There’s no better way to start taking a look at this song than with an explanation from the artist himself. This is from post he left on a message board a while back:
OK. lets start with the song title. if i remember correctly, I wrote it down in one of those moments where I wirte down lists of song titles, just things that pop into my head, like if im reading the ny times or whatev and i get and idea, but back then it was probably around the cold roses sessions so i was “on the plateau” which in Cardinal-speak means, in this headspace of knowing songs are coming and ideas just are sort of zinging back and forth among everybody and i used to write down little bits of conversation that stood out somehow and seemed worth remembering.
this song was one of those i believe. i heard the expression and wrote it down, but used the “Sorta” as a hommage to paul westerberg speak. i have always admired his simplification methods of expressing deeper subjects and his use of street language and slang and local color has always made him a moder master. in fact he reminds me quite alot of reynolds price or something with just a reach that is far greater than the ease of his words. just lovely conversational poetry. and he never overcooks the turkey. a great teacher. and a masterful writer.
so the title is that, and of course just the link to the song not really a message of pessimism or optimism. just a reference to life being a tad bitter-sweet and in a constant way, with a side of choose.
the first verse.
“…all i wanna do is get up, is get up, in the morning, in the morning and not wana die…”
the repetition in the verse is learned writing, and an exercise in gertrude stein repetitive style. it, to me, implies comedy.
this verse to me is some kind of off-the-cuff reading of someone who has woken up from a night on the town, if you will, and is not feeling so great but maybe hinting at something, some event that preceded the rush of explaiming something so dircet and ridiculous and – just wanting to get up and ot feel bad- (this of course at two vocal acting nods to great punk rock hero’s in my best attempt at sounding like them, (directed in the studio with a smile at the band, who were also goofing) to david johansen of The New York Dolls ( L.U.V. etc) and of course Johnny Thunders who would do the same bit, the second half…”somebody get me a beer” is a direct quote and interpretation of Darby Crash of the Germs and the clip of them playing live in “Decline of the Western Civiliation” doucmentary by Penelope Spheris.) (also a nod to the pre-roll talk on “To Be Young….etc. at the beggining of heartbreaker.)
sometimes after a great night out as an adult one feels physically drained and yet emotionaly lighthearted, kind of in an “oh well” sort of way. sorta way, …erm sorry.
and then when I say in the first verse “i feel alright when i think about you walking through the starfeild covered in lights” it’s an abstact way of describing the night before, myself (or the character, because it is not always me, sometimes i just channel the thoughts of people i see or have read about and aplly emotional meaning to their plight by writing a song about it to better understand or to use it as an example of learning about them)
in this case it describes “a starfeild” or Times Square, an Broadway, and hustling from or though this place to get downtown, “cvovered in lights” or between cars and taxi cabs headlights, which make a person seem illuminated in odd ways t night here esp when heading downtown from there, as the lights sort of soften and give way in a less intense but equally dramatic and romantic way if going uptown from there due to central park and all the trees and and vegetation and lack of unnatural light above a few stories tall.
“wasted like you’re losing your job, you’re so fired” means they are prehaps under the glass, and have had a few kicks and pops, so tyo speak, and its late and the person may not wake in time for work, so they are kind of told with a grin…”….oh youre SOOOO fired…” but really nopt just a jab between friends.
“we’re just like the ones we used to make fun of, its beautiful sorta but not”
is a reference to straight-edge music and skaetboard culture and how that used to be a place to view the worldm from where some ones dad or some one stumbliong out of a bar would be seen as “old” and just plain ol “drunk” and i believe i am trying to convey the characters as people who used to belong to that culture or who are aware that they are getting older and it is just stelling in, not quite old, but getting there and kind not so much ashamed as, thinking, “oh damn, we are becoming those people” or like somebodys parents etc.
and how its wondeful, but maybe a bit scary, and that change is sort if seeping in to the buzz.
now the second verse,
about “getting down:” isnt about sex really, its just talking about playing music, or going out dancing, or wanting to still make a full weekend out of it but implying there are some stress fractures haopening to the first person, the main character. maybe alluding to substabnce abuse, maybe just meaning, “hey you know, i just wanna be able to do this whenever, it was fun”
but in the evening and not wanting to die tomorrow because they are settling into the moment, and trying to re-create this fun night they had but alas, the relationship seems to be suffering and the character is nervous, or “buzzing like a jar full of lightning bugs”
now lightning bugs dont buzz, they do make little noises but they kind of “pop” if anything but the idea is to convey the sound of neon lights on something buzzing, ready to go, and confined to a jar, pent up, and wanting this expierence again.
so he goes “walking thru the starfeild (midtown bars) covered in lights (taxi cab traffic headlights, streetlights, crosswalk signs) “wasted like a bum with somebodys wallet, (a found wallet, the persons, because this night isnt going so well, obviously,) pictures inside of you and me..(ahem) you and I……
Lets stop there for one second. that is me correcting my own grammar, in song, in a way that implies the girl, or other person here, may be someone who does this. its taken from my actual life as i have terrible grammar and have been corrected my whole life.
my revenge in the song so to speak, is that i correct myself with the INCORRECT use of “myself and somebody else” as you and I is incorrect, and I liked the idea of me trying to correct myself for them, but still doing it wrong, with good intentions, but just furthering the idea that the main character does not know but is trying.
“so far past sad i’m crazy and sorry”
that can be explained in any jon cusack movie, but cameron crowe movies would help in general. this person is now out on the town withiout the girl from the night before, a but drunk, now walletless, and she has not come along or they have some issues and he is trying to sort of go out anyway, but in the haze is becoming desperate and feels this loss in a way that drove him to this place.
“its beautful sorta but not”
meaning, well he has a good buzz an everything but there is nothing beyond that, and tomorrow, well, just more pain, but physical.
now for the meat and potato’s.
” i do everythung i can to remove you and it hurts, from all the things that we started”
now this person is explaining, he is drinking or lying to himself or distracting himself, somehow, from the pain of his loss, trying to “remove” her from his thoughts” doing “everything he can” or whatever amount of walking around to bars and losing his wallet (with their picture inside, like an gentleman does, you know, he keeps a picture of he and his lover in his wallet, for those in case of hard times moments)
“from all the things that we started”
so he is alone and doing that night over and over again hoping the drinks will “remove” her memory from his life and all that “was started” maybe a house or a life or just a way of doing things, and is getting by on this by living through the damage.
and “its beautful sorta”
he says to himself,
“but not”
but not. indeed.
Really, there isn’t anything left to be said about it. It’s one of my favorite tracks on Cold Roses and could very well be my favorite song to hear the Cardinals do in concert. (It’s right up there with “Peaceful Valley”) It has that killer punk/garage rock sound that you don’t hear much of in his more recent work (with the exception of a song or two), and it’s really great that he and the band play it as often as they do.
