
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Johnny 99´
´´This is about falling through the bottom.....”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Reason to Believe´
´´Thanks....we´re gonna be playing a long time tonight so
you guys could sit down for a while if you want, it´s gonna be a long
show....do some wear and tear on your feet.....yeah .....this is a song about
blind faith and how....it´s so hard to find something to hold on to....
something to believe in that sometimes....people believe in anything that comes
along.....”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Shut Out the Light´
´´Thank you, this is a.....song I wrote, I guess, uh.....I was driving
through Phoenix, Arizona, in the late-70´s.....(?) me and a friend of
mine were driving across country going to California ....and uh....I stopped
in this drugstore....and I was looking for a book to read.....and I found this
book called Born on the Fourth of July, it´s by a....a Vietnam Veteran
named Ron Kovic....and it was his story about coming home, how he felt and what
he found when he came home after that war....this is a, this is a song about
coming home, this is called ´Shut Out the Light´.....”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Johnny Bye Bye´
´´Thanks, there´s uh.....everybody knows that the day before
yesterday was Elvis´ 50th birthday....and uh....there´s a lot stuff
on TV about him about now, I guess....the real good show on, uh....called ´One
Night With You´, I guess they´re playing it on HBO....it´s
a tape of the ´´68 Special´ when he was really, he was just
about at his best, if you get a chance to watch that, that´s something,
something great to see....but uh, it was around 1975, I was down in Memphis....and
it was kind of late at night, it was after the show and me and Steven, my guitar
player, we, uh, decided we were gonna go out and get something to eat....so
we called a taxi and a taxi came by and picked us up at the motel and the guy
said he knew some place to eat that was out by Elvis´ house....so we said
´Oh, you know where Elvis
lives ?´, he says ´Yes´, we go ´Take us right there´
so he took us out to Elvis´....I remember we got out, got out of the cab
and we stood there in front of those gates, he had the gates with the guitar
players on ´em....and I seen, I seen a light in the window like in the
second, second-floor window....like I was sure that like Elvis was home and
like he was in bed reading or something (chuckles) and so....I decided I was
gonna try and meet him, I jumped over the wall and I ran up the driveway towards
the frontdoor....and it´s uh (chuckles) see, now, see, now like sometimes
I think it was a stupid thing to do ´cause like I hate it when people
do it at my house so (chuckles) so but anyway (chuckles) I did it (chuckles)
I jumped over the wall and I ran up to the door and just as I was about to knock
on the door, these guards came out of the woods and they said ´What do
you want ?´, you know, and I said ´Well, is Elvis home ? I´d
like to meet Elvis´ (chuckles) and they said ´No, no, he´s
in Lake Tahoe´, I said ´Yeah, but you see like, like I was on the
cover of Time and Newsweek´, they said ´Oh yeah, sure you were,
yeah, oh, yeah ! oh yeah ! alright, yeah, sure, oh, you´re that guy, yeah,
ok´ (chuckles) and they took me down by the gate and they put me back
out on the street (chuckles)...but uh....anyway, I don´t know what I would´ve
said if I´d met him...... but I know that, that I felt a real....I felt
like a part of me died when a friend of mine called me up and told me that he´d.....and
told me that he´d died.....it was hard to understand how somebody who
came in and took away so many people´s loneliness could´ve ended
up so lonely....´cause, uh, he deserved a lot better than that.....so....here´s
happy birthday, this is called ´Bye Bye Johnny´.....”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Glory Days´
´´Now, this is a song....about ancient history....no, I´m
not talking ´bout the Mesopotamians ....I´m not talking ´bout
the Trojans....or the Italians....I´m not talking ´bout none of
that stuff you learn in school....I´m talking about personal things....about
old times....now, I´ve got my share of old times....now, Clarence, he´s
got more than me....and being that his birthday is about 1 a.m tonight....he´s
gonna have some more, he´s gotta continue.....but as you can see, he has
maintained his youthful beauty....yes he has.....but like back when I was a
kid, like, I was only interested in three things....like, my father was a pool
player so, like, I was interested in pool and I was interested in the guitar....and
then the third thing was....you know, that one (chuckles)....but I can remember
one Christmastime my mother took me to Newark, New Jersey, to a Sears and she
bought me, for 69.95, she bought me pooltable and like we tied it to the roof
of the car and like, we´d, you know, I was holding it down in the snow,
we were coming home....and then we got it in the house, my father wouldn´t
let me keep it downstairs so we had to like lug it upstairs, I put it in my
bedroom....but like that was ok because like I used to bring my girlfriends
over and like I´d say ´Dad, we´re gonna go up in room and
play pool for a little while´....but like, but like he was real slick
because the kitchen was right underneath my bedroom and if he didn´t hear
the poolballs knocking around, if he didn´t hear the guitar strumming,
he had this broomstick that he used to bang on the ceiling to interrupt my concentration....but
like I used to kind of trick him because like I´d pull the pooltable like
