I find it hard to know whether I really like the New York Dolls or not as I roll back and forth on the topic. To me The Ramones eptiomised the New York rock scene at that time even though the Dolls are more glam rock than punk rock. They recently reformed again and I got to see them perform on the Jonathan Ross show and to be honest I really didn’t think much of their performance.

I’ve only ever really loved three songs of theirs and to an avid fan of the band they are probably the most obvious songs - Looking for a Kiss and Personality crisis both from their first album New York Dolls while the third song is Chatterbox from their second album Too Much Too Soon. I can’t honestly say why but i think my interpretation of the lyrics of these songs had more a resonance with me than other songs which brings me onto today’s song which I take as the band comparing being in the limelight to having a Personality Crisis as you may have to be somewhere or behave in a certain way when being in the public domain.

I’ve written about this topic before on a previous post about a Devendra Banhart song here. While Devendra was singing specifically about his life or the life of a well known musician (I don’t like to use the word famous) the Dolls seem to incorporate friends with a reference lady:

‘Well we can’t take it this week
And her friends don’t want another speach
Hoping for a better day to hear what she’s got to say‘

and further into the song friends are also referenced:

‘ That personality everything starts to blend
Personality when your mind starts to blend
Personality impression of a friend,
Of a friend, of a friend, of a friend, of a friend
Personality wonderin how celebrities ever met
(Look and find out on television)‘

As expected the tempo of the song is really high merged with power chord driven guitar work and some nifty keyboard work to ever so slightly mellow the song out. Check out a live version of the song.

Last 5 posts by Des

• 'Fearless' - Pink Floyd, 1983 - December 30th, 2008
• 'Frankie Teardrop' - Suicide, 1977 - December 19th, 2008
• 'After Midnight' - J J Cale, 1971 - December 17th, 2008
• 'Acid Tongue'- Jenny Lewis, 2008 - December 12th, 2008
• 'Baltimore'- Randy Newman, 1977 - December 9th, 2008

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 5:22 am and is filed under Punk / Post-Punk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.