Don’t Let Us Go Down
Walter Becker
© 1991/2018 Zeon LLC
And when I talk to you girl
Whatever am I gonna say
I already I told myself I’d
Never let it be this way
The late rays of the sun
All but gone and settling slow
The evening’s last gasp
Drips down to the courtyard far below
The flagstones flicker fade to grey
Don’t let us girl go down that way
Ah Mrs. Johnson swore If it was the last thing she ever did The deadbeat on the 2nd floor Would never get her precious angel Where is that splendid vow today Don’t let our deal go down that way Hey there momma momma See what your beatnik boy has done Righteous stack of empty pages A pocket full of crumpled ones And all they’d ever hope to say Don’t let us girl go down this way Too many nights too many days For us to just go down this way Imagination has it’s say Taking you off where it will Thought you’d brush that buzz away Like a pidgin off the windowsill Embrace the first blow of the day So easy now to go that way Every little fool cracks wise Wants to know what life is this Comes on like a day In June and Winds up like a week in Jersey Settled that we’ve gone astray Were never meant to go this way Hey there mommy mommy mommy Look what your golden girl has done Shoebox full of empty vessels Pocket full of brand new ones I’m standing here and still I say Don’t let us girl go down that way Got miles to go and hell to payI t hurts like mad and yet I say We’ll curse ourselves and rue the day We let our thing go down this way
Not stopped coming back to this one ever since it was released - so resigned and so desperate - you can feel it all - beautiful changes
Love it. So Walter. He remains a big hero to me. Thanks so much for this.
Is this going to appear on the Downloads page sometime soon?
I heard Grilfriend up the front and then it slowly dissappeared .I waited for Rythm and Melody and it never came which 11 Tracks had done .It felt like pain to me with a dose of unfinished work and it got me thinking abut 11 tracks and how much pain is through that Album but was polished beautifully . If you cant feel or sense or enjoy 11 tracks then you're not in touch for sure to a great Musician .
Dan, you're cracking me up :-) We all can always count on you for an early and insightful response to each new cut, but for a few debuts now, I'm having a harder time telling if you actually liked the damn thing or not! It’s like the neighbor who, when asked “so what did you think of our little Janie’s recital?” says things such as “I’ve never heard anything like it!” or “isn’t that just like her?!”
Nah, seriously, of course I always know you do admire and appreciate and…(I infer)…like. I’m just sort of laughing at my own responses to your responses. I think “meh” is a completely reasonable judgment to anything here. But I do wonder if we should take the responses of a true connoisseur like yourself to indicate we’re scraping the bottom of some barrel here. Yikes…I guess we’d better move some of the winners in our queue up a few places, eh Matt?
PS: Hey Dan…? 😘
I had to listen to this one three times in a row to absorb as much of it as I could. It doesn't have the smart-ass cynic touch, as you so eloquently put it D, but this is absolutely Walter all the way. Plus who else would dream up those chord changes?
I love the line: "The flagstones flicker, fade to gray..." The alliteration combined with the phrasing just hits me way down.
Walter's notebooks contain, among many other jewels, his "got some things,
need some things" lists; song titles in his stable that were worthy, in his mind,
of further work, perhaps ultimately to appear on an album. The list
was always shifting as new titles appeared and old ones dropped away. This song was on his list early, and for a long time. I'd never heard it before --
didn't know it existed -- until the notebooks sent me looking for it. It comes
from a different side of Walter as a writer, and is one of a group
of songs -- moving, earnest -- I was surprised to find he had written.
I don't mind telling you I ached a little when I first heard it. Still do, a little.
It's got amazing changes.
Not a hint of the smart-ass cynic.
Hell, it's downright poetic -- dare I say...beautiful, even.
And I think its pretty great. But what do you think?