Harlem Roulette
Lyrics
Unknown engines underneath the city
Steam pushing up in billows through the grates
Frankie Lymon's tracking "Seabreeze" in a studio in Harlem
It's 1968
Just a pair of tunes to hammer out
Everybody's off the clock by ten
The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again
Feels so free when I hit the avenue
Nothing like a New York summer night
Every dream's a good dream,
Even awful dreams are good dreams,
If you're doing it right
Remember soaring higher than a cloud
Get pretty sentimental now and then
The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again
And four hours north of Portland, a radio flips on
And some no one from the future remembers that you're gone
Armies massing in the dusky distance
Ghosted in the ribbon microphone
Leave a little mark on something, maybe
Take the secret circuit home
Nothing in the shadows but the shadow hands
Reaching out to sad, young, frightened men
The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again
Yeah, the loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again
Banter
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- It's about - it's about the last night of Frankie Lymon's life. Frankie Lymon, who sang "Why Do Fools Fall In Love," and had one of the most beautiful voices ever. And then got drafted in the middle of his fame and then went AWOL, but then by that time his voice had changed, and he was - and music had kind of moved on, and he was having a hard time finding a place to fit in. But there were a bunch of little labels, and one called Roulette offered him a deal and he went in, tracked a bunch of songs - you know in those days you'd go in and track ten songs and then leave, and he did. And he had gotten just enough money to buy some more dope and he went home and overdosed. "Sea Breeze", the song I mention in the first verse, is one of the last things he recorded. I don't know, I have, I don't know why, 'cause I myself was not a child star, but people who get famous too young and then it just ruins them as people... I get really sad thinking about it. So. (2012-09-08 - Pitchfork (video))
- This is a song about the death of Frankie Lymon, who was a wonderful young singer. Then he wasn't young anymore and his voice changed and the world had no further use for him. But he kept trying to work because that was sort of the only line of work he'd ever had. And, uh, he scored a recording contract with a tiny little label out of Harlem called Roulette, there were a lot of tiny little labels in the 1960s, and they let him track like fifteen demos in one night, and he did that, and got a couple hundred bucks, and he went and got some heroin, as you do when you get a couple hundred bucks, and died in his mother's house that night. This is called Harlem Roulette. (2012-10-16 Bowery Ballroom)
- This is a story about a very young fellow who was famous when he was even younger. He got really, super famous and he went all around the world and he’d grown up really poor so that was a big surprise to him. So, when people would offer him drugs to use and so forth, he was very just a kid- he said, ‘Sure, why not?’ At age 26, he was pretty much washed up and had to struggle for recording contracts and the music industry sort of passed him by. He was living at his mom’s house and he got a little contract with a label called Roulette and he went and tracked a bunch of demos for them. And they gave him just enough money to go cop some dope which he promptly bought and went back to his mom’s house and died. I thought about him one evening and got pretty upset about it and wrote him this song. It’s for Frankie Lymon. (2012-10-27)
Live Performances
Footnotes