Ludlow Street

Ludlow Street runs between Houston and Divison, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. This is the second song on the album, and the second set in New York.

The song is a simple one. It's about how a place evokes the memory of the people we knew there.

In this case, the place is the above-mentioned street, and the person is named "Tim." We don't find out his name until the end of the song, but since we don't learn anything about him specifically during the course of the song, it doesn't seem to matter.

In fact, "love is the only thing that matters." Now, on the one hand, "it's still the hardest thing to feel." Yet, "love is the only thing [she] feels" when she thinks about Tim now.

Rather, the loss of that love. We don't learn where Tim is now, or even if he is alive-- the song does have an elegiac feeling to it. All we know is where he is not: "each stoop and doorway" of Ludlow Street.

What is there, now? "Another generation's parties." Perhaps she knew him though a series of parties when they were both there.

Aside from "love," and their fondness for get-togethers, can we glean anything about their relationship? "I can recall each morning after/ Painted in nicotine." Oh. Very well, then.

There is no other information here-- how long they knew each other, how long they saw each other, what happened to their relationship, or what happened to Tim.

All we know is that, for her, Ludlow Street should be named Tim Street. Because his memory is all that is there for her, now.

(The liner notes reveal the answer. Tim Vega was her brother, who lived on Ludlow Street before he passed away.)


Next Song: New York is a Woman