| Steely Dan – Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me) Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[UncleNeal:2939] I think this is the best interpretation yet because I enjoyed reading it so much. If this song is really just about the longings of their downstairs neighbors in Brooklyn...would people griping about their lot in life really be sophisticated enough to want to stay in a tower room in an exotic locale and hobnob with celebrities? I don't think so... Let's back off from the stripper analogy for a minute to something similar but different..."a race of angels bound with one another" -- I think this describes the groupies that surround a successful rock band. See the movie "Almost Famous" set in the early 70s (with a very cute Kate Hudson). "The charmer under me" could picture one of the groupies he is sleeping with. Brooklyn "owes" her in the sense she fled her humble beginnings in search of bigger and better things. She is pressuring him to take her on an exotic Caribbean vacation at Eden Rock in St. Barth's -- this elegant resort was built in the 1950s, unlike Miami it can be described as "a piece of island cooling in the sea" and of course golf would be included. "An evening with a movie queen"... the girl is not the movie queen, she wants to do some social climbing. I think the dish of dollars and the case of aces are references to casino gambling which of course you would find in a resort in the French Caribbean. Being a rockstar (or a groupie attached to a rockstar) is a "gain or lose" proposition, but all that remuneration gives you "power enough to choose". |
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