for others I expect it would go a long way toward explaining difference in interest and emphasis. It's all good, just worth being explicit about that. - You're right on about, for example, "Calvin Klein" and "moisturize," those are both excellent. (I've got a hat tip to you in Alright Alright for the Calvin Klein reference.) - I agree that identifying Yeats as a mythology-mixer is weak; I'd like to find a better explanation. In defense of it, I'll say (1) on a close rereading of the CSTLN lyrics, it does at least fit; (2) it is strictly true --- Yeats was not only using myths in his work, he was writing new ones (Red Hanrahan, Owen Aherne, Michael Robartes, etc.); (3) it's not for lack of trying that I haven't got something better. All that said, I agree entirely that it doesn't have that "aha! that can't be a coincidence, it must be right" quality that you want to see in these things. - about the UPC thing: if you want to work out what UPC means, I think you have to take the line "my UPC is dialed into the system" [Swish] as a whole. When I review the dictionary definitions of "dial in" ( wiktionary), it still seems to me that Uplink Power Control, especially for the visionary girl with "satellite radio," fits with "dialed in" much better than Universal Product Code does, even if the Universal Product Code meaning is much more common in English usage (which is the point I think you are really trying to get at, rather than the point about fit). Having said all of that: my experience wrestling with Craig's lyrics over kind of a long time now leads me to believe that the correct answer to most persistent A-vs-B questions is A-*and*-B. So I'll take your point that Universal Product Code is probably also intended. - about the Stevie Nix thing: the definition you cited is totally made up --- it's part of a whole urbandictionary joke where people try to invent the most absurd sex acts possible along with the pretense that they go by an established name. There are hundreds of these things all over the site, most of them (like the definition for Steve Nix you cited) without even the attestation of more than a couple of thumbs-ups (presumably from the people who were getting high in the author's dorm room at the time they were written). In general, urbandictionary is a source that has to be used with great care, and as far as Stevie Nix is concerned I honestly don't think there's anything there. (I also have a different account for it that I'll get to in Alright Alright, but even without that I think the described definition can be agreed to be pretty obviously a joke.) - about the question of travel in the THS story vs. an all-Twin-Cities setting: of course, I agree that it's possible for a work of fiction to have an itinerary --- it was through meticulously trying to piece one together that I came to the conclusion that THS place-names are not literal (and by the way, songs like TS&tT with a whole litany of one-offs should make it pretty clear that piecing together an itinerary really isn't possible, even if you ignore the obviously THS-metaphor-charged "Las Cruces" for the place of crucifixion, and "La Quinta" for the motel chain, etc.). Of course people travel in real life, and of course people use the interstates to travel between states in real life (and not just because, say, I-94 is the fastest route between East St. Paul and Minneapolis, which it also is). But really, there's no reason to expect that *this* work of fiction operates by Kerouac's rules, or Pynchon's rules, or real-life rules. I guess I would urge two things: (1) have another look at the symmetric but contradictory itineraries in Milkcrate Mosh, and ask yourself whether you really think they're literal; (2) give me a chance to revisit this question in a more orderly way in Alright Alright, and see if I can't do a better job of convincing you of what I'm seeing. Your general point that you're not wholly convinced by the conclusions of Here Goes is totally fair and a well-taken criticism. I could have done a better job of it even if I hadn't gotten some things wrong / missed some things, which I did. I'm hoping to rectify some of that with Alright Alright. I know you've already posted there so let me wrap this up, and I'll catch you on the other side. ======== I've got one final note about the THS story that, because it's totally unrelated to the LP story now under the microscope in Alright Alright, I'll add here as a way of closing out the thread. There's a line that Craig has been using for years about the THS lyrics vs his solo stuff, that contains an interesting detail. In the Buzz Feed News AM to DM interview of 2019, at 30:10 ( link): In the 2014 Rumpus interview ( link): In the Under The Radar interview of Jan 2020 ( link): The insistent description of someone falling off the roof is attention-getting (I'll look at getting shot and the airport haircut in Alright Alright). Given what I've proposed upthread, it won't be a surprise that I understand this to be an allusion to Gideon falling ("one townie falls" [OftC]) off the top of the water tower in the Party Pit, but it's the falling off the "roof" framing that I want to single out here. The big falling-to-his-death metaphor that Craig uses in the THS lyrics is of course John Berryman, who leapt from the Washington Ave bridge to his death in 1972. Of Berryman, in his 2015 Spin interview, Craig said ( link): That note about Berryman's "last time on earth" before leaping to his death is oddly emphatic. Upthread I'd connected it to the "last night" of First Night, when Holly cries and tells them about Gideon dying on the water tower cross ( link; link), but it wasn't as solid a connection as I would have liked. To bring this full circle, now: one of the things I did in digging into the background of the Lifter Puller lyrics was to read Kerouac's the Dharma Bums (mentioned in Slips Backwards). There, on page 113 of the Penguin edition, we find Ray Smith talking to Rosie Buchanan, who's in a state of paranoid distress: her last reported words before committing suicide **by jumping off the roof** are I think that's not a coincidence, and that Kerouac is ultimately the source of "last night" [FN], along with the more celebrated credits to his name. Thanks all.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Dec 30, 2020 8:32:42 GMT -5
Five years later, I sort of feel the need to drop a few words at what - for now - is the end of the thread. I've multiple times stated how extremly thrilling and mind blowing this entire thing was to me, and the entire complex have stayed with me since, in a way that I think about various aspect of it daily (and this is not an exaggeration).
