Pure Punk Picks
It’s Too Late – Jim Carroll Band
“It’s too late to fall in love with Sharon Tate.” (Slaughtered by the Charles Manson clan, she was a Hollywood actress). “But it’s too soon to ask me for the words I want carved on my tomb.”
Well, Jim died about ten years ago and I did try, unsuccessfully, to find out what was written on his tombstone.
But Jim was a true word artist, a true poet and writer who had a little foray into the musical world in the eighties. His writing embodies New York city life or really, East Coast city life which is the life I experienced living in Boston around the same time he did and still do.
And his short time as a recording artist was moderately successful. His most well-known song would be “People Who Died” though containing some incredibly descriptive lines is ultimately, more an unintentionally humorous song for me than a poignant one.
But all of his lyrics are great and his band, though not really being a punk band, did play in a great, gritty, rock’n’roll style, a punk’n’roll style similar to The Rolling Stones.
Think of the Jim Carroll Band as Lou Reed fronting The Stones and you wouldn’t be far off. (And wouldn’t that have been an interesting collaboration?)
And though I consider Reed the best rock lyricist and therefore, the best New York rock lyricist of all time. Well, Jim and Patti Smith run a close, second and third. And they all deserve the moniker of poet, not just rock lyricist.
“It’s too late. You shoulda realized I was worth the wait. But you didn’t hesitate. When he took you off, you let him seal our fate.”
The music of this song has a hard rockin’ groove with a gutsy, almost sinister unison bass and guitar lick that sounds like a descent into an East Coast dark and dingy subway during a summer heat wave where a feeling of danger and oppression mix with the dirt and grime.
There’s also some fancy, shmancy lead guitar work here but that doesn’t distract from the New York rock’n’roll sound that you can sense in everyone from sixties bands like The Rascals and The Velvet Underground to the New York Dolls and Kiss to Blue Oyster Cult and The Ramones.
Compare those bands sounds with the West Coast San Francisco hippie bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane Crosby, Stills and Nash and you can hear a world of difference.
And mostly favorable to our coast in my opinion. And yes, I love all those East Coast bands and very little from that other coast. For me it’s like The Eagles and The Dead versus The Velvet Underground and The Ramones.
No contest.
“So I think it’s time. That you all start to think about gettin’ by, without that need to go out and find somebody to love.” (Actually, a pretty neat song by The Jefferson Airplane- “Somebody To Love”. Just don’t bring up that dreadful Queen song by the same name to me- please!)
I know marriages are fifty-fifty in lasting and committed loving relationships a whole lot less. I know several great, long-lasting relationships myself, but not compared to the number of ones I’ve known that have gone down in flames.
This song seems to question the need for “a partner.”
I know that people try to find happiness from outside instead of within. And usually, it’s through materialistic goods that they feed upon, more and more, like an addiction that somehow never placates their desire and doesn’t bring them the happiness that they search for.
But I also feel that people sometimes think another person can fulfill their feelings of inadequacy, of worth, of validation.
The bottom line is no one can make you feel happy and content with yourself but you.
I got divorced about ten years ago, shortly before Andy Bang had this crazy idea for Thrash N Bang. I’ve had no conventional romantic relationship during this time and I don’t expect to have anymore in the future.
And it’s turned out to be the best ten years of my life.
Maybe I’ve taken the advice of this song?
But I’m an odd man in an odd life so don’t look towards me for any guidance?
Though I do think it’s about time for me to think about Jim Carroll’s work as a writer even if I can’t find out what the words are that are carved on his tomb.
Well, I do believe in the phrase “let the words speak for themselves” so I’ll leave you with some of his, from two other of his songs:
“Day and night, the shadows start to scatter. When touched by light, each promise made is shattered. And even when the question finds the answer. But even then, they’re something like a dancer. Like day and night, dark to light. I move from day to night.”
“‘Cause when the city drops into the night. Before the darkness there’s one moment of light. When everything seems clear. The other side it seems so near. What seems wrong. I think it’s gonna be just about right. Before the city drops, the city drops into the night.”
I think it’s very clear that Carroll felt and expressed that perfect moment…many times.
(Slimedog)
