Hey Charlie, I’m pregnant[1]A clever inversion of the Christmas story, by featuring a pregnant hooker instead of a pregnant virgin. But then again, maybe the whore and the virgin (as is so often the case in Western art) … Continue reading
Living on 9th Street[2]There is indeed both a 9th street and a Euclid in Minneapolis, but they are so comically far apart as to never intersect—which is perhaps the first indication that the hooker in question is not … Continue reading
Right above a dirty bookstore
Off Euclid Avenue[3]Minnesota in general has some odd Euclidean intersections with the LDS Church: Eugene England wrote his most famous essay “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel” about his first faculty … Continue reading
I stopped taking dope
And I quit drinking whiskey[4]Can we not all applaud her for finally living the Word of Wisdom? /s
And my old man[5]In this context, an affectionate term for her husband, not her father. plays the trombone[6]What was once considered the sultriest and most suggestive of brass instruments, and not the dorkiest (source: former band nerd myself).
And works out at the track[7]That is, the horse-race track, back when sports-betting was confined to the “degenerates” and the desperate, decades before the advent of online sports-bets and apps gave the addiction a … Continue reading
He says that he loves me
Even though its not his baby[8]An allusion to Joseph, in another parallel to the Nativity story.
He says that he’ll raise him up
Like he would his own son
And he gave me a ring
That was worn by his mother
And he takes me out dancin’
Every Saturday night[9]From the same man who gave us “(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night,” recorded just a few years earlier when Tom Waits wasn’t trying to hide his beautiful voice beneath a … Continue reading
Hey Charlie, I think about you
Every time I pass a fillin’ station
On account of all the grease
You used to wear in your hair[10]Men in the 1950s and early-60s used to buy cheap little tins of hair-grease at gas stations, back when putting a part in your hair was considered fashionable and debonair–and not, say, a … Continue reading
I still have that record
Of Little Anthony and The Imperials[11]Black R&B/Doo-Wop group from 1950s Brooklyn; one of the few Doo-Wop groups to continue to enjoy success on the Pop charts well into the 1960s. But then, even that era was long over by the time … Continue reading
But someone stole my record player[12]Spoiler alert: as alluded to earlier, this entire song turns out to be just a tall-tale spun by the hooker—or more charitably, an elaborate wish-fulfillment fantasy—yet even in her … Continue reading
Now how do ya like that?
Hey Charlie, I almost went crazy
After Mario got busted[13]Unknown incident.
I went back to Omaha[14]The only decent part of Nebraska, though boy is that a low bar to clear (Malcolm X‘s father was lynched in Omaha by the KKK when he was a small child). Omaha incidentally is directly across the … Continue reading
To live with my folks
But everyone I used to know
Was either dead or in prison[15]Another example of how even in her wish-fulfillment fantasies, she can’t help but feel melancholy, lost, and lonely.
So I came back to Minneapolis[16]Tom Waits himself is from New York and L.A., incidentally, with no Midwestern connections.
This time I think I’m gonna stay
Hey Charlie, I think I’m happy
For the first time since my accident[17]Left unspecified.
I wish I had all the money
We used to spend on dope[18]This line is of course an artifact from a late-’70s era when marijuana was still considered as dangerous, addictive, and expensive a “gate-way drug” as crack or heroin–and … Continue reading
I’d buy me a used car lot
And I wouldn’t sell any of ’em
I’d just drive a different car every day[19]From the same car enthusiast who gave us “Ol’ 55” (later covered antiseptically by The Eagles). That is, even though this song recounts an elaborate lie spun by a fictional … Continue reading
Dependin’ on how I feel
Hey Charlie, for chrissakes[20]Is it really swearing if it’s during the Christmas season, and for a confession of truth?
Do you want to know the truth of it?
I don’t have a husband
He don’t play the trombone[21]Hey, at least she came clean in the end–that is, she humbled herself and repented. This is also why the publicans and harlots enter the Kingdom of God before you; as Joseph Smith explained in … Continue reading
I need to borrow money
To pay this lawyer[22]But then, don’t we all need help paying off a debt we cannot repay? Do we not all need an Advocate at the Judgment Bar? Is that not the whole point of the Atonement? Is that not why Christ was … Continue reading
And Charlie, hey
I’ll be eligible for parole
Come Valentine’s Day[23]Apropos allusion, since this song features on Wait’s 1978 album Blue Valentines.
References
| ↑1 | A clever inversion of the Christmas story, by featuring a pregnant hooker instead of a pregnant virgin. But then again, maybe the whore and the virgin (as is so often the case in Western art) aren’t so antithetical, but flip sides of the same coin; Christ Himself, after all, told the scribes and the Pharisees openly, “Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matthew 21:31). Newer translations make His words even more explicit: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (NRSV).
