“The Rich Part of Town (demo),” from Adieu, False Heart Demos (2009).

Every town has a rich part of town
But I sure won’t be living in it
They can slaughter me with a shiv
But I won’t jump up on their bandwagon
And if it seems it’s dragging me down
You’d better check your misapprehension
I don’t need that social tension around me
And burdening my head

If those bastards should beg forgiveness of sin
I’ll deny it with vigor
My heart’s bigger than a basketball
But it’s pumping out venom this afternoon
And as sure as those swirling vultures above
Got their eyes on those stock brokers
Those jokers won’t look me straight in the face
When they discreetly avoid me

Every town has a rich part of town
But I sure won’t be living in it
They can slaughter me with a shiv
But I won’t jump up on their bandwagon
And if it seems it’s dragging me down
You’d better check your misapprehension
I don’t need that social tension around me
And burdening my head

And I’ll dispose of those sage opinions
That litter the opinion pages
Burn that kindling into a blaze
Because I’m not biting that bait
My gait’s out of place on those sidewalks
I stroll in intimidation
My presence calls up any number of feelings
That deal indirectly

Every town has a rich part of town
But I sure won’t be living in it
They can slaughter me with a shiv
But I won’t jump up on their bandwagon
And if it seems it’s dragging me down
You’d better check your misapprehension
I don’t need that social tension around me
And burdening my head

I’ve got half a mind to retreat
On some path through some forest flowers
But the hour’s too late and I’d hate it
If I didn’t leave a fresh mark here
But I know when I stroll these gallery streets
Leaving lines and fluorescent colors
When I sign my name it’ll stick
In the head of each passing policeman

Every town has a rich part of town
But I sure won’t be living in it
They can slaughter me with a shiv
But I won’t jump up on their bandwagon
And if it seems it’s dragging me down
You’d better check your misapprehension
I don’t need that social tension around me
And burdening my head

At some level, there’s no real reason I can see that I have problems with rich neighborhoods.  I’m comfortable enough now financially, live in expensive San Francisco (though not in one of the posh neighborhoods) and the town I grew up in, Del Mar, CA, is definitely a rich neighborhood now and to some extent was when I was a kid, though I grew up in some new tract houses that were affordable to middle class folk but which now run for well over a million dollars a pop.  I haven’t been back there in years, and to be honest I have no desire to go.  From what I’ve been told, what had been a very mellow beach town has become, and probably already was by the time I left, an absolute cesspool of privilege, the kind of place respectable revolutions wipe off the map.  Strong words, I know, but they’re from the heart.

It’s very problematic, I’m well aware, to write in someone else’s voice, and particularly, in a class society, in the voice of someone with less privilege than oneself.  One can and should satirize one’s social superiors, but when representing those beneath oneself in the social hierarchy, it’s easy to miss the mark.  This is because of the way privilege functions.  It allows people to see upward very clearly, but hides things when one looks below.  The order of things, to those above, is natural, while to those below it’s social.  White privilege is all about not seeing white privilege, but anyone who’s not white develops a clear understanding of how it functions simply because it’s necessary to navigate the society with any success and avoid problems.  So too with any type of privilege.

It bears mentioning that the key here is that the language is “above” and “below,” rather than “top” and “bottom.”  Everyone sees clearly looking up, no matter how many people you have beneath you.  What is necessary if one wishes to represent someone beneath oneself in the pecking order it go through a number of mental steps to transpose one’s own subordination to that of the person beneath oneself.  You need to remember what it feels like to be looked down upon.

Indeed, I know what it’s looked like to be looked down upon, and I’m sensitive enough that a) I’ve never forgotten it, and b) when it happens today I immediately become disgusted.  When you’re a middle class kid at a rich kid’s school, which I was, you know what it means to be below, even if you’re objectively partaking of enormous privilege, which I was.  But I didn’t go all Stockholm Syndrome and want to be someone I’m not.  I am not, I can safely say, a social climber.

I don’t know why I’ve had something of a fascination with taggers, which I exhibit in this tune and which I exhibited as well in “Target Practice,” on Chevy w/Balding Tires:

I put a club to his hands and a kick to his glands
By a blank University wall
With his tag half begun and a limp for a run
In the distance he shuffles and falls
I shut off my lights.   I’m overcome by the night.
I picture phrases of fluorescent green
So I finish his part with some words from my heart
A good many degrees past obscene

I feel bad for taggers.  As criminals go, they’re kind of pathetic, in a value-neutral way, as in, they inspire pathos.  Their crime is non-violent, though in many areas it carries its own, specific and harsher punishment for “gang” associations than the same action would have when I was a kid.  If young people of color do it, we understand, it’s worse.  Don’t misunderstand me: I’ve had to deal with all kinds of tagger nonsense in my classroom and in general the people in question are a pain in the ass when confronted with evidence.  That said, it’s certainly more of a victimless crime than punching someone, and at some level it’s an attempt to be heard.  I can relate to that.

None of the tunes on Adieu, False Heart were as difficult to arrange–and, by all means, cutting something solo on acoustic guitar well definitely requires arrangement–as this one. I wrote all the tunes for the record in about a 9-month period, but recorded the collection a little over a year later.  I felt a bit frustrated with the wait, but it was worth it.  Comparing the demo version to that released on the record doesn’t quite do the process justice, as the demo here isn’t the first one I cut, only the best, one of a group I recorded to send out to friends to get their opinions on the tunes.

I struggled finding the right key to sing in on this tune, because my vocal range is relatively limited and the melody is really quite complex in the verse, by my standards.  I made a great attempt on the record to minimize strain on my voice, because the sound is off-putting, aesthetically, and for a few months I thought that I would have to drop this tune because I was having trouble finding, so to speak, a sweet spot to sing it in.  It barely fits my range now, though it works.

Also, this is one of a few tunes that probably would do well with a band backing it up, and I had more or less decided by late 2008 that I would cut the record live and solo.  I really don’t like it when musicians, who usually play with a band, use more or less the same arrangment they use in the band in a solo guitar performance.  It’s tricky to avoid, though, with certain tunes that one hears, after having written it, with drums behind it, and on an electric guitar.  One has to find an acoustic arrangement that stays true to both the song and the musical setting.

In my head, when I approached the record, I thought of Monk, and in particular Thelonious Himself, which was one of the records of his I’ve had since I was a kid.  Monk, to me, is the ideal solo performer.  His approach solo is completely different than what he does with a band, and at the same time totally identifiable as monk and totally attuned to the demands of solo performance and the song itself.  This is what someone has to do, in whatever is their own way, if a person is going to take a guitar, by oneself, and sing.