Favorite Record Review: The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

"There are times when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and girls in America, they have such a sad time together."

With that opening line, Craig Finn sets the stage for everything that is to follow on The Hold Steady's 2006 release Boys and Girls in America.   The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Minneapolis Finn plays narrator on the band's third release, backed by Bobby Drake on drums, Tad Kubler on lead guitar, Galen Polivka on bass, and Franz Nicolay on piano and keys.  Finn's stories follow a series of characters as they stumble out of the bars and around the streets, through blackouts and break-ups, before the buzz and after the come down,  drugged out, strung out and high; dealing, coping and moving on.  It's the coolest diary you wish you could write, but are glad you can't. 

Over 11 songs and 41 minutes of music, Finn provides counsel from behind the mic like over-educated bartender, pharmaceutical college school drop out, under-employed lawyer, and community college English professor all rolled into one.  Professor Finn references Jack Kerouac's alter-ego and poet John Berryman's suicide in "Stuck Between Stations", while sardonically remarking "'You're pretty good with words / But words won't save your life'" / And they didn't so he died."  "Chips Ahoy!" questions the intimacy of a relationship built around drug use and an uncanny gambling skill.  On "Hot Soft Light" Dr. Finn quips "it started recreational / and ended kind of medical", admitting that there are times "when it all comes on a little bit too bright".  "Same Kooks" cranks up the speed with Kubler's skills on full display, nicely slowing down to an almost Gospel like keyboard phrase, making us think there might actually be a baptismal cleansing of sorts in the much referenced Mississippi River. 

Lament over the inability to replicate the newness of first love builds and swells in "First Night" and an inner monologue during a kiss in "Citrus" slows things down to a contemplative change of pace.  "You Can Make Him Like You" gives consent to a girl to acknowledge her own self -worth and the ability to define an identity independent from a man.  Advice like "You don't have to deal with the dealers / Let your boyfriend deal with the dealers / It only gets inconvenient / When you wanna get high alone" typifies the depth of Finn's ability to craft sharp witted tales that capture a perspective not often as thoughtfully represented.  The brash and reckless qualities of adolescence are presented alongside the vulnerability and the insecurity that defines the mixture of contradictions that we all, as teens, live through.

Above all, the biting, literate insight elevates the songs on "Boys and Girls in America" beyond any type of stereotypical DIY punk anthems.  The playing is dirty without ever being sloppy.   Finn's speak-sing delivery is a talking blues for a post-punk age.  The morning after wisdom becomes an overarching morality through Craig Finn's blend of street corner psychiatry and light-handed religiosity.  In the end the ethos imparted is more than a blessing of a drugged blurred existence.  It is a recognition that the drugs and the drinking, the "massive nights" and the "crushing lows", all come to be transcended by time, distance, and self realization.  We grow, we learn, and we come to grips with ourselves and the life we've been dealt.   After all other attempts to obscure yourself fail, sober up, and let yourself come into focus - words alone won't save you.