Angela Frangias' NADA Assignment

"Kiss the Bottle" from the Music For the Proletariat CD 

Kindly typed up by Elan Riesman. 

Kiss the Bottle
---------------

It gets lonliest at night
Down at the liquor store
Beneath the neon sky
Our moonlight
Six a.m. the floor comes alive with lice
The pan's dried up so tight
With hardened beans
We're hungry
So I lean on you sometimes
Just to see you're still there
Your feet can't take the weight of one
Much less two
We hit concrete
How were we born into this mess?
I know I painted you a prettier picture, baby
But we were run out on a rail
Fell from the wagon to the night train
I kissed the bottle
I should've been kissing you
You wake up to an empty night
With tears for two
Cigarettes they fill the gaps
In our empty days
In our broken teeth
We're jonesing
Say mister, can you spare a dime?
Some change could make a change
Could buy some time
Some freedom
Or an ear to hear my story
It's all I've got
My fiction beats the hell out of my truth
A palm upturned burnt blue
Don't call it sunburn
You've been shaking on the job
Joust one drink ahead of your past
There's a white light coming up
You draw the blinds hoping it'll pass
I kissed the bottle...

This is a song of a desperate alcoholic who trades love for booze.
It starts with a graphic scene of him at a liquor store at six
o'clock in the morning, and how in his alcohol-deprived state he can
"spot" lice on the floor. 

So he stays one drink ahead of his past, as he puts it, while realizing
that he "kissed the bottle", instead of his lover. That is, he traded
something real for something illusory. Something positive for a
self-administered ride to the gutter. 

In this age of booze and drug glorification as reflected in popular music,
it is refreshing to find lyrics that shine a bright light on the
glorified world of booze and dope. 

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/skilmon/music/jawbreaker/kiss