7/2/2023 0 Comments Gaslight anthem lyricsThe stakes are never not high in a Gaslight Anthem song, even one whose chorus starts with “Honey, we came to dance.” The juxtapositions here are stark: On one hand, you have some kids whose main concern is having a good time, while on the other, you have a near-apocalyptic vision of a desiccated America, with big bombs threatening to drop from the sky at any moment. While he often presents it all with a strong sense of nostalgia - as if this was an actually obtainable reality - the title track to American Slang acknowledges head-on the storybook nature of the majority of The Gaslight Anthem’s lyrical content. “American Slang”īrian Fallons sings extensively about the mythos of Americana, this dream of a world populated by hardworking roughs and the ethereal women who can capture their heart. Fallon arrived too late to the game to befriend his idol, but that doesn’t make him any less of an heir. The song’s title also contains a coded reference to Woody Guthrie, whose own biggest fan, Bob Dylan, was also a personal friend. The lyrics describe Fallon’s first encounter with “the sound from Camden town” and how he gradually came to see that sound as a way to escape his suffocating Jersey adolescence (in a moment that’s a touch literal and a touch figurative, the walls of his bedroom actually tremble around him). Written in the wake of Joe Strummer’s death in late 2002, “I’da Called You Woody, Joe” is as much a tribute to Strummer and The Clash as it is a symptom of Fallon’s “life is elsewhere” outlook. Even before that anxiety was given a social media-friendly name (“FOMO” or “Fear of Missing Out”), it was at the core of what The Gaslight Anthem are all about. There’s an emotional disease that Czech author Milan Kundera touches on in his novel Life Is Elsewhere, in which the sufferer always feels one or two steps away from where all the action is. The only downside to starting Handwritten so anthemically is that everything else on the album feels a little dour. Maybe it’s because, in the Handwritten opener, Fallon talks about music as a matter of life and death: “And the song just keeps repeating/ Drop the needle again/ And I dance with your ghost.” Unlike a gun, however, the 45 ends up saving Fallon in his time of despair, as does a perpetual underlying solo from Alex Rosamilia. And even though The Gaslight Anthem’s “45” is, of course, referring to a wax-laid single (we never find out which song), it still reminds me of a weapon. “45”ĭespite being a full-blown music nerd, the number 45 always makes me think of a gun instead of a record. Each guest vocalist is used sparingly, but their presence alone embodies the Gaslight formula, which, when it works, really works: rock classicism filtered through modern punk. also showcase their more contemporary influences.ĭicky Barrett of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones lends his throat gravel to the refrain (“Fight about it!”), and Hot Water Music’s Chris Wollard adds even more backing vocal heft with the “whoa-oh-oh”s he’s built his career on. But while “The Patient Ferris Wheel” lovingly cribs a lyric from “I’m on Fire” (the title no less) and relies on boardwalk carnival imagery straight out of “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” Brian Fallon and Co. You can’t read an article about The Gaslight Anthem without hearing the words “Bruce Springsteen,” and rightfully so. As the tropes became more common, the band even risked unintentional comedy, with some critics in awe of how many times Fallon could drop the word “radio” on a single album. On that LP as well as 2010’s American Slang and 2012’s Handwritten, frontman Brian Fallon and his bandmates held fast to their fantasies about late-night diners and girls named Mary or Maria, creating a self-contained mythology of an America more real than the one we’ve got. But the fact is that it was 2008, you probably bought this on CD or MP3, and the band’s only way to be authentic was to be a little contrived.įast-forward six years and three records, and the same paradox applied right up to their final effort, 2014’s Get Hurt. The soft hisses and crackles belong to a prerecorded sound effect, the inclusion of which would be entirely unnecessary if the band trusted you to listen on glorious, 180-gram vinyl. When the needle drops on The Gaslight Anthem’s sophomore record, The ‘59 Sound, it’s not actually a needle.
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