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CD review: The Hold Steady
By Matthew Quane
mquane@mscd.edu

The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant Records, 2006)

In the same way the characters in their songs sport scars and drug addictions, The Hold Steady wears its “bar band” label like a badge of honor. And with the critical acclaim the band has received in recent years, “bar band” has indeed become an honorific.

Boys and Girls in America hangs on to the trademarks that have come to define The Hold Steady’s songs: the boozy bark of frontman Craig Finn backed by the sloppy riffing of guitarist Tad Kubler. While the protagonists from its most recent album, Separation Sunday, make minor appearances, the drug-infused lyrics and alcohol-addled music have not gone anywhere.

The album opens with the colossal “Stuck Between Stations,” which contains the title lyric, sublimely stolen from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road protagonist: “Sometimes I think Sal Paradise was right/ boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” The album follows suit, sonically charting the massive highs and crushing lows of an addict trying to return to his druggy genesis.

While the album lacks the heavy biblical references found on Separation Sunday, listeners with a healthy knowledge of Kerouac and American poet John Berryman will find treats hidden throughout the lyrics. Finn quotes Berryman in a conversation with the devil: “I surrounded myself with doctors and deep thinkers/ but big heads with soft bodies make for lousy lovers.”
To those unfamiliar with Kerouac, Berryman or The Hold Steady, I can only suggest having Wikipedia handy during your first listen.

“Chips Ahoy!” finds its narrator in a rocky relationship punctuated by a big win at a horse track. The eponymous pony “came in six lengths ahead/ we spent the whole next week getting high.” But the crash comes fast, with the narrator left wondering how his girl got her tip on Chips Ahoy – maybe from another guy.

But the dire situations in Finn’s songs are not always presented seriously. “You Can Make Him Like You” snidely looks into the particularities of drug use. “Let your boyfriend tell the driver the best way to go/ it only gets kind of weird/ when you wanna go home alone,” Finn croaks. The song shows the stupidity and shortsightedness inherent in drug scenes across America.

Finn, of course, does not forget to write a bit of himself into the album. When he drops the line “He was drunk and exhausted, but he was critically acclaimed and respected,” it is difficult to decipher whether he is referring to Berryman or himself. Of course, it is the deciphering that has kept fans coming back to the band time and time again.