Jeffrey Lewis - History of Punk on the Lower East Side lyrics

OK. This is August 26th 2004. We're gonna try and go through this in one live take The Complete History of the Development of Punk on New York's Lower East Side from 1950 to 1975 We start with Harry Smith in 1950, a beatnik weirdo living in New York City His huge collections were insane, of Easter eggs and paper airplanes And rare records, he had around a million and sixty To change America through music was his hope And to make some money because he was broke He compiled a triple decker collection of songs from his records Released as the Smithsonian Anthology of American folk "On Monday morning just about 9 o'clock The great ship Titanic began to reel and rock Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives Wasn't it sad, wasn't it sad, when that ship went down" Smith's plan began to work as foretold This weird music began to take hold That sparked an interest in these forms of life underground from the norms And soon millions of folk records were being sold By the early sixties, Dylan, Baez, Phil Ochs Were doing intellectualized copies of The Old Folks Then one strange folk band downtown called The Holy Modal Rounders Began to make it more anarchistic, with weird voices and drug jokes "Moms out there, switchin' in the kitchen And Dads in the living room, fussin' and a-b**hin' I'm out here, kicking the gong for euphoria Euphoria - when your mind starts reelin' and a-walkin' Inside voices start squealin' and a-squawkin' Floating around on a ballad on a cloud Singing euphoria" In '64 that was, then in '65, Lou Reed and John Cale in a Ludlow Street dive Had a similar musical spin, also on acoustic guitar and violin With even more New York street drug jive "Hey white boy, what ya doing uptown Hey white boy, you chasing our women around? 'Pa-pa-pardon me sir, nothing could be farther from my mind Im just waiting for a dear dear friend of mine Im waiting for the man'" In '65 the Rounders met other beatnik intellectual thugs on East 10th Street Who call themselves The Fugs In April, they record by Harry Smith doing the Punkiest songs yet to exist Lo-fi noisy sh** about poetry, s** and d** "I don't have a bedtime, I don't need to cum For I have become an amphetamine bum If you don't like sleeping, and don't want to screw Then you should take lots of amphetamine too" Smith recorded two live Fug sessions Including Tuli Kupferberg's amazing nihilist song 'Nothing' "Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing Wednesday and Thursday nothing Friday for a change a little more nothing Saturday once more nothing f**ing nothing, s**ing nothing Flesh and s**, nothing Church and Times Square, a whole lot of nothing Nothing, nothing, nothing" The Fugs were real poets with real topics to speak out And through the underground scene this crude music could leak out Beginning the punk idea that anyone could do it Without need much musical ability to it And this new crude music was labeled Freak Out In '66 The Fugs signed to New York label ESP The same label put out a band called The Godz, with a 'Z' The Godz accomplished the feat of making even The Fugs music sound sweet With the least musical folk-rock racket in history [Godz-like strumming, moaning and meowing] Far from the West Coast hippy scene, New York underground music was far from mainstream It was intellectual but noisy and hectic, and then The Velvet Underground went electric And made folk-punk even more beautiful and more extreme "I'm waiting for the man Twenty-six dollars in my hand Up to Lexington 125, feel sick and dirty more dead than alive I'm waiting for the man" Nothing could stem New York's strange folk-punk tide In '68 came David Peel on the Lower East Side He recorded an album on the streets, screaming and sloppy Danny Fields signed him to Electra Sold almost a million copies With songs like "I Like Marijuana" And "Up Against the Wall, Motherf**er" "Oh Mother, where is my father? Where is my brother? Theyre at war, theyre at war You made them join the dirty U.S. Army You told them all a filthy white lie You gave them all the bullsh** and baloney And now my brother and my father are gonna have to die" Strangest of all on East 10th Street in '68 Were the duo Silver Apples, who managed to create Two futuristic albums of noise, rhythm and poetry Creative to the point of underground obscurity It doesn't sound like punk or anything else but it sounds great "Oscillations, oscillations Electronic evocations Of sound's reality Spinning, magnetic fluctuations Waves on waves configurations That dance between the balls of sound And bind my world to soul" The Stooges were a Freak Out band In Detroit and folks ignored them Until Danny Fields brought them to New York And had John Cale from the Velvets record them Almost acid rock was turning into progressive The Stooges, instead, pushed the raw and aggressive And Iggy Pop sang about degradation and boredom "Well 1969 okay, all across the USA Another year for me and you Another year with nothing to do Another year for me and you Another year with nothing to do" In 1970, David Peel's second album came With some amazing songs and some a little lame In most pre-punk histories, Peel gets forgot Cause he was a hippie singing songs about pot But his second album was the first album With the real sound that electric punk rock became "We are from the Lower East Side We don't give a damn if we live or die We are from the Lower East Side We don't give a damn if we live or die" And even though it was seven years before It was something the Clash would do Peel mixed punk with reggae In the amazing song "I Want To k** You" "You're called the people of the future generation You're called the people in a world of aggregation You're called the people in a life of demonstration We've gotta change the world before annihilation I'm gonna get a rifle and I'm gonna get a gun I am out to k** you and I'll have a little fun I am out to murder you, I'm going to attack I am going to k** you, you're the monkey on my back I wanna k** you k**, k**, k** I wanna k** you k**, k**, k**" In '71, Lester Bangs first writes the word 'punk' To describe '60s enthusiastic teenage rock junk '72, Lenny Kaye puts out the '60s Garage comp. 'Nuggets' And coins the phrase 'punk-rock' in the liner notes of it Though punk-rock would soon come to mean something different From what Lester and Lenny thunk (They meant raw 60s punk songs) "I feel depressed, I feel so bad Coz your the best girl that Ive ever had I can't get your love, I can't get affection Poor little girl, psychotic reaction" Lenny Kaye was also a guitarist who began playing music With an Eastside poet named Patti Smith who would use it To mix wild poetry with simple rock stuff Like The Fugs in a way, but less rough A postmodern way to take high art and low art and fuse it "Jesus died for somebody's sins not mine Gloria, Gloria" '72, '73 was when the New York Dolls start Mixing trash and drag fashion With a pure rock and roll heart That David Johansen and Johnny Thunders sound Mixed old-style simple rock With the new New York underground And sorta defined the moment when Stupid on purpose became the new smart "You're a prima ballerina on a springtime afternoon Change on into the wolfman howlin at the moon All about that Personality Crisis you got it while it was hot But now frustration and heartache is what you got " The Lower East Side began punk fashion as well With ripped clothes and spiked hair Worn by a poet named Richard Hell Hell was in Television, The Neon Boys The Heartbreakers, The Voidoids And he wrote the song that gave the new '70s punk generation it's first anthem yell "I was screaming get me out of here before I was Even born, it's such a gamble when you get a face It's fascinating to observe what the mirror does But when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place I belong to the blank generation but I can take it or leave it each time I belong to the _______ generation but I can take it or leave it each time" '74, CBGB's starts having punk shows With Television, Patti Smith and The Ramones '75, Punk fanzine begins and the whole thing moves over to England England steals all the credit That's how it goes The End This is Jeffrey Lewis, Jack Lewis, our friend Tyler Thank you