It's certainly disorienting to be talking about hanging at bars until closing time in an era when pubs and bars are all closed by state order in a bid to stifle the Coronavirus spreading. I mean who'd a thunk it, whereby all the drinking holes in all the world are closed thanks to this damn virus. What will happen to that famous line in Casablanca wherein Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart of course) intones in a demeanour best described as glum:
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."Yup. That line doesn't feel the same in this exact day and age where you can't hang out until they throw you out.
I'm not much a drinker to begin with. My policy is one-and-done on any given night. I'm not a teetotaller because I found out Adolf Hitler was one, but I can be pretty close to being one for very long stretches. I as once pulled over for random breath testing in the mid-90s and was asked when my last drink was by the police officer. My reply was "I think 1987..."
Which is to say the periods that I did hang out 'til I was thrown out were fairly brief. And truth be told by the time I was being thrown out at closing time, I was pretty sober because I was a one-and-done guy. I was genuinely there for the drunk-and-sorry company. The best and worst of all that is to say I'm probably not cut out to be an alcoholic; but as the other songs in this series might indicate I could very well be addicted to other bad behaviours.
In closing out this series of songs, I have to say the album didn't work out the way I thought it would. I wanted to do a more reflective, slow-moving, lyric-driven, thoughtful kind of blues album. Instead I've written about stupid sex secrets of travellers and swingers and teenage nymphos. Nothing ever goes to plan and with this song, I have the feeling I've just fallen back on my natural thing where I zip along at 145bpm or so. There's a bigger gulf between the way one envisages one's music and actually how it plays out when it comes out of you. If I had a reason to be blue about closing out this album, I guess it would be just that: I wish that I'd gotten further away from my own natural inclinations than I did.
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