The reasons why the Savior so declared are not difficult to parse: Revelations 7:14 says of those saved in the kingdom of God, “These are they which came out of great tribulation.” That is, only those who pass through tribulation will be saved (D&C 101:4 indicates the same), and prostitutes have passed through tribulation indeed. After all, the super-majority of prostitutes (especially in ancient times, when there were far fewer avenues for a woman to make money) became ones because they were forced to by socioeconomic circumstance, certainly not because they wanted to. The religiously orthodox had denied women a way to made an independent living outside marriage, and then had the nerve to condemn impoverished women as “immoral” when they accepted the only work open to them–as though they didn’t have a thing to do with their situation. (These were the same sorts of men, recall, who dragged the woman “taken in adultery” before Christ to be stoned–all while conspicuously ignoring the man who must have been caught in adultery with her). But if there was one thing the Savior despised above all during his mortal ministry, it was religious hypocrisy; hence why he had no issue with elevating the prostitutes over the Pharisees in the final tally. The prostitutes had come out of great tribulation; the Pharisees had only caused it. The Savior of the World has an obvious sympathy and preference for the “low-lifes,” the cast-offs and despised of society; so too does Tom Waits; so too should we all. |
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| ↑2 | There is indeed both a 9th street and a Euclid in Minneapolis, but they are so comically far apart as to never intersect—which is perhaps the first indication that the hooker in question is not being entirely forthright in her Christmas card to Charlie. |
| ↑3 | Minnesota in general has some odd Euclidean intersections with the LDS Church: Eugene England wrote his most famous essay “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel” about his first faculty appointment at St. Olaf College (where the fictional Jay Gatsby also attended, incidentally); Low is from Duluth; and Russel M. Nelson was part of the research team that pioneered the cardiopulmonary bypass and heart-lung machine in 1951 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
The first patient of Nelson’s research team, incidentally, was a 6-year-old girl with a congenital heart defect. The heart-lung machine worked well for the first 40 minutes, but the heart defect was irreparable and the girl died on the operating table. All of which is to say, Minneapolis can be a place of quite literal heartbreak. |
| ↑4 | Can we not all applaud her for finally living the Word of Wisdom? /s |
| ↑5 | In this context, an affectionate term for her husband, not her father. |
| ↑6 | What was once considered the sultriest and most suggestive of brass instruments, and not the dorkiest (source: former band nerd myself). |
| ↑7 | That is, the horse-race track, back when sports-betting was confined to the “degenerates” and the desperate, decades before the advent of online sports-bets and apps gave the addiction a veneer of “normalcy.”
It is interesting to here observe that, even as the hooker in question spins a yarn about finally turning her life around, she can still only do so in the context of still being entangled with the “low-lifes,” as though it wouldn’t be believable otherwise–or is it that, like the Savior hanging with the drunks and the prostitutes, she accurately intuits that these are the people she should remain around for the sake of her own soul? |
| ↑8 | An allusion to Joseph, in another parallel to the Nativity story. |
| ↑9 | From the same man who gave us “(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night,” recorded just a few years earlier when Tom Waits wasn’t trying to hide his beautiful voice beneath a gravely drunken troubadour affectation, as he does here. |
| ↑10 | Men in the 1950s and early-60s used to buy cheap little tins of hair-grease at gas stations, back when putting a part in your hair was considered fashionable and debonair–and not, say, a requirement for entering the MTC. The practice died out once long-hair on men became popular in the late-60s and 1970s (at which point it became associated exclusively with Mormon missionaries and old conservatives). In the context of the song, it is a signifier for the morose passage of time. |
| ↑11 | Black R&B/Doo-Wop group from 1950s Brooklyn; one of the few Doo-Wop groups to continue to enjoy success on the Pop charts well into the 1960s. But then, even that era was long over by the time this song was released in 1978–another signifier for the morose passage of time. |
| ↑12 | Spoiler alert: as alluded to earlier, this entire song turns out to be just a tall-tale spun by the hooker—or more charitably, an elaborate wish-fulfillment fantasy—yet even in her wish-fulfillment she still gets robbed, which feels significant. Why is it she still suffers injustice and petty theft even in her dreams?? How impossible it is for us all to even imagine a perfect life! Perhaps that’s why so few of us even try to build up Zion, even when it’s nominally core to our Articles of Faith: we don’t even know how to imagine it in the first place. |
| ↑13 | Unknown incident. |
| ↑14 | The only decent part of Nebraska, though boy is that a low bar to clear (Malcolm X‘s father was lynched in Omaha by the KKK when he was a small child). Omaha incidentally is directly across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Brigham Young and the Saints wintered after their expulsion from Nauvoo, before continuing on to Utah territory. Note that they never wanted to stay in the Omaha area ever again, either. |
| ↑15 | Another example of how even in her wish-fulfillment fantasies, she can’t help but feel melancholy, lost, and lonely. |
| ↑16 | Tom Waits himself is from New York and L.A., incidentally, with no Midwestern connections. |
| ↑17 | Left unspecified. |
| ↑18 | This line is of course an artifact from a late-’70s era when marijuana was still considered as dangerous, addictive, and expensive a “gate-way drug” as crack or heroin–and not, say, just an asinine little vice from a legal dispensary, perhaps disreputable but no more sordid than a state-owned liquor store (note that she doesn’t credit whiskey with costing her all her money like she does “dope”). |
| ↑19 | From the same car enthusiast who gave us “Ol’ 55” (later covered antiseptically by The Eagles). That is, even though this song recounts an elaborate lie spun by a fictional character, it’s still the lie that tells the truth, in how it betrays all of Tom Waits’ own most heart-felt preoccupations. |
| ↑20 | Is it really swearing if it’s during the Christmas season, and for a confession of truth? |
| ↑21 | Hey, at least she came clean in the end–that is, she humbled herself and repented. This is also why the publicans and harlots enter the Kingdom of God before you; as Joseph Smith explained in his gloss of the parable of the 99 sheep, “The 99 are too righteous to repent. They are damned anyways, you cannot save them.” |
| ↑22 | But then, don’t we all need help paying off a debt we cannot repay? Do we not all need an Advocate at the Judgment Bar? Is that not the whole point of the Atonement? Is that not why Christ was born in the first place? Is that not why we so celebrate His birth? Isn’t that why He has commanded us to treat each other with similarly radical love and generosity? Is that not why we exchange gifts on Christmas morning? |
| ↑23 | Apropos allusion, since this song features on Wait’s 1978 album Blue Valentines. |