"Jack" is the American Beat Poet Jack Kerouac (On The Rode, Dharma Bums, etc). "Edie" is his first wife, Edie Kerouac-Parker who married him to gain access to an inheritance that would allow him to post bail having been incarcerated as an accessory after the fact in the murder of Lucien Carr's murder of David Kammerer. "Billy" is William Burroughs (Naked Lunch, etc) who was also part of the "Beat" circle. "Billy" Burroughs, noted junky, is also mentioned in Holland's song "Old Fashioned Morphine". "Julie" is the daughter of Burroughs' wife Joan Vollmer, who Burroughs shot and killed in a drunken game of "William Tell" in 1951. Mexico City is tied to Kerouac in several ways, most notably in his poem "Mexico City Blues" wherein he said later he wanted to write "as a musician plays jazz". Additionally, Kerouac traveled to Mexico regularly in his frequent road trips. Death and alcoholism ("Drinking booze/shame on you/shame on me") figure heavily in the lives of the people mentioned in the song (Kerouac himself died from complications due to alcoholism).
"Jack" is the American Beat Poet Jack Kerouac (On The Rode, Dharma Bums, etc). "Edie" is his first wife, Edie Kerouac-Parker who married him to gain access to an inheritance that would allow him to post bail having been incarcerated as an accessory after the fact in the murder of Lucien Carr's murder of David Kammerer. "Billy" is William Burroughs (Naked Lunch, etc) who was also part of the "Beat" circle. "Billy" Burroughs, noted junky, is also mentioned in Holland's song "Old Fashioned Morphine". "Julie" is the daughter of Burroughs' wife Joan Vollmer, who Burroughs shot and killed in a drunken game of "William Tell" in 1951. Mexico City is tied to Kerouac in several ways, most notably in his poem "Mexico City Blues" wherein he said later he wanted to write "as a musician plays jazz". Additionally, Kerouac traveled to Mexico regularly in his frequent road trips. Death and alcoholism ("Drinking booze/shame on you/shame on me") figure heavily in the lives of the people mentioned in the song (Kerouac himself died from complications due to alcoholism).