Album: Live Through This
Year: 1994

Because he sang backing vocals, “Asking For It” is often cited as “evidence” that Kurt Cobain contributed to a significant amount of Live Through This. Which is such bollocks, even if Live Through This is far more melodic than Pretty on the Inside was.

Look, if you had access to Kurt Cobain while you were writing songs, wouldn’t you get his opinion? Or at the very least, steal some of the tricks you learned from him? I know I sure would.

And without a doubt, “Asking For It” is borrowing some of those tricks, from the dark, ominous opening to the continual juxtaposition of quiet and loud, and of course the repetition to drive home her point about rape culture.

Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
If she was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?

With Eric Erlandson providing guitar hooks, riffs & crunch like the second coming of James Honeyman-Scott, “Asking For It” derives its power from its sense of tension and control. Even the screaming parts are fully in control, like she’s worried about what would happen if she truly lost it.

If you live through this with me
I swear that I would die for you
And if you live through this with me
I swear that I would die for you

When Courtney and Kristen Pfaff (and Kurt, supposedly) (though I can’t hear it) sing the bridge, it’s heartbreaking because it sounds like she’s pretty sure he won’t.

“Asking For It”

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The post Certain Songs #610: Hole – “Asking For It” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Live Through This
Year: 1994

Because he sang backing vocals, “Asking For It” is often cited as “evidence” that Kurt Cobain contributed to a significant amount of Live Through This. Which is such bollocks, even if Live Through This is far more melodic than Pretty on the Inside was.

Look, if you had access to Kurt Cobain while you were writing songs, wouldn’t you get his opinion? Or at the very least, steal some of the tricks you learned from him? I know I sure would.

And without a doubt, “Asking For It” is borrowing some of those tricks, from the dark, ominous opening to the continual juxtaposition of quiet and loud, and of course the repetition to drive home her point about rape culture.

Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
If she was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?

With Eric Erlandson providing guitar hooks, riffs & crunch like the second coming of James Honeyman-Scott, “Asking For It” derives its power from its sense of tension and control. Even the screaming parts are fully in control, like she’s worried about what would happen if she truly lost it.

If you live through this with me
I swear that I would die for you
And if you live through this with me
I swear that I would die for you

When Courtney and Kristen Pfaff (and Kurt, supposedly) (though I can’t hear it) sing the bridge, it’s heartbreaking because it sounds like she’s pretty sure he won’t.

“Asking For It”

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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Go to my Patreon page

The post Certain Songs #610: Hole – “Asking For It” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Live Through This
Year: 1994

Now that it’s all ancient history, how does Live Through This sound?

Now that entire generations of punks and popstars and chick-rockers and controversies and drugs and conspiracies and reissues have come and gone, how does this record sound two decades divorced from the raging inferno that surrounded it?

It still sounds fucking great. Maybe even better than ever.

I mean, what did you expect me to say? I told you from the start how this would end. I’ve always been Team Courtney, having always found Ms. Love to be a fascinating — if not always sympathetic — figure who ended up making a bunch of terrific records, of which Live Through This is the terrificist.

And watch how it comes out of the gate with a deceptively quiet guitar and drums opening where Courtney sets the scene.

And the sky was made of amethyst
And all the stars were just like little fish
You should learn when to go
You should learn HOW TO SAY NO!

And with Eric Erlandson sliding his pick up the neck of his guitar, “Violet” just explodes in to violence, with Courtney howling into the void like the hellhound on Robert Johnson’s trail.

Might last a daaaaaayyyyyy, yeahhhhh
Mine is forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvverrrrrrrrrr!

(I’ve always thought that couplet was “My life’s a dare / Mine is forever”, and I was really disappointed to discover — as I was writing this — that I was wrong.)

Look, outside of all of the non-musical objections people might have to Courtney Love, I can see where the thing I love the most about her music — her voice — could be a legit turnoff. It ain’t pretty in any way, shape or form, especially when she launches a long scream and ends up away from the proper notes for the song.

But that’s the point. Like when Courtney launches into the chorus of “Violet:”

Go on take everything, take everything
I want you to
Go on take everything, take everything
I dare you to

For me, it’s impossible not to feel every single ounce of pain she’s pouring into the song. And when she contrasts the screams with a more softly-sung line, the tension is absolutely palpable, because you know she’s holding back in order to save up for another ovaries-to-the-wall scream.

Of course, in 1994, Hole’s tour in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s suicide was basically Courtney dealing with her own grief by being a lightning rod for an entire generations grief. In December of 1994, I taped a Live 105 Green Christmas performance by Hole in Berkeley, and “Violet” was fucked-up, raggedy and perpetually on the verge of falling apart.

In other words, awesome.

Official video for “Violet”

“Violet” performed live in Berkeley, 1994

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #609: Hole – “Violet” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Live Through This
Year: 1994

Now that it’s all ancient history, how does Live Through This sound?

Now that entire generations of punks and popstars and chick-rockers and controversies and drugs and conspiracies and reissues have come and gone, how does this record sound two decades divorced from the raging inferno that surrounded it?

It still sounds fucking great. Maybe even better than ever.

I mean, what did you expect me to say? I told you from the start how this would end. I’ve always been Team Courtney, having always found Ms. Love to be a fascinating — if not always sympathetic — figure who ended up making a bunch of terrific records, of which Live Through This is the terrificist.

And watch how it comes out of the gate with a deceptively quiet guitar and drums opening where Courtney sets the scene.

And the sky was made of amethyst
And all the stars were just like little fish
You should learn when to go
You should learn HOW TO SAY NO!

And with Eric Erlandson sliding his pick up the neck of his guitar, “Violet” just explodes into violence, with Courtney howling into the void like the hellhound on Robert Johnson’s trail.

Might last a daaaaaayyyyyy, yeahhhhh
Mine is forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvverrrrrrrrrr!

(I’ve always thought that couplet was “My life’s a dare / Mine is forever”, and I was really disappointed to discover — as I was writing this — that I was wrong.)

Look, outside of all of the non-musical objections people might have to Courtney Love, I can see where the thing I love the most about her music — her voice — could be a legit turnoff. It ain’t pretty in any way, shape or form, especially when she launches a long scream and ends up away from the proper notes for the song.

But that’s the point. Like when Courtney launches into the chorus of “Violet:”

Go on take everything, take everything
I want you to
Go on take everything, take everything
I dare you to

For me, it’s impossible not to feel every single ounce of pain she’s pouring into the song. And when she contrasts the screams with a more softly-sung line, the tension is absolutely palpable, because you know she’s holding back in order to save up for another ovaries-to-the-wall scream.

