Before I had read the lyrics, I had caught the couple of lyrics referencing Detroit (The Detroit river, The People Mover -- which is the most useless piece of public transportation in the form of a tiny elevated tram). When listening to this song in the car, I would laugh at those two lyrics.
However, looking at the entire song. I get the feeling it's about doing drugs during a musical festival (in Detroit). I've lived in the Detroit area for a majority of my life and going to the Downtown area can be a surreal experience. One wrong turn and you'll go from a place where business men walk the sidewalks, to a seedy underbelly where homeless people speak in an incoherent bastard form of English.
Take the first verse of the song. Raves on Detroit bridges... that sounds like something that could have actually happened about 5-10 years ago. Cutting Tequila with bleach... if there's a bar that would actually get away with this, it would be in Detroit.
With the third verse, it sounds like Dick Valentine is wandering through Detroit (post-concert/festival), and is starting to see some really weird shit. Maybe he's bar hopping, maybe he's getting invited to sketchy after parties. Who knows, but I laugh to myself imagining what sort of Dali-esque situations Dick Valentine may have thrown himself on occasion as a native to Detroit.
The scattered nature of this song reminds me of the up's and down's of a wild night before, during, and after going to a show or music festival. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, and maybe I'm totally off from Dick's original meaning (if any), but my interpretation has me laughing at the imagery it elicits.
Before I had read the lyrics, I had caught the couple of lyrics referencing Detroit (The Detroit river, The People Mover -- which is the most useless piece of public transportation in the form of a tiny elevated tram). When listening to this song in the car, I would laugh at those two lyrics.
However, looking at the entire song. I get the feeling it's about doing drugs during a musical festival (in Detroit). I've lived in the Detroit area for a majority of my life and going to the Downtown area can be a surreal experience. One wrong turn and you'll go from a place where business men walk the sidewalks, to a seedy underbelly where homeless people speak in an incoherent bastard form of English.
Take the first verse of the song. Raves on Detroit bridges... that sounds like something that could have actually happened about 5-10 years ago. Cutting Tequila with bleach... if there's a bar that would actually get away with this, it would be in Detroit.
With the third verse, it sounds like Dick Valentine is wandering through Detroit (post-concert/festival), and is starting to see some really weird shit. Maybe he's bar hopping, maybe he's getting invited to sketchy after parties. Who knows, but I laugh to myself imagining what sort of Dali-esque situations Dick Valentine may have thrown himself on occasion as a native to Detroit.
The scattered nature of this song reminds me of the up's and down's of a wild night before, during, and after going to a show or music festival. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, and maybe I'm totally off from Dick's original meaning (if any), but my interpretation has me laughing at the imagery it elicits.