Monday, October 4, 2021

Down On Terminal Street

If you can make it all the way through the "Modern Music Suite" by Be Bop Deluxe without having your head explode, you're about halfway there.

Soon you will wind up Down On Terminal Street where things sound like this:

remastered in 2004



remastered in 2019



Are you ready for an amazing "footnote"? They played it live on TV in 1976 ... on the BBC!

Apparently the BBC sensors couldn't detect anything subversive in it.

Of course not! Their sensors weren't nearly a sensitive as Bill was (and still is)!

Live! on the BBC!! (1976) (with another guitarist whose name we've never learned)

I took a walk down terminal street last night
To see the ancient faces living there
I saw the sunken eyes of agony
I saw the desperate stations of despair
The madman waiting for the spirit girls to come
In a song well written but unsung
I saw the smiling wardens cutting down the noose
From which my drowning head was hung

Oh, down on terminal street
Oh, down on terminal street

The street cafe was closed to all but ghosts
Who glide the alleys searching for their lair
I heard a voice like Winter call my name
Said very soon that I would join them there
And all the creatures born of ink and rage and lies
Crawled from my pen and ran across the page to die
Fascination was the germ of their disease
Degradation is the term of their release

Oh, down on terminal street
Oh, down on terminal street
Oh yes, I'm down on terminal street tonight
Oh no, not down on terminal street tonight
Oh yes, down on terminal street tonight
Oh no, down on terminal street tonight
Oh yes, I'm down on terminal street tonight
Terminal street!