Of course, in 1994, Hole’s tour in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s suicide was basically Courtney dealing with her own grief by being a lightning rod for an entire generations grief. In December of 1994, I taped a Live 105 Green Christmas performance by Hole in Berkeley, and “Violet” was fucked-up, raggedy and perpetually on the verge of falling apart.

In other words, awesome.

Official video for “Violet”

“Violet” performed live in Berkeley, 1994

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

The post Certain Songs #609: Hole – “Violet” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Teeth Dreams
Year: 2014

Near the end of 1982, I got to see The Clash open for The Who. Which, at the time was my current favorite band opening for my all-time favorite band.

I was pretty sure even at the time that was never going to happen again. Until it did, when in 2014 Rox & I flew out to Minneapolis-St. Paul and saw The Hold Steady open for The Replacements.

That was an experience that I’ll write about more when I get to The Replacements, but for now, I’ll just say that I can’t imagine any opening band being happier than The Hold Steady was that night, and even better, how much The Replacements fan base were also clearly into The Hold Steady. Way more than The Who’s fan base were into The Clash.

Of course, a lot of things have changed since 1982.

One of those things that haven’t changed, though, is the feeling described in the bridge of “Spinners,” the lead single from The Hold Steady’s 2014’s rebound album, Teeth Dreams.

Once you’re out there everything’s possible
And even the bad nights
They aren’t all that terrible
Loosen your grip, it feels so incredible
Let the city live your life for you tonight

The sympathetic story of a woman going out there night after night and trying to dance her heartbreak away, “Spinners” is full of the roaring guitars, pounding drums and overall focus that characterized Teeth Dreams.

And yet.

Outside of “Spinners” and rolling & tumbling “Almost Everything,” there weren’t a lot of songs on “Teeth Dreams” that approached the glories of their first four records. And here’s what I don’t know: is it them or is it me?

I mean, for the most part, it’s normal: most bands do their best work early, and everything else is downhill from here. There are exceptions: Some Girls, Automatic For The People and Achtung Baby! were all made by veteran bands who had previously seen the quality dip.

But those are exceptions, of course, so I’m curious to see if anything comes out of Franz Nicolay rejoining The Hold Steady for the 10th anniversary of Boys and Girls in America. While I sometimes thought his keyboards were too much, maybe they were actually the exact right ingredient.

The good news is that the songwriting continues to be strong – and that includes both of Craig Finn’s solo albums — so it’s possible that they catch fire the next time they go into the studio.

I’m gonna stay positive.

Official Video for “Spinners”

“Spinners” performed live on World Cafe, 2014

Every Certain Song Ever
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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #608: The Hold Steady – “Spinners” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Heaven is Whenever
Year: 2010

The difficult fifth album. It’s tripped up more than one great band. You start your career with four absolute winners in a row, but while it’s only cool and logical to wanna mix things up, you get too far away from your strengths for your own good.

It happened to the Ramones with End of the Century. It happened to X on Ain’t Love Grand. It happened to Pavement with Terror Twilight. And it happened to The Hold Steady with Heaven is Whenever.

The culprit, I think, was the production, which was simultaneously too thin and too overburdened, like they couldn’t figure out how to fill the space that used to be taken by the departed Franz Nicolay’s keyboards.

I enjoyed nearly all of the songs, but I loved very few of them.

And the only absolute winner was the opening, “The Sweet Part of The City,” which fades in with gently keening slide guitars and wafts gently as Craig Finn reminisces about living in what a friend of my once called “the cool part of town.”

We were living it
We delivered it
We didn’t feel a thing
We were living in

The sweet part of the city (ooooooh)
The parts with the bars and restaurants (ooooh)
We used to meet underneath the marquees
We used to nod off in the matinees

It’s slow and gentle, and while there isn’t a crunchy guitar in sight, there are loads and loads of spooky noises and sleigh bells and descending guitar riffs. It probably shouldn’t work, but it’s absolutely lovely.

And I remember being so thrilled by this song when I first heard it: it wasn’t like any other Hold Steady song I’d ever heard, and yet it felt exactly like them. Of course, that was partly because of the words, which ended with a prototypical Craig Finn lyric.

It’s a long way from Cedar-Riverside to Cedars-Sinai
Three times St. Paul to Cheyenne
And it’s a long way from Sacramento, too
We were bored, so we started a band

We like to play for you
We like to pray for you
We like to pray for you
We like to play for you

It’s a near-perfect way to start an album, and it probably amplified my disappointment — which I should point out is relative, not absolute — with the rest of Heaven is Whenever, which despite things like the chorus of “The Weekenders,” the lyrics of “Heaven is Whenever” and the massive ending of “A Slight Discomfort,” never had a song that gelled quite as well.

“The Sweet Part of The City” performed live in 2010

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #607: The Hold Steady – “The Sweet Part of The City” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Heaven is Whenever
Year: 2010

The difficult fifth album. It’s tripped up more than one great band. You start your career with four absolute winners in a row, but while it’s only cool and logical to wanna mix things up, you get too far away from your strengths for your own good.

It happened to the Ramones with End of the Century. It happened to X on Ain’t Love Grand. It happened to Pavement with Terror Twilight. And it happened to The Hold Steady with Heaven is Whenever.

The culprit, I think, was the production, which was simultaneously too thin and too overburdened, like they couldn’t figure out how to fill the space that used to be taken by the departed Franz Nicolay’s keyboards.

I enjoyed nearly all of the songs, but I loved very few of them.

And the only absolute winner was the opening, “The Sweet Part of The City,” which fades in with gently keening slide guitars and wafts gently as Craig Finn reminisces about living in what a friend of my once called “the cool part of town.”

We were living it
We delivered it
We didn’t feel a thing
We were living in

The sweet part of the city (ooooooh)
The parts with the bars and restaurants (ooooh)
We used to meet underneath the marquees
We used to nod off in the matinees

It’s slow and gentle, and while there isn’t a crunchy guitar in sight, there are loads and loads of spooky noises and sleigh bells and descending guitar riffs. It probably shouldn’t work, but it’s absolutely lovely.

And I remember being so thrilled by this song when I first heard it: it wasn’t like any other Hold Steady song I’d ever heard, and yet it felt exactly like them. Of course, that was partly because of the words, which ended with a prototypical Craig Finn lyric.

It’s a long way from Cedar-Riverside to Cedars-Sinai
Three times St. Paul to Cheyenne
And it’s a long way from Sacramento, too
We were bored, so we started a band

We like to play for you
We like to pray for you
We like to pray for you
We like to play for you

It’s a near-perfect way to start an album, and it probably amplified my disappointment — which I should point out is relative, not absolute — with the rest of Heaven is Whenever, which despite things like the chorus of “The Weekenders,” the lyrics of “Heaven is Whenever” and the massive ending of “A Slight Discomfort,” never had a song that gelled quite as well.

