12 May, 2009

Sweet Louise (Kokomo)



Breaking your neck

Shouldn't be hard

In Kokomo...

You do a somersault

From the barest breeze.


But there she is

Bewitching magic

And it ain't no show,


Sweet Louise,

Make me weak in the knees,

Sweet Louise.


Shut down bars

Still smell of beer,

But their out of gold.

Who used to go there,

Doesn't matter in the least.

But your memory

Serves me empty pints,

In that board up store.


Sweet Louise 

Make me weak in the knees,

Sweet Louise.


Stucco'd brick

Replaced the bar

On Main and Oak.

(And look..) couple rich dudes

Plant that sidewalk tree.

So there it is

Clean and tragic,

Like Romeo.


Sweet Louise

Make me weak in the knees,

Sweet Louise.


Will you take a check?

For less than an hour

Of rock and roll.

I tried to go slow,

But you still earned your fee.

There it is,

Naked magic,

And counterfeit soul.


Sweet Louise

Make me weak in the knees,

Sweet Louise.


Sweet Louise

Make me weak in the knees,

Sweet Louise.


One of these days I'm gonna get around to singing this song in a Kokomo bar.  I have a feeling even with the tiny little tenuous connection of that one word "Kokomo" there will be plenty else for this song to hit the heart on.  Granted, this is no flattering portrait.  But then again, who else is writing songs in which Kokomo is being gentrified?  Yeah... see what I mean?


Writing this song was enormous fun.  Many aspects of it just came out of nowhere, but struck me as worth leaving in anyway.  What breaking your neck exactly means is certainly a good question.  However, a short visit to the justice department of any county seat, or city ought to help you picture a few "broken necks."  I'll leave it to you to fill in the blanks.


There is a friend of mine who is fond of the phrase, "doesn't matter in the least."  I put that phrase in here just for him.  Even though we hardly speak to one another.  Masculine sentiment tends to be a kind of weepy, yet stubbornly distant kind of game.  So I honor the guy but refuse him my company.  It more than matters, but I fail this person.  There it is...


When I was traveling the country with some friends when I was twenty (long time ago), I walked past a bar in New Orleans on a rainy morning and smelled that rich aroma that a bar cultivates like an antique cultivates it's patina.  They say you shouldn't clean it off.  In the case of bars (real bars), you get the feeling there is a real respect for the past...


It has been noted as slightly odd by some that this entire song is about sex and drinking establishments.  It romanticizes sleazy working class places and makes fun of some entrepreneurs who attempt to bring a little arboreal atmosphere to a coke dust covered industrial alleyway.  It has little redeeming qualities other than an attempt at humor (that isn't funny) and a weak kneed desire for what once was.  Guilty, guilty, guilty.  


Personally I like the youthful innocence of somersaults in the [     ]   breeze.  Don't you?



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