Listen - The Violent Femmes perform Gimme The Car
I was listening to the archive of Flip-Side posts the other day and really honed in on some of the busker posts Jack Hayden has been putting up recently. The Human Condition and the three posts featuring The Brough Brothers really grabbed my attention the most. That led me to think of my favorite buskers/turn pro band. I am of course talking about the Violent Femmes who, while busking on the streets of their native Milwaukee, were discovered by The Pretenders' Chrissy Hynde and were soon swooped into micro-stardom.
We've already written about The Violent Femmes and their brilliant but unsettling homage to insanity in rural America, Country Death Song. But today, we spin the flip-side of their debut single which dates back to 1983. The song is Gimme The Car and it is just as unsettling as Country Death Song, but with a different disturbing theme. A theme of teenage angst and sexual frustration. A boy being driven by rage and hormones but unable to explain his base feelings. Moral values are thrown out the window when our frustrated protagonist is driven by personal pain and a driving urge.
The ominous lyrics in Gimme The Car remind us of a more cynical play on kid frustration as illustrated in this song of pubescent (pre-pubescent?) need to break free.
No comments:
Post a Comment