real over close to the bed and then every once in a while I would lean up and
knock the poolballs around a little bit....that worked pretty good....but, but
anyway, as I grew older, I put away childish things....stopped playing pool....and
of the other two, the only one I became good at was the guitar....but the third
one, I´m still willing to practise, practise, practise.....I´m gonna
get it down this year, that´s my New Year´s resolution..... gonna
be perfect (chuckles) oh shit, in the end....in the end all things must pass....and
you´re left with nothing but glory days...oh yeah....here we go now....help
me sing the song, boys...”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´My Hometown´
´´This is a song, I guess....around ´80, ´82 I was living
in California for a while....and I was thinking back to the town that I grew
up in, what it was like there, what had happened there ....and uh....I guess
everybody when they grow up, they kind of grow up with a love-hate relationship
with the place they were raised and when I was 16, I thought that the town I
grew up in was just so small-minded and so narrow, and it was, it was....but
uh, sometimes it blinds you to the good things that are there too....and as
I got older, I started to come home off the road and I´d get in my car
and I´d drive back through town, I´d visit some of my old friends,
see what their lives were like, what they´d done.....and uh....I got to
understanding that one of the things....I guess I was afraid of when I was a
kid was I was afraid of belonging to something....´cause when you say
that you belong to something that means there´s some, there´s some
responsobility there.....if you say ´I´m an American´, it
means....it means a lot more than just standing up and waving a flag....it means
you´ve got some responsobility to America....now....here in this country
we´ve got a lot of things to be proud of and we certainly have a lot of
things to be ashamed about.....but tonight when you go out into the lobby....you´re
gonna see some people that are trying to live up to their responsobility of
their community....they´re called the Dare-to-Care Foodbank.....of Louisville....and
what a foodbank is is every year 20 percent of all the food that gets produced
in America gets thrown away or it gets wasted, meanwhile in every city and every
state we´ve got people that are going hungry, kids that are undernourished....and
what a foodbank does is it gets that food and it gets it to the agencies to
serve the people....and that´s old folks whose social security checks
don´t get ´em through the month, who worked their whole lives and
they still can´t make it, there´s people who´ve been hit hard
by unemployment, people who the trickle-down-theory of economics is not trickling
down to .....kids, kids that are undernourished, anybody that needs a helping
hand....so tonight when you go out there in the lobby, please check ´em
out, they´re the Dare-to-Care Foodbank, they could use your support whether
it´s a buck or if you´ve got some time to volunteer for ´em,
they could use that, and sometimes hunger, it seems like something that´s
just happening in some place way far away but it´s not, it´s happening
every day right here in your hometown ..... ´´
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Pink Cadillac´
´´Now, you see, this is a song....about the conflict...between worldly
things and spiritual health....between desires of the flesh....and spiritual
ecstasy....(?)....now, where did this conflict begin ?...well, it began in the
beginning....in a place called the Garden of Eden .... now, the Garden of Eden
was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia.... but the latest
theological studies have found out that its actual location was ten miles south
of Jersey City off the New Jersey Turnpike !....now, that´s why they call
this the Garden State .... but now understand, in the Garden of Eden, there
were none of the accoutrements of modern living, you didn´t have no Laundromat
you could run down to and wash your little clothes in the machine, you couldn´t
go home at night and put them little Poptarts in the toaster and jump in bed
and watch Johnny Carson....you couldn´t go out onto the highway and buy
a cheeseburger if you wanted one....no Sir !....in the Garden of Eden, there
was no sin...there was no sex....man lived in a state of innocence ....when
it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I live in....but before
the beginning of this tour I decided to make a spiritual journed to the location
of the Garden of Eden to find out the answer to some of these mysteries...so
I hitchhiked out there and I found out that that spot was now occupied by Happy
Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot....I walked in....the man said ´Son,
you need a yellow convertible, a four-door Deville, with a Continental spare,
wide chrome wheels, air-conditioner, automatic heat, a full fold-out bed in
your backseat, 8-track, tapedeck, TV and a phone so you can speak to your baby
when you´re driving all alone?´....I said ´I´ll take
two´ ...then I said ´But, Dan, but, Dan, that´s not the reason
why I came, what I wanna know is, I need the answer to this conflict, what´s
this temptation all about, when soul pulls me one way and my body pulls me´...and
he said ´Son, well, that´s easy...because right here on these ten
beautifully commercially-zoned acres was the sweetest little paradise that Man
has ever seen, now, in the Garden of Eden, there was many wonderous things,
there was a Tree of Life, there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil....
