Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
Lester Bangs, The Delinquents, and Mickey Leigh
It's Friday night and I just got paid.
Phone ringin' off the hook, but I'm takin' no calls.
If I was a square, I'd go out and get laid.
But I don't care 'cause I'm in love with my walls.
I'm in love with my walls.
We got a deal that's cozy.
They caress me just like Niagara Falls
and my whole world looks rosy.
Some people might think it's depressing
Like five to ten in your own toilet stalls
But I rest assured that no one goes messing
with my love, 'cause I'm in love with my walls.
I'm in love with my walls.
We got a deal that's cozy.
They caress me just like Niagara Falls
and my whole world looks rosy.
The more I love them, the more they shrink.
Can't even get them to get another drink.
I don't even care if they make me small.
No one ever loved me better than my walls.
Radio says there's something alive out there
Violent heebie-jeebies, shrieking 'n' passionate,
But I know it's a lie, and I don't even care.
Radio can go to hell, 'cause I'll just smash it.
I'm in love with my walls.
We got a deal that's cozy.
They caress me just like Niagara Falls
and my whole world looks rosy.
APPEARS ON
Birdland, With Lester Bangs, LP, CD
Track §3
LP: Add On Records, AD#101 (1986); LP, CD reissue: Dionysus Records, Bacchus Archives 1118 (1998)
Jook Savages On the Brazos, LP, CD
Track §1
LP: Live Wire Records, LW-3 (1981); CD: Moll Tonträger [GER], Moll 6 (1995); CD: re-issue: Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)
SOURCES
Transcription by Lester Bangs Archive management, 2013; Jook Savages on the Brazos CD reissue lyrics insert, 2009.
ABOUT THE LYRICS:
Many of Lester Bangs's colleagues at Creem have speculated that this song about a reclusive man who never leaves his apartment on Friday nights is actually a parody of Richard C. Walls, Bangs's close friend and early Creem colleague who suffered from an anxiety disorder similar to agoraphobia (a fear of open or public spaces). (Source: Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs.)
The song underwent a makeover on the Jook Savages album, adapting the rockabilly "no wave" vibe made popular by The Delinquents and others, but the lyrics remained virtually unchanged. The song's writing credit was still given to Birdland co-writer Mitch "Mikey" Leigh, even though he and Bangs had parted ways. (Ex-Rattlers member Mikey Leigh was the brother of Joey Ramone and joined Lester Bangs in 1979 to create Birdland.)
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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