“The Sweet Part of The City” performed live in 2010

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #607: The Hold Steady – “The Sweet Part of The City” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Stay Positive
Year: 2009

I’ve seen The Hold Steady live five times in the past decade, which doesn’t seem like much, but considering that I don’t get out to see shows that much anymore, it’s a pretty fair amount.

And at least two of them were among the greatest shows I’ll ever see: opening for the Replacements in 2014, and of course, 2008’s rock ‘n’ roll lovefest with the Drive-by Truckers, which I wrote about totally hungover while sitting on the floor of the Virgin terminal at LAX waiting for an early flight to Seattle, where we were going to spend Thanksgiving.

During that show with DBT, it was “Magazines” — which starts off with big-ass sustained Who power chords filled with massive amounts of space — that prompted me to write this:

There was a moment last night where they came out of a roaring version “The Swish,” which is probably my favorite song this decade, and went directly into “Magazines,” and it was like I’d never ever heard rock & roll before in my entire life.

I was starting over: I was 15 and discovering The Clash, I was 25 and the Replacements were saving my life. I was NOT 35 and getting sick of the hassle of going to shows; and I sure as shit wasn’t 45, knowing how much planning it took just to get to the show and how much it was going to take out of me the next day.

That’s the power that The Hold Steady wield, at least for me: the ability for me to momentarily transcend everything and just not thing about anything but the moment in which I’m living.

And it probably came down to something as simple as the contrast between the way “The Swish” just ends and “Magazines” crashes into its beginning, always angling towards its call-and-response chorus.

Magazines and daddy issues
I know you’re pretty pissed,
I hope you’ll still let me kiss you

(Magazines and daddy issues
I know you’re pretty pissed
I hope you’ll still let me kiss you)

As a song, “Magazines” lives on the tension between its stop-filled verses — guitars slamming against invisible walls, keyboards trying to figure where to go next — and that chorus, detailing one last relationship on the verge of imploding.

In the end, as “Magazines” builds and fades and crests and flows, you can be excused if you figure that no matter how down and weary Finn sounds as he’s singing this song, the music itself will sustain their relationship, even as you realize it probably won’t.

“Magazines” performed live in 2009

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(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #606: The Hold Steady – “Magazines” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Stay Positive
Year: 2008

One of the things about that differentiated Stay Positive from its predecessors was that there weren’t just quite a few songs that weren’t about fucked-up kids from a fucked-up scene.

Nope, there were also songs about fucked-up adults, too!

Like the protagonist in “Sequestered in Memphis,” who is clearly not having a good day, as he’s being interrogated by cops about something he barely remembers from a recent business trip.

Now they want to know exactly which bathroom
Dude, does it make any difference?
It can’t be important

Yeah, sure I’ll tell my story again

In bar light she looked alright
In daylight she looked desperate
That’s alright, I was desperate too
I’m getting pretty sick of this interview

Driven by a crunchy Tad Kubler guitar riff, and sustained by Franz Nicolay’s soulful stew of organ and piano, the verses of “Sequestered in Memphis” evokes the claustrophobic desperation Finn’s protagonist clearly feels at having to go through all this twice.

And at the same time, the joyful horns and sing-along chorus lets us know that he’s secretly thrilled that this is happening at all, and you can tell that he’s already composing the story he’s going tell everybody once it’s all over.

Subpoenaed in Texas
Sequestered in Memphis
Subpoenaed in Texas
Sequestered in Memphis

As the first single from Stay Positive, there was a feeling that if The Hold Steady were ever going to make the break for the mainstream their music deserved, “Sequestered in Memphis” might just be the song to do it.

After all, it had all of the makings of a classic rock single, right down to the sing-along breakdown that dominated the end.

But of course, in 2008, the chances of anything like that actually happening were already somewhere between zero and none, so it didn’t happen.

“Sequestered in Memphis” performed live in 2009

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

The post Certain Songs #605: The Hold Steady – “Sequestered in Memphis” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Stay Positive
Year: 2008

One of the things about that differentiated Stay Positive from its predecessors was that there weren’t just quite a few songs that weren’t about fucked-up kids from a fucked-up scene.

Nope, there were also songs about fucked-up adults, too!

Like the protagonist in “Sequestered in Memphis,” who is clearly not having a good day, as he’s being interrogated by cops about something he barely remembers from a recent business trip.

Now they want to know exactly which bathroom
Dude, does it make any difference?
It can’t be important

Yeah, sure I’ll tell my story again

In bar light she looked alright
In daylight she looked desperate
That’s alright, I was desperate too
I’m getting pretty sick of this interview

Driven by a crunchy Tad Kubler guitar riff, and sustained by Franz Nicolay’s soulful stew of organ and piano, the verses of “Sequestered in Memphis” evokes the claustrophobic desperation Finn’s protagonist clearly feels at having to go through all this twice.

And at the same time, the joyful horns and sing-along chorus lets us know that he’s secretly thrilled that this is happening at all, and you can tell that he’s already composing the story he’s going tell everybody once it’s all over.

Subpoenaed in Texas
Sequestered in Memphis
Subpoenaed in Texas
Sequestered in Memphis

As the first single from Stay Positive, there was a feeling that if The Hold Steady were ever going to make the break for the mainstream their music deserved, “Sequestered in Memphis” might just be the song to do it.

After all, it had all of the makings of a classic rock single, right down to the sing-along breakdown that dominated the end.

But of course, in 2008, the chances of anything like that actually happening were already somewhere between zero and none, so it didn’t happen.

“Sequestered in Memphis” performed live in 2009

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

The post Certain Songs #605: The Hold Steady – “Sequestered in Memphis” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Stay Positive
Year: 2008

Some of you might have noticed that one of the things I really like in an artist is prolificness.

And by the standards of the 21st century, putting out their three albums in three years, the Hold Steady were absolutely on fire. So to me, the two years between the world-beating Boys and Girls in America and the 2008 follow-up seemed almost interminable.

All of which was instantly forgiven the second “Constructive Summer” came pouring out of the speakers, combining Tad Kubler’s punk riff with Franz Nicolay’s Jerry Lee Lewis piano and maybe Craig Finn’s best opening verse ever.

Me and my friends are like
The drums on “Lust for Life”
We pound it out on floor toms
Our psalms are sing-along songs

Man. It was great to have them back, this band that somehow crammed nearly every other band I ever loved into their super-smart, super-rocking songs.

Summer grant us all the power
To drink on top of watertowers
With love and trust and shows all summer
(Get hammered!)

Let this be my annual reminder
That we could all be something bigger

“Constructive Summer” perfectly captures the essence of first week of summer, when you’re still reeling from the last days of class, but you know that you have just limited amount of time to get the shit done you wanna get done.

