If you haven't read The Basketball Diaries, you have no idea how artfully a 15-year-old heroin addict can put words to a page. If you haven't heard the album Catholic Boy, you have no idea how ethereal (and sometimes uncomfortable) the intersection of punk rock and gritty urban poetry can be. Thank the late Jim Carroll for both.
Why Snapoversteer chose to recast Carroll's song "People Who Died" in a comment on the Mercedes-Benz dealership with the noisy vents is anyone's guess. But he did, and picked one of the most compelling songs ever written about New York life in the 1970s. Yeah, yeah, no one gives a shit any more — oh look, another trillion-dollar condo building on the Bowery, near Whole Foods. Well, almost no one.
Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got awakened by the MB fans
He looked like 65 with those bags under his eyes
He was a friend of mineThose are people who died, died
Most of those people died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died. Except Bobby
Man, NYC sure has gone soft.