I won't dive into the specifics, apart from saying I "believe" in the main path of this story. There's weak links and a few places where I don't feel certain on the speficic reading of lines or even full scenes/subplots, but I have an immense respect for the fact that nothing is taken out of thin air. And if you buy the main plot here, it's quite easy to accept some uncertainty about some of the many, many small threads who weave the full picture.
But I would like to add some more general thoughts about this entire thing.
To go all the way back, I remember discussions back in 2007 and 2008 wheter there in fact were a story in the THS lyrical universe, or not. Most people seemed to think there was a story there, given the various references to named characters, recurring scenes and images and the fact that Separation Sunday was commonly accepted as a concept album. But even then, there were people around here who had this "why can't you just enjoy the music?" attitude, built on some sort of idea suggesting that digging into lyrics and narratives in some way stood in opposition to getting lost in the music or losing your shit at a rock show. I would think this thread have divided the audience yet again: Between those who think there is some sort of story here, but not THIS elaborate, planned out or advanced.
Both at the beginning of this thread, or maybe especially when you talk about this stuff with non-fans out in the real life, there was a sense of this just being a bit too crazy to believe in. A songwriter who spends almost every line he writes to flesh out a pre-planned narrative throughout rock songs. I sort of get that: In a way, the entire idea of this thread sounds - at first - as almost conspiracy theory stuff, like listening to messages when playing your records backwards. But if you take a step back, it's not unbelievable or crazy at all. For this analysis to be "true" (I won't start a discission on what truth is in this context, that's almost a philosophical exercise) you would have to accept that 1) Craig Finn is capable of writing a big story and 2) spread this story out through about 100 songs and 10-15 years. It's really as simple as that. And I TOTALLY believe that could be the case. It's just strange how we (as a big "we") have few problems accepting that films or novels could be analogical, metaphorical and tell a story who operates on multiple levels, but so many find it hard to believe that what we all agree on being one of the greatest lyricst ever won't be able to do it through his songs.
And just to get back to that false distinction between loving a rock band and spending hours dissecting their lyrics: The distiction is false, at least it is to me. I got into this thread at a point where I was unsure wheter I ever would see Hold Steady play live again. I had a little kid, another on its way, and Hold Steady were seemingly heading into a hiatus. This thread not only became a perfect way for me to enjoy Hold Steady on a different level, but it also added plenty of excitement for the music itself. When I got to see them live again (which I've done sixteen times the past three years) it took away exactly none of my excitement. I heard the lyrics a bit different, and some of the rang sadder than they did before, but it didn't change my experience - at least not in a negative way.
And regardless of what you think about the conclusions in this thread, I think you should appreciate that the band we love is a band who could be the object of the work skepticatfirst have put down. I know some think you could have done this with any body of lyrics, that some of the conculsions are so wild that you could see those connections anywhere if you wanted to. Then I would suggest to read the thread again.
Lots more could and should have been said. I'm just so eternally thankful that this thread exist, that I can go back and read through it any time I want, that Andrew now have become a friend rather than a nickname on my screen, and that Craig Finn have kept on writing these mindblowing lyrics for 25 years.
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