And with Tad Kubler’s guitar squealing around the edges, the last verse nearly tops the first.

Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer
I think he might have been our only decent teacher
Getting older makes it harder to remember
We are our only saviours
We’re gonna build something this summer

An absolute scorcher from start start to finish — even the piano-driven breakdown burns and crashes — “Constructive Summer” a near-perfect way to kick off what turned out to be the difficult follow-up album.

And if Stay Positive turned out to be a skosh too restless — some of the experiments slightly off, some of the rockers slightly rote — I still loved it nearly as much as the two titanic records that proceeded it.

“Constructive Summer” performed live in 2009

Fan-made video for “Constructive Summer”

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #604: The Hold Steady – “Constructive Summer” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys And Girls in America
Year: 2006

First it’s just Craig Finn:

“Southtown girls won’t blow you away
But you know that they’ll stay”

Dead air while the rest of the guys saunter up to their respective mics to join in with some raggedly imperfect harmonies.

“Southtown girls won’t blow you away
But you know that they’ll stay”

More dead air. Tumbleweeds. Days, weeks, months pass.

And then, with a swoosh of Franz Nicolay’s organ, the entire band kicks in, and it’s utterly glorious.

Southtown girls won’t blow you away
But you know that they’ll stay

Southtown girls won’t blow you away
But you know that they’ll stay

And then, just like that, Kubler, aided by the huge spaces in Bobby Drake’s drumbeats, peels off yet another big-ass Zep riff that kicks “Southtown Girls” into a new lane.

Meanwhile, Finn gives us some unreliable narration on just how to find the titular girls:

Take Lyndale to the horizon
Take Nicollet out to the ocean
Take Penn Ave out to the 494

Near the end, after a nice twin-guitar solo by Kubler and a rarer-than-rare harmonica solo by Nicolay, the back half of the last verse gets almost funky, as Gavin Polivka leans into his basslines over Drake’s stuttering beat while Finn leaves a couple of text messages.

Meet me right in front of the rainbow foods.
I got a brown paper bag and black buckle shoes.
If anything seems weird then just cruise.

Meet me right in front of the party city.
That two sided tape it gets way too sticky.
I got a bad case of noisemaker blues.

But with “Southtown Girls,” it’s all about that chorus, which rings out over and over again, always keyed to that organ swoosh and those joyful harmonies.

Southtown girls won’t blow you away
But you know that they’ll stay
Southtown girls won’t blow you away
But you know that they’ll stay

Easily the least epic of all of the Hold Steady’s album closers, “Southtown Girls” is nevertheless a fitting closer for Boys and Girls in America, positing that after all of the craziness that goes on between those American boys and girls, sometimes a little stability is just what the doctor ordered.

And for the second straight year, The Hold Steady had made my favorite album of the year.

The last time that had happened was was 1979-1980 with St. Joe Strummer and The Clash, back when I was just beginning to live some of these stories.

Fan-made video for “Southtown Girls”

“Southtown Girls” performed live at Glastonbury, 2007

The post Certain Songs #603: The Hold Steady – “Southtown Girls” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys And Girls in America
Year: 2006

It seems to me that “Chillout Tent” is one of the more divisive songs in the Hold Steady canon.

After all, the story it tells is a combination of meet-cute and meet-gross, featuring a pair of singers — Dave Pirner and Elizabeth Elmore — voicing the thoughts of the characters in the songs, and the music is filled with dramatic piano flourishes and mariachi horns.

Oh and did I mention that it is almost unbearably poignant? All about that one-off make-out session that could have only happened under the exact right circumstances. Or in this case, the exact wrong circumstances. To wit:

There was a stage and a PA
Up in western Massachusetts
The kids came from miles around
To get messed up on the music
She drove down from Bowden
With a carload of girlfriends
To meet some boys
And maybe eat some mushrooms

And, of course, she did. Too many, as a matter of fact, and ended up in the titular tent. Where she met this dude, who looked a lot like my man Izzy Stradlin, and was having his own problem with the misdosing of the substances.

His friend gave him four
But he said only take one
But then he got bored
And he ended up taking all four
So now my man he ain’t that bored, anyways
The paramedics found him
He was shaking on the side of the stage

And so, there they both are. A bit dazed, and wondering how they got there, as first Pirner and then Elmore sing:

Everything was spinning
And then I came to in the chillout tent
They gave me oranges and cigarettes
I got really hot
And then I came to in the chillout tent
They gave us oranges and cigarettes

At this point, Tad Kubler’s guitar is spinning in circles, like a camera doing a 360 around the center of scene, so we can clearly see what’s going to happen next, as they start talking about poetry and stuff.

They started kissing
When the nurses took off their IVs
It was kind of of sexy
But it was kind of creepy
Their mouths were fizzy with the cherry cola
They had the privacy of bedsheets
And all the other kids were mostly in comas

And with the piano dancing on the mariachi horns, they both reflect on what was clearly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

He was kind of cute
We kind of kicked it in the chillout tent
And I never saw that boy again
She was pretty cool
We kind of kicked it in the chillout tent
And I never saw that girl again

There’s also a great musical joke/tribute in the last chorus, where they double-track Dave Pirner’s vocals, just like it was double-tracked in so many Soul Asylum songs.

There is an extra level of wistfulness in “Chillout Tent” that I don’t find in any other Hold Steady songs. Maybe because the characters themselves are singing, maybe because Finn-as-narrator is always going to have the narrator’s distance in his songs, even the ones where he’s a participant.

Maybe it’s those fucking horns, which simultaneously signify both joy and sadness of what was both a completely unique experience and completely lost opportunity. Like, maybe if they had met under different circumstances, it would have been different.

Fan-made video for “Chillout Tent”

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The post Certain Songs #602: The Hold Steady – “Chillout Tent” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys And Girls in America
Year: 2006

This is my favorite song on Boys And Girls in America.

“You Can Make Him Like You” is everything I could want in a rock ‘n’ roll song: catchy, smart and anthemic, and not for a second does it ever stop moving and changing, even as it builds to a fist-pumping, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs climax.

It comes roaring out of the gate with a balance of stinging guitars and big piano hook, before dropping into a quietish first verse where Craig Finn’s giving some pretty sketchy advice:

You don’t have to deal with the dealers
Let your boyfriend deal with the dealers
It only gets inconvenient
When you want to get high alone

You don’t have to know how to get home
Let your boyfriend tell the driver
The best way to go
It only gets kind of weird
When you wanna go home alone

I can’t deny it, there is a bit — maybe even a lot — of meanness in “You Can Make Him Like You,” but the second the full band roars back in between those first two verses, I’m gone. I’m totally and completely gone, so I’m going to make the excuse that this song is about a specific, damaged person.