there was a man, Adam, there was a woman, Eve, and she looked so fine....and
when Adam kissed her, it was the first time that a man had ever kissed a woman....and
she had legs that were long and soft to the touch....and when Adam touched her,
it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman....and then they went
out in the green fields and they lay down....and when Adam....well, let´s
just say it was the first time....but there was something else in the Garden
of Eden that day, old Satan came slithering up on his belly and somehow he turned
their love into a betrayal and sent them driving down into the darkness below....but
that´s alright because right here tonight on this backlot I have their
getaway car....and for 99.95 and no money down, if you´ve got bad credit,
don´t worry about it, it´s good here....if you´ve got the
nerve to ride, I´ve got the keys to the first....pink....Cadillac....”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Racing in the Street´
´´Yeah, I remember it was right....it was ´round the end of
the summertime.....there was this strip down off the river where I.....where
people used to go....and dump, it was like an old junkyard, people from town’d
take down the things that they didn’t want no more and leave ´em
there to rust....and there was this spot down, we used to meet under this, under
this cottonwood tree....that was where I met her.....and...you know how it is,
like, when you´re first going out with somebody, you´re laughing
all the time... and everything you do is fun.... we´d go out riding....but
then it seemed like time passed....and the things that made her happy once just
didn´t make her happy any more....and I was spending most of my time....
trying to find something to make her happy again....and she got to where she
wanted to stay in all the time and we couldn´t talk no more.....and she’d
hide my keys at night so I couldn’t take out the car....and it got hard
to make her understand ....and I know that once she knew that when I took the
car out and when I won ....that it was the only time....I got to feeling ....good
about myself....and I know she used to know ....and to have just one thing in
your whole life that you can do....that makes you feel proud of yourself.....well,
I don´t think that’s too much for anybody to ask.....is it ?....
(....) That was the night that we left...we still don’t know where we’re
going yet but I guess that’ll come in time....but sometimes it seems like
time....time gets running so short on you ....like it’s gonna run out
on you....and so much gets left behind....there’s not much you can do....but
keep goin’....and keep searchin’....and to keep goin’....to
keep on goin´, keep on goin´, keep on goin´, you keep on goin´...”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Can´t Help Falling In Love´
´´Gonna do a....little special song here tonight...for, uh....the
Big Man is gonna have a little Big Man pretty soon (chuckles)...he´s gonna
be a daddy (chuckles)....and this is for him and his wife Tina...and a happy
birthday to Clarence....”
10.01.85 Louisville, KY, intro to ´Santa Claus Is Coming to Town´
´´There´s only 355 shopping days left so.....
(....) Here he comes now....he don´t ever get no rest....he´s gotta
pack up that Cadillac sled ....hitch up the V-8 reindeers....the man´s
gotta be on the road all year long.....oh yeah....here he comes....I see him,
he´s flying over New Jersey....he´s flying, he´s flying south
now.... Lexington, Cincinnati, Louisville....now, has everybody been good all
year ? (cheers) nobody did no lying ? (crowd : ´No´) nobody did
no cheating on their boyfriend or their girlfriend ? (crowd: ´No´)
good, that´s good, come on, boys and girls, ready ? here we go....”
Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi