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Frank's Wild Years Lyrics
Well Frank settled down in the Valley
and hung his wild years
on a nail that he drove through
his wife's forehead
he sold used office furniture
out there on San Fernando Road
and assumed a $30,000 loan
at 15 1/4 % and put down payment
on a little two bedroom place
his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
made good bloody marys
kept her mouth shut most of the time
had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
that had some kind of skin disease
and was totally blind. They had a
thoroughly modern kitchen
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan
they were so happy
One night Frank was on his way home
from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths
drank 'em in the car on his way
to the Shell station, he got a gallon of
gas in a can, drove home, doused
everything in the house, torched it,
parked across the street, laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween
orange and chimney red then
Frank put on a top forty station
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed north
Never could stand that dog
and hung his wild years
on a nail that he drove through
his wife's forehead
he sold used office furniture
out there on San Fernando Road
and assumed a $30,000 loan
at 15 1/4 % and put down payment
on a little two bedroom place
his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
made good bloody marys
kept her mouth shut most of the time
had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
that had some kind of skin disease
and was totally blind. They had a
thoroughly modern kitchen
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan
they were so happy
from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths
drank 'em in the car on his way
to the Shell station, he got a gallon of
gas in a can, drove home, doused
everything in the house, torched it,
parked across the street, laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween
orange and chimney red then
Frank put on a top forty station
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed north
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There's so much meaning contained in this brief, poetic, spoken-word song. Obviously it reads as a stinging rebuke of the American-consumerist dream/nightmare. In this regard it makes a nice bookend to Tom Waits' earlier and much more sarcastic recording, "Step Right Up." One thing I've always wondered is if the character "Frank" is in some way the central persona of the whole "swordfishtrombones-raindogs-frank's wild year's" trilogy, or if he exists purely as metaphor, and thus merely adds another shade of meaning to the various narratives spun throughout the trilogy.
Davide Van De Sfroos, a very talented Italian singer-songwriter, did a mean job of translating this song into the Como Lake slang. Real Waits diehards should check it out!
i love this song. beat poetry with a modern twist. i think it emphasizes the typical middle-class desk slave stereotype, in this case the result being eventual insanity, resulting in the torching of the house and dog and wife. all this being done just to escape the predictable, boring, tedious nature of Frank's adult life.
So Bukowski inspired you can actually taste it.
"Never could stand that dog." I love it how this last sentence has a double meaning.
It could be the narrator's feelings towards Frank. But it can also mean that Frank directed all his anger towards the dog over the years and that the ugly chihuahua finally sparked his rage and made him feel as if burning everything down was a just act of retribution. "It's all the dog's fault!" A convenient scapegoat to push away the feeling that in fact it's all his own fault by settling down in the valley in the first place.