You don’t have to go to the right kind of schools
Let your boyfriend come from the right kind of schools
You can wear his old sweatshirt
You can cover yourself like a bruise

For four verses, “You Can Make Him Like You” gets more and more intense, so when Franz Nicolay adds a soaring organ and piano triplets to the mix for the chorus, all I can do is sing along.

If you get tired of the the car he drives
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you
If you get tired of the music he likes
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you

At that point, the music drops into a “Candy’s Room” drumroll and piano duel for the bridge, and Finn makes one last observation:

They say you don’t have a problem
Until you start to do it alone
They say you don’t have a problem
Until you start bringing it home
They say you don’t have a problem
Until you start sleeping alone

And then, “You Can Make Him Like You” trumps itself one last time by going into a full-throated stop-time singalong of the chorus:

There’s always other boys
There’s always other boyfriends
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you
There’s always other boys
There’s always other boyfriends
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you

It’s so huge and anthemic that maybe it comes across as empowerment. After all, who wants to deal with the deals or the drivers or the status. Let him deal with all of that shit, and if he turns out to be a dud, find somebody else.

Maybe. All I know is that except for “The Swish,” the ending of “You Can Make Him Like You” is the part of any Hold Steady concert where I lose it the most, just shouting that chorus at the top of my lungs for all I’m worth.

“You Can Make Him Like You”

“You Can Make Him Like You” performed live at Glastonbury 2007

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The post Certain Songs #601: The Hold Steady – “You Can Make Him Like You” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys And Girls in America
Year: 2006

This is my favorite song on Boys And Girls in America.

“You Can Make Him Like You” is everything I could want in a rock ‘n’ roll song: catchy, smart and anthemic, and not for a second does it ever stop moving and changing, even as it builds to a fist-pumping, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs climax.

It comes roaring out of the gate with a balance of stinging guitars and big piano hook, before dropping into a quietish first verse where Craig Finn’s giving some pretty sketchy advice:

You don’t have to deal with the dealers
Let your boyfriend deal with the dealers
It only gets inconvenient
When you want to get high alone

You don’t have to know how to get home
Let your boyfriend tell the driver
The best way to go
It only gets kind of weird
When you wanna go home alone

I can’t deny it, there is a bit — maybe even a lot — of meanness in “You Can Make Him Like You,” but the second the full band roars back in between those first two verses, I’m gone. I’m totally and completely gone, so I’m going to make the excuse that this song is about a specific, damaged person.

You don’t have to go to the right kind of schools
Let your boyfriend come from the right kind of schools
You can wear his old sweatshirt
You can cover yourself like a bruise

For four verses, “You Can Make Him Like You” gets more and more intense, so when Franz Nicolay adds a soaring organ and piano triplets to the mix for the chorus, all I can do is sing along.

If you get tired of the the car he drives
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you
If you get tired of the music he likes
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you

At that point, the music drops into a “Candy’s Room” drumroll and piano duel for the bridge, and Finn makes one last observation:

They say you don’t have a problem
Until you start to do it alone
They say you don’t have a problem
Until you start bringing it home
They say you don’t have a problem
Until you start sleeping alone

And then, “You Can Make Him Like You” trumps itself one last time by going into a full-throated stop-time singalong of the chorus:

There’s always other boys
There’s always other boyfriends
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you
There’s always other boys
There’s always other boyfriends
There’s always other boys
You can make him like you

It’s so huge and anthemic that maybe it comes across as empowerment. After all, who wants to deal with the deals or the drivers or the status. Let him deal with all of that shit, and if he turns out to be a dud, find somebody else.

Maybe. All I know is that except for “The Swish,” the ending of “You Can Make Him Like You” is the part of any Hold Steady concert where I lose it the most, just shouting that chorus at the top of my lungs for all I’m worth.

“You Can Make Him Like You”

“You Can Make Him Like You” performed live at Glastonbury 2007

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The post Certain Songs #601: The Hold Steady – “You Can Make Him Like You” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys And Girls in America
Year: 2006

Boys and girls in America.

I’m sure I’m conflating a bunch of different memories into a single moment, but I still have a memory of the first night I felt part of the Fresno Tower scene. It was a warm summer evening in 1985, and it was at the Wild Blue.

Boys and girls in America.

I don’t recall who was playing: it coulda been Aqua Bob or The Wayne Foundation or Western Chapter or somebody else. It doesn’t really matter, because there was as much going on outside as there was inside.

Boys and girls in America.

And by “as much” of course, I meant that there were a lot of college girls hanging around outside, not old enough to get in. Some of them I’d met at CSUF, others I hadn’t. All of whom were smart and interesting and — maybe not on that first night — were coming to the realization that maybe us boys and girls were all becoming part of something bigger, even if we couldn’t define exactly what that was.

Boys and girls in America.

But in the meantime, let’s walk over to Mayfair market across the street and get some beer so we could sit on the warm asphalt and talk.

Boys and girls in America.

When Craig Finn referenced Jack Kerouac for the title of this album — and made it a refrain in this song — he was drawing a line straight through decades of American youth, creating scene and spitting white noise for a time, and then watching it all disintegrate over time, because that’s the only possible outcome.

Boys and girls in America.

Of course, you don’t know that on the first night. Instead, you’re completely overwhelmed by the sea of possibilities, and want it to last forever just so you can experience every single one.

But of course that sea narrows down to a trickle.

Boys and girls in America.

And I think that’s what the slow, piano-driven ballad, “First Night,” is about: about coming to terms with that inevitability. And while the details of the song are different than the details of my life, the feeling it evokes is utterly spot-on.

Holly’s inconsolable
Unhinged and uncontrollable
Because we can’t get as high as we got
On that first night

So I watched our scene coalesce, climax and crash within the space of several years, and then got the hell out of town because I didn’t know what else to do, but have always wondered who I would have been if I hadn’t.

Boys and girls in America.

“First Night” performed live

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The post Certain Songs #600: The Hold Steady – “First Night” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys and Girls in America
Year: 2006

“Chips Ahoy” was the first single from “Boys and Girls in America,” and like “The Swish” and “Banging Camp,” Craig Finn is trying to fit all of his words in and around Tad Kubler’s big-ass power chords.

The result is one of those Hold Steady songs that sounds like one of of the rockers from The River had that album been made by a Springsteen influenced not by 1960s frat-rock, but rather, The Clash.

So it’s guitar guitar guitar until Finn comes in.

She put $900 on the fifth horse in the sixth race
I think its name was Chips Ahoy!

At that point, the guitars crash louder, drummer Bobby Drake does a couple of rolls, and for a second, we’re all wondering what happens next.

