freeform goodness

Reading this really nice explication (thanks, 2lmc) of Cornershop’s “Brimful of Asha” makes me realize two things:

1. To enjoy a really well-written pop song, you needn’t know every detail behind it
2. Knowing at least a bit of the background can, in some cases, give you an extra appreciation of the song

In this spirit, I offer a little extra background for the White Stripes song “Hotel Yorba.” If you’ve never visited Detroit, then there’s probably no image in your head that would distinguish the actual Hotel Yorba from any other lodging — say, your typical Howard Johnson’s or Holiday Inn. The thing to know, though, is that the real Hotel Yorba is nothing like either of these places. The real Hotel Yorba is a ten story or so building situated on in southwest Detroit, just a few blocks away from the Greyhound bus station and not far from the Ambassador Bridge (which connects Detroit to Windsor, Canada.)

The Hotel Yorba, it must be said, is not a 4-star hotel. You will most assuredly not find it in the Michelin guide. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s a flop house. Though I’ve only ever been inside it once, and then for only a few minutes about 5 years ago, my impression was of the type of place you’ll find in the poorer areas in every large American city. It’s the sort of place where folks who don’t have a realistic chance of scaring up enough money at any one time to afford the standard 2½ 1/2 months rent you need to lease an apartment pay for a room a day or a week at a time. The people who live in these places are thrown together for various reasons — un- or under- employment, infirmity, drug problems, or maybe just plain bad luck.

Embedded deep in the psyche of just about every Detroiter is concept of “up north.” Detroit is located pretty near the southern border of the state of Michigan. As a general rule, the further north you go in the state, the less populous it becomes. Hence, since the early days of the auto industry, it has always been a status symbol among the striving classes to own vacation land “up north”. The further north the better, and if you can manage your own cottage (or even better, a vacation home with lake frontage), then you are well and truly blessed, with status to spare among your fellow toiling wage-slaves. Folks toil for decades at jobs they hate, squirreling funds away to afford that “up north” land, ideally with a color-coordinated boat. For those at the lower end of the income scale, this yearning is very nearly an unattainable fairy tale.

“Hotel Yorba” is a cool enough song in its own right, but I think knowing this little extra bit of background puts tension and release in the lyrics into sharper relief.

:: Dave Walker 15:48 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

:: [/entertainment/music]
:: tags: music

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