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

Room off the Street

There is Slavic proverb: "Eat bread and salt and speak the truth." To me, it means that both your intake and your output should be simple, direct, and decent. The quote comes up later in the song.

But it starts, like "Marlene on the Wall," with the image of a poster. This time, the poster shows "a man with his hand in a fist." We learn that the poster belongs to the resident of the "room" of which the wall is a part. And that, to this man, the poster is "his symbol of freedom/ It mean he has brothers who believes as he does." We are given to understand that he is a revolutionary of some stripe-- but whether anarchist, fascist, or what we are never told. 

In fact, this is all we really learn of the man. The main character, who is introduced first, is a woman. She is "in" the room, which we see is not necessarily hers (she is not "at home"). Her relationship to the room's resident is unclear. In fact, this ambiguity is the substance of the song.

Here is what we know of her-- she has been "drinking." She is wearing a very red dress that is "so tight/ You can see every breath that she takes." Neither of these factors-- her drinking nor her dress-- bespeak the kind of person who consorts with militant types.

Yet... "she is moved by the thing that she sees in his face/ When he talks of the cause." Perhaps she is drinking and partying because she is bored. She is aimless, and so captivated by this man who is so well-aimed. It doesn't matter if she believes in the cause, per se. She just wants to believe in something as much as he.

"She leans against him," because she is drawn to his passion. Because, while he speaks so articulately about his passion, she has nothing to talk about, and no way to express herself except physically. 

"They talk of the salt and the truth and the bread"-- the things he is interested in, and someone with a cocktail dress on her body and a cocktail in her hand is likely not.

It is somewhat clear that they do not have sex: "The night goes along/ The fan goes around." No mention of the bed. It seems that the cause is so fascinating to this rebel that he neglects to notice the tipsy, slinky woman pressed against him. And neglects to wonder what her... cause might be.

Evidently, they are being quite loud during all of this, as well. "Every sigh, every sway/ You can hear everything that they say." The song is titled "Room off the Street," so it seems they cannot only be heard from an adjoining apartment but from the street!

Something is going to happen between these two people. "Something's begun," some sort of relationship. It could be long and bad-- a "war." It could be long and good-- a "family" or "friendship." Or it could be short and good-- a "fast love affair."

Most likely, it is the lattermost. These two are not in it for the long haul. He will grow bored of her, of her lack of commitment to the cause, of her using him for his passion.

And she will grow tired of him, always caring more about the cause than her. Maybe he can eat bread and salt-- she will needs something more luxurious. Maybe he can speak the truth-- she needs innuendo and wit.

They will have a fling, then fling each other aside. He will find someone as dedicated to the cause as himself. And she will find someone wealthy enough to show her an endless good time.

For him, his party is his life. Meanwhile, she is the life of the party.

For him, life is a just cause. For her, life is... just 'cause.


Next Song: Big Space

Neighborhood Girls

This song seems to be linked to the earlier song, "Straight Lines." It also seems to imply that the woman who committed suicide in that song was, or might have been, a prostitute.

Here, we have two people talking about "neighborhood girls." One says that her neighborhood had one, but now, "she's gone."

Then, without having described her beyond her usual place of... business, someone replies (and this reply is the bulk of the song) that they think they "know" that woman.

This person says, in response, that he saw her in the morning and had "eyes of ice," which can mean both a shade called "ice blue," but also that her eyes were cold and devoid of emotion.

He (since the subject is a "girl," I am saying that the response is provided by a man for simplicity's sake) also claims to have spoken to her at a party. She says something enigmatic, which he chalked up to her being inebriated. She said, he recalls, "There's a backbone gone and I've got to get it back before going on." While arch, this comment seems perfectly understandable-- she wants to get her backbone, her resolve and confidence, back... and then move on, probably to another line of work.

The party-goer can be somewhat poetic himself, noting that this woman was "looking out at people from the back of her mind." Usually, the expression, "the back of my mind," means "in the part of my past I don't need to recall much." Here, it seems to mean "in an aloof and detached manner."

She also said she was looking for a "razor's edge" that she had "lost," and would, along with the backbone (to use it?), she would like to regain.

Why? She feels that her life lacks clarity. "I am just walking through the smoke," she says, and "things are going gray."

In what way are a backbone and a razor alike? They form straight lines. And that, above all, is what she is looking for: "I'd like to hear a straight line to help me find my way."

And this phrase is the signal to the listener that this is likely the same woman who is the subject of "Straight Lines." Now we can add this clue to the others. In that song, the woman "cut down on her lovers," because, as a sex worker, she had felt she was seeing too many; here, the party-goer says "She seems to have resigned." We have the "razor's edge" being sought here, and "cold metal" first "touching skin" and then "too close to the bone" there.

(It's also possible that this is the same woman as in "Cracking." There, the woman walks to the park in the "afternoon," and finds the sun blinding; here, the party-goer sees the woman he is speaking of "walking in the sun," albeit in "the morning." Also, that woman "walks a hairline," and so is interested in lines. There is a lot of imagery of cold in "Cracking," and this woman has "eyes of ice,"

Further, the woman in "Undertow" says she wants "to learn all the secrets from the edge of a knife," and could also be the same person.)

The last clue we have is the party-goer's throwaway line, "She had long, black hair." And this is where the connection possibly breaks down.

The first person to speak now speaks again: "Must be a different neighborhood girl/ 'Cause ours had blonde hair." As did the woman in "Straight Lines." The title agrees, since the song is called "Neighborhood Girls," plural. There are at least two.

Except... that woman also had "gone and cut her hair again." Women often change their hair color, as well as its length. Or, given her profession, she may have worn a wig when not working so as to be less recognizable.

Would a detective or judge be able to say with certainty that this was the same person as the suicide? Or that the blonde neighborhood girl the first speaker means is the same person as either of those others? Probably not.

But we know it must be. Otherwise, why bother mentioning it?

Next Song: Left of Center