It’s hard choosing a song for my first recommendation. I don’t want to scare off my readers (is the plural presumptuous?) by picking something too avant-garde (French for “wtf”); nor do I want to serve up the musical fast-food being flipped at the top 40 station down the street. I feel like one of those ‘American Idol’ blow-up singers (um, contestants) sniffling about the epic challenge of “song choice” during ‘Has-Been Promoting Disappointing New Album’ theme week (weeks 1 through every effing week); but it really is a major stressor. I mean for some readers (there's my grandiosity again) this might be a true blind date (I seriously considered writing “blind first date”, because even married couples go on blind dates if they are actually blind), and I want my music taste to make a stellar first impression. Can I be blamed for spending a little extra time choosing an outfit?
Ok. Choice made. I am going with ‘The Felice Brothers’ and their song ‘Frankie’s Gun’. Why? Because it’s just the right mix of con-man swagger and street-husker stagger. You get the feeling that these musicians met at a bar, drank up a tab they couldn’t afford, and are settling their debts with an impromptu performance on the bar’s sawdust covered stage. Yep, that’s vomit in the sawdust. No, it stays till the song's good and done.
If not drunks, they are certainly liars and thieves. They stole the weary bones right out of Bob Dylan and even pocketed the croak of his voice. And yet I don’t grudge them for it one bit. It’s just part of the side-show, a Carney in Bob Dylan drag. You don’t blame a wild animal for shitting in the woods, and you don’t blame a Carney for wearing his truths a little loose. Even if you do, the Carney’s not giving your dollar back.
The lyrics of this song, as best as I can tell, involve the narrator being shot by a guy named ‘Frankie’. I pieced this together by decoding the subtleties of the chorus:
“Bang bang bang went Frankie's gun
He shot me down, Lucille (x2)
He shot me down (x3)”
That’s a college education at work. It also seems that Frankie and the narrator are partners in some sort of shady business in Chicago, though the “cargo” they are transporting is never laid clear. Additionally, Lucille is said to be the narrator’s clothes-sporting lady-friend ("Count the money / But don't count the thirty in the glove box, buddy. / That's for to buy Lucille some clothes"), and the narrator is self-reported to be a staunch advocate against domestic violence (“I saw a man hit my mom one time, really / I hurt him so damn bad I had to hide in Jersey”) at least when it is directed towards his mother.
Beyond that, little else is explained or needed to be explained. A narrator coming off a bender following the passing of the exquisitely-named “Long-Legged Brenda” (pronounced with the adjective as her proper name) shouldn’t be expected to keep his story straight.
What’s that line again about a wild animal shitting in the woods?
Link to youtube video of song:
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