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»ARCHIVED TALK
Tracking The Hold Steady's MN-Talk
Posted May 17, 2005
The new Hold Steady album, Separation Sunday, is literally packed with moments about life in the Twin Cities. Even in the few songs where locations like Edina High and the City Center Mall aren't explicitly named, the mis-en-scene always feels local. To that end, I have created a reference sheet of all local references to every song on the new album. Click inside to see them all.
Track 1: "Hornets Hornets"
"I guess the heavy stuff ain't quite at its heaviest by the time it gets out to suburban Minneapolis. We were living up at Nicollet and 66th. With three skaters and some hoodrat chick. Drove the wrong way down 169. Almost died up by Edina High."
Track 3: "Your Little Hoodrat Friend"
"Your little hoodrat friend got me high though. We were 17 and stuck up in Osseo. She said it's funny even true love gets troubled by Stillwater and washed up in the Mississippi River."
"She said City Center used to be the center of the scene. Now City Center's over. No one really goes there. Then we used to drink beneath this railroad bridge. Some nites the bus wouldn't even stop. There were just way too many kids."
Track 6: "Stevie Nix"
"And when we hit the Twin Cities, I didn't know that much about it. I knew Mary Tyler Moore and I knew Profane Existence."
"She got screwed up by religion. She got screwed by soccer players. She got high for the first time in the camps down by the banks of the Mississippi River."
Track 7: "Multitude of Casualties"
"While she was at the Citadel, he was getting high as hell. When she came to in the matinee, she was asking round for someplace else to stay. While he was down in Lowertown, she was feeling out the 5:30 folk mass."
Track 8: "Don't Let Me Explode"
"He said what about Los Angeles. She said we never really made it that far west. We scored big in Denver, and we thought it might be best to go hang around in the Upper Midwest."
Track 9: "Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night"
"Sweet Saint Paul. That must be the hardest luck saint of them all. We met him in some suburban Saint Paul mall."
Track 11: "How a Resurrection Really Feels"
"Holly was a hoodrat. Now you finally know that. She's been disappeared for years. Today she finally came back. She said St. Louis had enslaved me. I guess Santa Ana saved me. St. Peter had me on the queue. The St. Paul Saints they waved me through."
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