Came in six lengths ahead,
We spent the whole next week getting high
At first I thought that shit hit on some tip
That she got from some other boy
We were overjoyed

Whoa-uh-oooooh-ooh-ooh-ha-ho!
Whoa-uh-oooooh-ooh-ooh-ha-ho!

And so here’s the thing about “Chips Ahoy!” It’s so permeated by those “whoa-oooooh-ooh-ha-hos,” plus massive guitar chords and organ flourishes, you’d be completely excused if you used all of the upbeat joy they signify to ignore the plaintive chorus.

But then again, good luck ignoring this:

How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t let me touch you?
How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t even dance?
How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t let me touch you?
How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t even dance?

Later on in the song, Tad Kubler and Franz Nicolay have a horse race of their own, trading off solos like they’re Jon Lord & Ritchie Blackmore, but again, it just leads back to the unspoken question posed by the chorus, which is this: why am I even here?

Official Video for “Chips Ahoy!”

“Chips Ahoy!” performed live on Later With Jools Holland

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(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #599: The Hold Steady – “Chips Ahoy” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys and Girls in America
Year: 2006

“Chips Ahoy” was the first single from “Boys and Girls in America,” and like “The Swish” and “Banging Camp,” Craig Finn is trying to fit all of his words in and around Tad Kubler’s big-ass power chords.

The result is one of those Hold Steady songs that sounds like one of of the rockers from The River had that album been made by a Springsteen influenced not by 1960s frat-rock, but rather, The Clash.

So it’s guitar guitar guitar until Finn comes in.

She put $900 on the fifth horse in the sixth race
I think its name was Chips Ahoy!

At that point, the guitars crash louder, drummer Bobby Drake does a couple of rolls, and for a second, we’re all wondering what happens next.

Came in six lengths ahead,
We spent the whole next week getting high
At first I thought that shit hit on some tip
That she got from some other boy
We were overjoyed

Whoa-uh-oooooh-ooh-ooh-ha-ho!
Whoa-uh-oooooh-ooh-ooh-ha-ho!

And so here’s the thing about “Chips Ahoy!” It’s so permeated by those “whoa-oooooh-ooh-ha-hos,” plus massive guitar chords and organ flourishes, you’d be completely excused if you used all of the upbeat joy they signify to ignore the plaintive chorus.

But then again, good luck ignoring this:

How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t let me touch you?
How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t even dance?
How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t let me touch you?
How am I supposed to know that you’re high
If you won’t even dance?

Later on in the song, Tad Kubler and Franz Nicolay have a horse race of their own, trading off solos like they’re Jon Lord & Ritchie Blackmore, but again, it just leads back to the unspoken question posed by the chorus, which is this: why am I even here?

Official Video for “Chips Ahoy!”

“Chips Ahoy!” performed live on Later With Jools Holland

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #599: The Hold Steady – “Chips Ahoy” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Boys and Girls in America
Year: 2006

Welcome to my favorite album of this century.

Actually, (and yes, I’m “actually”ing myself), welcome to my favorite album since Nevermind & Achtung Baby!, which makes Boys and Girls in America my favorite album of the past quarter-century.

And if I could somehow prorate the age I was when this album came out against the age I was when I first discovered all of the albums I would otherwise put into my all-time top 20, it would definitely be in the conversation.

On Boys and Girls in America, their sound thickened. If Franz Nicolay’s keyboards were used for color and flavor on Separation Sunday, now they were an integral part of a thick stew.

It’s all right there in the opening of the first song on the album, “Stuck Between Stations,” which opens with a guitar stab that is almost instantly countered by a rolling piano and a kick drum build into the song proper, at which point Craig Finn essays his thesis statement for the entire album.

There are nights when I think
That Sal Paradise was right
Boys and girls in America
They have such a sad time together

It’s a classic rock ‘n’ roll subject, of course. The classic rock ‘n’ roll subject really, but Finn infuses his tales of young love and lust with a specificity that resonates beyond the individual people he’s writing about.

She was a really cool kisser
And she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian
She was a damn good dancer
But she wasn’t all that great of a girlfriend
He likes the warm feeling
But he’s tired of all the dehydration
Most nights are crystal clear
But tonight it’s like he’s stuck between stations

On the radio

In fact, it resonates beyond generations. I mean, in the age of digital tuners, getting stuck between stations is a near-impossibility, and yet anybody who hears this song knows exactly what he’s on about. And it also helps that Nicolay’s backing vocals come in just perfectly throughout.

And the stinging guitar that Tad Kubler brings in after the chorus doesn’t hurt, either.

There was that night that we thought
John Berryman could fly
But he didn’t, so he died
She said “You’re pretty good with words,
But words won’t save your life”
And they didn’t, so he died

I didn’t know who John Berryman was, but I sure got the Jim Carroll reference, and either way, that verse was funny and poignant at the same time, and has always killed me, maybe because I’m always worried about whether or not I’m going to need my words to save my life, as well.

It’s only a guess, but the mix of wit and full-bore rock — even during the piano breakdown — that defines “Stuck Between Stations” is probably why it’s probably the consensus favorite Hold Steady song as far as the fanbase is concerned.

It’s not mine, but it is a helluva way to begin a helluva record.

Official Video for “Stuck Between Stations”

“Stuck Between Stations” performed lived on Late Night with David Letterman

“Stuck Between Stations” performed live on Later With Jools Holland

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The post Certain Songs #598: The Hold Steady – “Stuck Between Stations” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Separation Sunday
Year: 2005

Despite putting out their records in the era of shuffled playlists, The Hold Steady have had a tradition of ending their albums with an epic, multi-part song.

And given that it was concept album, Separation Sunday is no exception, capping off with the haunting “How A Resurrection Really Feels,” which kicks off with a lengthy curlicue guitar riff as Craig Finn lets us know what’s up with one of the major characters, Halluejah, who the kids call Holly.

The priest just kinda laughed
The deacon caught a draft
She crashed into the Easter mass
With her hair done up in broken glass
She was limping left on broken heels
When she said, “Father, can I tell your congregation
How a resurrection really feels?”

And as Holly’s story gets told, augmented by the guitar riff and even some horns, the guitars ebb and flow until the inevitable breakdown and resurrection of the song into something else entirely different.

That’s when Franz Nicolay’s keyboards starts floating through the track like a ticking clock and the backing vocalists start chanting “Walk on back, walk on back,” like a pair of hoodrat Dionne Warwicks who’d only heard her song on the radio that one time.

That’s when Craig Finn ends the album with the perfect mix of the sacred and profane, looking at this woman who’s clearly had a some kind of epiphany and noticing the exact wrong thing.

