Thursday, April 24, 2014
Musical interlude - today's edition
Yes, there is a certain frequent LITD commenter who will fairly quickly chime in along the lines of "You do realize this is about the leviathan state's attempt to circumscribe the individual human being's right to tend to his consciousness as he or she see fit, don't you?" And I do. And it's for that reason that I don't get militant about drug policy one way or the other. This gets into even touchier areas than health care policy debates.
In any event, for some reason lately, I've been revisiting this 1970s ensemble. I'm a ware that their manager, Sandy Pearlman, was a bit of a huckster and wanted them to put forth this kind of cosmically dark image, but clearly, unless the songs had been less well-composed - and they are indeed well-composed - and the recorded performances less deftly executed, they would not have resurfaced on the radar screen of the likes of me in 2014. Expert verse-and-refrain craftsmanship, snazzy - and I don't mean over-the-top exercises in excess testosterone runoff, but rather "that's not the kind of phrase I would have thought to put there"-type guitar phrases - licks, usually just a few bars, as a way of winding up a particular passage.
And there's an earthiness to the storyline of the lyrics that nicely bounces off the more black-and-white, M.C. Escher-esque geometric, stark, very-much-squared-off vibe the band was obviously aiming for. There's a certain point on the rightie spectrum that provides a home to the outlaws of American culture who are so outlaw that they no longer find themselves welcome in their former dens. Think Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer, David Mamet.
I'm certainly not saying anyone who has ever been in the BOC would proclaim any kind of alignment with the Weltanschauung of anyone enumerated above, but it provides an invitation to look at our basic relations with one another in situations such as depicted in this song. When one party in a human interaction is representing the state, and that party is there on business, you'd best have your wits about you.
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John likes this
ReplyDeleteI took the lyrics to mean that the fat wallet boys got double-crossed by a "criminal" of more dire ilk. In the free market world these boys would have had to work a bit harder for that wad of cash. And there would have been no reason to kill them off. Cops would just seize their property and throw their asses in jail for a decade or so.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Buck Dharma, "(Then Came The) Last Days Of May" is the true story of three collegiate drug dealers who went to Tucson to score for the fall semester. They were ripped off and shot. While two of the guys died, the other survived to testify against the perpetrators, who were two young men from a notorious wealthy local family. They apparently served about ten years in prison before being released."
ReplyDeletefound this info here: members.aol.com/bocfaqman/…
jahrootson February 20, 2007 Link
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Song Meaning:
You've all missed the central point of awesomeness of this song. It's pretty subtle. Who the fuck is the only person who could be singing this song?
This song is sung from the POV of the guy who murdered the passengers. The driver is singing this song. He killed them all, took their money, and is now moving on to other things, and inviting you to be his next victim.
I bet BOC is pretty disappointed how few people got this song.
muldrakeon February 27, 2011
Read more at http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858505723/
So how does this song fit in with the leviathan state's Drug War, which is yet another war lost in our lifetime, along with the War on Poverty and of course the wars in Viet Nam and Iraq? My personal experience upon my 1st "high" in 1969 which came after 2 previous attempts failed (gee, that's powerful stuff, you have to "learn" the high, unlike the punch of drunkenness, was, "this is what they're all fussing about as being so dangerous?" I proceeded to ignore the Leviathan state's prohibitions and am standing still. Booze got to me, had to quit. I know, what a wus!
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