There's a first-person perspective. There's rain. Darkness. A graveyard. A car -- not just a car, a Cadillac! There are not only tracks but a man down at them, who says stuff, great stuff, the kind of stuff you hope to hear from a man who says stuff down at the tracks.
The getting in and then out of the Cadillac suggests something untoward. Call it off-screen action. Verlaine also happens to be a great chronicler of the dark side of city life. As far as I can tell, one of the lines seems to be "Life in the hive puckered up my night," which I take to be the speaker expressing his powerlessness in a big, crowded city. Maybe?
I have another song for you here. This is by another 70s NYC band, Suicide. "Frankie Teardrop" is about a poverty-stricken factory worker who loses his job and kills his family and goes to hell. Some noir tropes: powerlessness, fate, money, luridness. This one, much easier to figure out. Much harder to listen to. I mean, just be advised.
Television <3 (Tried to buy this on vinyl once but it was around 80 bucks *le sigh*)
ReplyDeleteRemember that we wouldn't have Television without the Velvet Underground, right? And the Velvet alumni did some pretty noir stuff too— John Cale in particular, with songs like "Fear", "Guts", and "Gun."
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to a later noir song in the new wave genre sort of, by Stan Ridgway.
Yes! I think Cale's crazy coked out era is full of good examples. I considered mentioning his cover of "Heartbreak Hotel," which brings to the forefront the already present noir elements in the original.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting the Ridgway song. I hadn't realized that his songs had such story-like qualities. Nice to know that there's more to the "Mexican Radio" guy.