Hallelujah was a sexy mess
She looked strung out but experienced
So we all got kind of curious …

After that, Tad Kubler comes in with a long guitar solo fighting for space with the chants of “Walk on back” and the horns and the endless tick-tock of the keyboards, and it’s utterly gloriously sexy mess in and of itself, not to mention the perfect way to end this sprawling, ambitious sexy mess of an album.

Separation Sunday was easily my favorite album of 2005, and probably the 2000s, and if you were to ask me in early 2006, I would have said that it was quite possibly the best album of the decade, or at least in the conversation.

One thing I was certain about, there was no way The Hold Steady was going to be able to top it. Until they did.

“How A Resurrection Really Feels” performed live in 2009

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The post Certain Songs #597: The Hold Steady – “How a Resurrection Really Feels” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Separation Sunday
Year: 2005

Despite putting out their records in the era of shuffled playlists, The Hold Steady have had a tradition of ending their albums with an epic, multi-part song.

And given that it was concept album, Separation Sunday is no exception, capping off with the haunting “How A Resurrection Really Feels,” which kicks off with a lengthy curlicue guitar riff as Craig Finn lets us know what’s up with one of the major characters, Halluejah, who the kids call Holly.

The priest just kinda laughed
The deacon caught a draft
She crashed into the Easter mass
With her hair done up in broken glass
She was limping left on broken heels
When she said, “Father, can I tell your congregation
How a resurrection really feels?”

And as Holly’s story gets told, augmented by the guitar riff and even some horns, the guitars ebb and flow until the inevitable breakdown and resurrection of the song into something else entirely different.

That’s when Franz Nicolay’s keyboards starts floating through the track like a ticking clock and the backing vocalists start chanting “Walk on back, walk on back,” like a pair of hoodrat Dionne Warwicks who’d only heard her song on the radio that one time.

That’s when Craig Finn ends the album with the perfect mix of the sacred and profane, looking at this woman who’s clearly had a some kind of epiphany and noticing the exact wrong thing.

Hallelujah was a sexy mess
She looked strung out but experienced
So we all got kind of curious …

After that, Tad Kubler comes in with a long guitar solo fighting for space with the chants of “Walk on back” and the horns and the endless tick-tock of the keyboards, and it’s utterly gloriously sexy mess in and of itself, not to mention the perfect way to end this sprawling, ambitious sexy mess of an album.

Separation Sunday was easily my favorite album of 2005, and probably the 2000s, and if you were to ask me in early 2006, I would have said that it was quite possibly the best album of the decade, or at least in the conversation.

One thing I was certain about, there was no way The Hold Steady was going to be able to top it. Until they did.

“How A Resurrection Really Feels” performed live in 2009

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #597: The Hold Steady – “How a Resurrection Really Feels” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Separation Sunday
Year: 2005

While The Hold Steady usually get described as being somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and The Replacements, there is a surprising amount of Led Zeppelin in their music.

And while in retrospect, that should be somewhat obvious — the b-side of their first single was a cover of “Hey Hey What Can I Do,” — in 2005, I was totally surprised by the big-ass Zep riff that Tad Kubler unleashed for the epic “Stevie Nix,” which they could have easily titled “In My Time of Living.”

You came into the ER
Dinking gin from a jam jar
And the nurse is making jokes
About the ER being like an after bar

Of course, and given that riff is framing vivid scenes that could be entire songs in and of themselves, you could be excused for thinking that “Stevie Nix” is just another story about the the kids and what they were doing during their unconstructive summer vacations.

Instead, it gets heavy as it gets druggy, as Finn conflates one of rock ‘n’ rolls most enduring urban legends and a real life tragedy:

She said you remind me of Rod Stewart
When he was young
You’ve got passion and you think that you’re sexy
And all the punks think that you’re dumb
The guys around the lockers
Got a story about the stomach pump
And the guys behind the theater
Found a body in the garbage dump

And just like that, “Stevie Nix” completely breaks down.

And as Franz Nicolay makes like Roy Bittan for awhile, just noodling around the piano, letting us know that nothing is ever going to be the same again. And when Craig Finn finally comes in again, the entire mood of the song has gone from aggressive and cocky to wistful and philosophical.

She got screwed up by religion
She got screwed by soccer players
She got high for the first time at the camps
Down by the banks of the Mississippi River
Lord, to be seventeen forever

“Lord, to be seventeen forever.”

I mean, right? I mean, when I was seventeen when I graduated from high school, and I would of course love to have that endless potential and infinite energy forever and forever, but if we could keep the potential & energy but skip all of the subsequent fuck-ups, that would be OK, please and thank you.

She got strung out on the scene
And she got scared when it got druggy
The way the whispers bit like fangs
In the last hour of the party
Lord, to be thirty-three forever

“Lord, to be thirty-three forever.”

Of course, that was the age that Jesus died, and for me, 33 was the age where I realize that I needed to at least and try to become a responsible adult. And so, to me, being thirty-three forever means forever delaying the decision to grow up, once and for all.

Not that growing up (to the extent that I have) in the last 20 years has been so awful, but there is always going to be something about balancing on that precipice of youth and maturity that defined the mid-1990s for me that I’m always going to treasure, especially because I fell in the right direction.

Meanwhile, “Stevie Nix” ends with a long, twin-guitar elegy just so you can reflect on growing older while remembering being younger.

“Stevie Nix” performed live in 2009

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The post Certain Songs #596: The Hold Steady – “Stevie Nix” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Separation Sunday
Year: 2005

It starts with that riff: just a couple of Tad Kubler power chords, banging from speaker to speaker until they create a third one and the drums kick in.

And suddenly, the snare drum appears in between those chords for an infinitely infinitesimal moment at a time, and “Banging Camp” is already near perfect before Craig Finn opens his mouth.

But you know that Craig Finn always opens his mouth.

Holly wore a string around her finger
She said it helps her to remember
All the nights that we got over
And besides, it ties her outfit all together
Holly wore a string around her finger

There are strings attached to every single lover
But they still can’t even tether us together
Listen to the back of the theater,
I think they really love one another
There are strings attached to every single lover

In the space of two verses, we’ve gone from a single string to the invisible ties that bind us to our past even when we’ve completely broken them. And the whole time, those two-plus-one chords have never stopped, not even for a second, suddenly, the riff breaks into a lead guitar over Franz Nicolay’s circus organ as “Banging Camp” tries to get away from itself.

When they say great white sharks
They mean the kind in big black cars
When they say killer whales
They mean they whaled on him
’til they killed him up in Penetration Park

But the riff is too strong, so it comes back, as Kubler adds even more guitars and we get to one of my favorite lyrics in all of Separation Sunday, as the hoodrat chicks sing with the riff.

