Trash - the New York Dolls
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
We can't leave the New York Dolls and David Johansen after only one track so a return to their glorious first album and a number that once again tips its cap to their New York roots hits the nail.
Besides being the most "punkish" track on the album, and most reminiscent of the songs that were played in the Squat (see last post), "Trash" references fellow New Yorkers Mickey and Syvlia's r&b classic, "Love is Strange" (see https://www.unclestylus.com/single-post/2018/11/05/love-is-strange-mickey-and-sylvia ), deploying the latter's "my sweet baby", "how do you call your lover boy?" and haunting "wow-oh-ooh-wow" 's. But in Johansen's seedy backstreet underworld, love really is strange. It isn't a romantic love, as she's "trash", yet he's driven by his obsession, articulated in the relentless vocal, the meanings of the words edgy and enigmatic, reversing with each repetition, just this side of violent jealousy. The Mickey and Sylvia question becomes less innocent, more sinister. Is the "lover boy" she's calling her client? If so, what does that make Johansen? Now wonder he pleads: "please don't you ask me if I love you". Tragic and elemental:
"Trash, go pick it up, take them lights away.
Trash, go pick it up, don't take your life away.
Trash, go pick it up, don't try to take my night away,
and please don't you ask me if I love you........"
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