Pony St.

My wife hates baby boomers.

Maybe "hate" is a strong word, but she blames them (and rightly so, in my opinion) for much of what's wrong with our country and culture. She's especially right about their dominance over popular art; they're the reason Mick Jagger and his fellows still have a career in spite of their age and general lack of whatever it was that first made the true spirit of rock 'n' roll ignite lo those many years ago.

But it's a coin with two sides; we of generations beyond the baby boom look back at these relics of an older time and wonder why we still have to cater to these dottering old fools; the boomers probably look down at us from the distance of age and experience and giggle a bit at how everything that was edgy and revolutionary upon its invention just continues to get recycled in new forms--early rock is punk is gangsta rap, and so on. 

"Pony St." leads off Costello's 1994 album Brutal Youth, and it covers both sides of the coin--the child frustrated by how square and antiquated her parents are, and the mother who has been and done everything her kid is trying as a way of staking her own claim on rebellion. It's told mostly from the mother's point of view, but the daughter gets her own say in a verse, and even if it's the daughter speaking through the filter of her mother's frustration, the words still sting:

Oh mother, oh mother, sometimes you are so mortifying

From the hole in your leopard skin tights I can tell you've been spying

But your generation confesses before it transgresses

Those Super-8 movies of Daddy in your disco dresses

Costello is known for his lyrical bite, but that doesn't mean his words don't leave teeth marks; "Pony St." has a few of my all-time favorite Costello lines...

If you're going out tonight

I won't wait up

Reading "Das Capital"

Watching Home Shopping Club

There's an apparent collision of socialism and capitalism in those two last lines; we've essentially seen the idealist philosophies of the love generation twisted and bent into the same get-more-now lifestyle that they seemed to reject in their youth, which is perhaps what made their youth quite so brutal? The failed promise of it, and the desire for change eventually replaced with a stultifying satisfaction with the status quo? 

Or even worse--they think they've changed everything for the better, but nothing's changed at all?

And then later:

If you're going out tonight

How can you be sure

Where you lay your pretty head

Mother may have been before

The "nothing new under the sun" concept taken to its logical, bitter end--you can't escape the past, and sometimes, you lie down beneath it and think of England, whether you realize it or not. 

The Big Light

On some EC tunes, it's hard to uncover his meanings and motives; on this track, it's hard to miss them.

This is a song about being seriously fucking hung over. The album cut from King of America boasts fiery guitar work from James Burton, a legendary studio hand and part of Elvis Presley's infamous TCB backing band. In fact, the entire TCB combo, including bassist Jerry Scheff and drummer Ronnie Tutt, joins EC on the track--hot shit. When you're looking to deliver a galloping rockabilly number about the evils of drink, there's no better men in the history of the planet to play on it.

The inspiration for examining "Big Light" was twofold--first, I heard the searing live version of it this morning on my drive, the one from the bonus live EP included with the Ryko reissue of King of America (and a more nerdy sentence you will not read on the internet, my friend).

Second and more importantly, hearing it reminded me that I have an EC-related anecdote that involves an incredible live performance by Costello, a slightly messy break up, and my own horrifying hangover.

***

I have seen EC in concert 7 times. The last was 2004; the first was 1996. One of them was on October 15, 1999, at Chicago's Arie Crown Theater.

He didn't actually play "The Big Light" at this show; for the purposes of this rambling, navel-gazing, confessional piece, it's more important who attended the show with me than anything that happened at the show.

My company that evening were my two friends, Steve and Steve, both EC fans; and my recently ex-girlfriend, Nelly.

So Nelly had dumped me several weeks before, for reasons that thankfully escape me; I am glad to know that I remember few details of being dumped nearly ten years ago. I think that's healthy.

I remember our last real goodbye, a particularly nasty spat as I dropped her off at a train station and made her take the El home because I think I was too tired to drive her up to the far north side where she lived. And I remember the EC show, and a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert from late September, because in spite of the fact that I had fully been ditched by this precocious little lady, she decided to keep and use these two concert tickets I had recently given her as gifts.

That's how I ended up with my ex sitting next to me for concerts by two of my favorite artists of all time, within weeks of each other, and at significant cost to myself. Because I am weak, and stupid, and didn't have the gumption to force her to give me the goddamned tickets back, or at least fork over some cash for the privilege of seeing two legends in their latter-day primes.

Anyway. That was Friday night--a Costello/Nieve show, with the Steves, and Nelly.

***

Saturday night was one of the seminal events of my early twenties: Diversey Homecoming.

My roommates and I decided it would be fun to hold a mock Homecoming dance in our apartment and invite everyone we knew. I think something like 100 people showed up; it was the kind of party where you make friends you've never met before and the production guy from your office pukes on the back porch and no one blinks cause they're too busy having fun.

At this party was Nelly, and at this party was a large bowl of punch featuring chambord, which I am told now is a "French black raspberry liqueur." Mixed with other boozes and some kind of fruit punch, it was the worst possible alcoholic beverage for a young, emotionally distraught, bitter male coming off a bad breakup and an Elvis Costello concert--it tasted good and was WAY stronger than its taste suggested.

I got so fucking wasted, dude.

Huge swaths of the evening are lost forever to me, thanks to the passing of time and the destructive mental effects of binge drinking. I remember there was shouting, on my part, directed at Nelly; I think she may have left crying.

Here's what I will never forget: The next morning, when I woke up in a rented tuxedo and a puddle of my own piss.

I had consumed so much liquor that I wet the bed. I emptied my bladder as I lay unconscious in the same place I'd nuzzled with Nelly just a few months before.

I think the stain was on that mattress till I got rid of it several years later.

***

Okay, so there wasn't an actual "big light" involved in my personal "Big Light" story; it'd probably be more appropriate if the song were called "The Big Damp Urine Stain." But that's my story, and I'm sticking to it--ex-girlfriends, Elvis Costello, and chambord don't mix. Ever.