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

As the song moves on, alternating between the chords and the build, suddenly there’s a breakdown. You’ll notice that all of these great Hold Steady songs have a breakdown at some point.

At least on Separation Sunday, they weren’t so much about verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-solo-verse-chorus out, but rather verse-verse-almostachorus-verse-solo-breakdown-whateverman.

So on the breakdown there’s a dual guitar solo that sound like rain falling on the banging camps and when the rest of the band kicks in, it’s with churning guitars, church organ and even a horn section taking the song higher and higher and higher, as Finn conflates two different kinds of ecstasies.

I saw him at the riverbank
He was breaking bread and giving thanks
With crosses made of pipes and planks
Leaned up against the nitrous tanks

And he said take a hit
Hold your breath and I’ll dunk your head
Then when you wake up again
Yeah, you’ll be high as hell and born again

And with that, “Banging Camp” just stops dead, dunked under the river.

And when it resurfaces, gasping for breath, it’s with the riff, because what else is going to make a song like “Banging Camp” born again to run?

“Banging Camp”

“Banging Camp” performed live in Minneapolis, 2005

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

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The post Certain Songs #595: The Hold Steady – “Banging Camp” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Separation Sunday
Year: 2005

It starts with that riff: just a couple of Tad Kubler power chords, banging from speaker to speaker until they create a third one and the drums kick in.

And suddenly, the snare drum appears in between those chords for an infinitely infinitesimal moment at a time, and “Banging Camp” is already near perfect before Craig Finn opens his mouth.

But you know that Craig Finn always opens his mouth.

Holly wore a string around her finger
She said it helps her to remember
All the nights that we got over
And besides, it ties her outfit all together
Holly wore a string around her finger

There are strings attached to every single lover
But they still can’t even tether us together
Listen to the back of the theater,
I think they really love one another
There are strings attached to every single lover

In the space of two verses, we’ve gone from a single string to the invisible ties that bind us to our past even when we’ve completely broken them. And the whole time, those two-plus-one chords have never stopped, not even for a second, suddenly, the riff breaks into a lead guitar over Franz Nicolay’s circus organ as “Banging Camp” tries to get away from itself.

When they say great white sharks
They mean the kind in big black cars
When they say killer whales
They mean they whaled on him
’til they killed him up in Penetration Park

But the riff is too strong, so it comes back, as Kubler adds even more guitars and we get to one of my favorite lyrics in all of Separation Sunday, as the hoodrat chicks sing with the riff.

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

As the song moves on, alternating between the chords and the build, suddenly there’s a breakdown. You’ll notice that all of these great Hold Steady songs have a breakdown at some point.

At least on Separation Sunday, they weren’t so much about verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-solo-verse-chorus out, but rather verse-verse-almostachorus-verse-solo-breakdown-whateverman.

So on the breakdown there’s a dual guitar solo that sound like rain falling on the banging camps and when the rest of the band kicks in, it’s with churning guitars, church organ and even a horn section taking the song higher and higher and higher, as Finn conflates two different kinds of ecstasies.

I saw him at the riverbank
He was breaking bread and giving thanks
With crosses made of pipes and planks
Leaned up against the nitrous tanks

And he said take a hit
Hold your breath and I’ll dunk your head
Then when you wake up again
Yeah, you’ll be high as hell and born again

And with that, “Banging Camp” just stops dead, dunked under the river.

And when it resurfaces, gasping for breath, it’s with the riff, because what else is going to make a song like “Banging Camp” born again to run?

“Banging Camp”

“Banging Camp” performed live in Minneapolis, 2005

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

The post Certain Songs #595: The Hold Steady – “Banging Camp” appeared first on Booksquare.

Album: Separation Sunday
Year: 2005

So like most people who have a writing bent, I’ve tried my hand at writing fiction.

I’ve written a couple of unpublished short stories, and I started a novel in the early 1990s that had I been able to somehow finish then (ha!) would have been a contemporary novel about being young and if I would be able to finish now (double ha!) would now be a pure nostalgia piece.

And as you can imagine, all of the fiction was just thinly-disguised versions of all of the crazy shit we were up to in the 1980s, just as Craig Finn’s best lyrics feel like they were based upon real people and incidents.

Your little hoodrat friend makes me sick
But after I get sick I just get sad
‘Cause it burns being broke, hurts to be heartbroken
And always being both must be a drag

Delivered over a relentlessly chugging guitar — think “Just What I Needed” — that verse sets up the rest of the song, and here’s the thing. I’d never ever heard the word “hoodrat” before this song. Maybe it was an age thing, maybe it was a regional thing.

Luckily, Finn’s right there with some telling details

Tiny little text etched into her neck
It said “Jesus lived and died for all your sins”
She’s got blue black ink and it’s scratched into her lower back
Says “Damn right, He’ll rise again”
Yeah, damn right, she’ll rise again
Damn right, you’ll rise again<

By the time Tad Kubler ditches the Cars guitars for the big guitars, I know exactly who this hoodrat was, even as I was being by Franz Nicolay tossing enough organ & piano into the mix to make the whole like Pleased to Meet Me as played by The E. Street Band.

Meanwhile, Finn and backing singer Nicole Willis are harmonizing on the defensively catchy chorus:

But I ain’t never been with your little hoodrat friend
I ain’t never been with your little hoodrat friend
I ain’t never been with your little hoodrat friend
What makes you think I’m getting
With your little hoodrat friend?

While Finn is admitting that they got high together and talked about religion and not having sex with each other, she also makes an observation about her scene changing, as they always do. And even those she was still young, you could just hear the weary sigh that accompanied this:

She said City Center used to be
The center of our scene
Now City Center’s over
No one really goes there
Back then we used to drink
Beneath this railroad bridge
Some nights the bus wouldn’t even stop
There were just too many kids

You can see it, can’t you? The bus approaching the stop near the bridge, the driver hesitating for a second, and then deciding “fuck this, it’s just too much trouble,” and driving off, leaving a whole passel of kids with no way to get home.

It’s such a beautiful detail, and while it probably only ever happened a couple of times, it’s still a beautiful way to define those summer nights where everybody just happen to show up for no other reason than there wasn’t anything else to do that night and maybe other people were going to be there.

Which seems impossible in the time of instant messaging, but for years and years and years, I would go to various hangouts in the Tower District without any kind of plan outside of have a drink or a few, never knowing who might be there or who might not be there.

Not every night, of course. I mean there were shows to go to and parties to go to and pre-made plans over the phone, but those were the exception, not the rule. So I guess I was a hoodrat for a time.

“Your Little Hoodrat Friend” performed live

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

The post Certain Songs #594: The Hold Steady – “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” appeared first on Booksquare.