And so we\u2019ve had another night
\nOf poetry and poses
\nAnd each man knows he\u2019ll be alone
\nWhen the sacred ginmill closes.<\/p>\n
And so we\u2019ll drink the final glass
\nEach to his joy and sorrow
\nAnd hope the numbing drink will last
\n\u2018Till opening tomorrow.<\/p>\n
And when we stumble back again
\nLike paralytic dancers
\nEach knows the question he must ask
\nAnd each man knows the answer.<\/p>\n
And so we\u2019ll drink the final drink
\nThat cuts the brain in sections
\nWhere answers do not signify
\nAnd there aren\u2019t any questions.<\/p>\n
I broke my heart the other day
\nIt will mend again tomorrow.
\nIf I\u2019d been drunk when I was born
\nI\u2019d be ignorant of sorrow.<\/p>\n
And so we\u2019ll drink the final toast
\nThat never can be spoken:
\nHere\u2019s to the heart that is wise enough
\nTo know when it\u2019s better off broken.<\/p>\n
–Dave van Ronk<\/a><\/p>\n At least 15% of the reason I like Lawrence Block<\/a> is up there. I bought a used copy of When The Sacred Ginmill Closes<\/a> on a whim sometime around 1990, because I found the title compelling. Had I not done so, I wouldn’t have encountered the song, and I probably wouldn’t have read Block<\/a>, Valin<\/a>, Connelly<\/a>, Pelecanos<\/a>, Lehane<\/a>, Crais<\/a>, Parker<\/a>, and all the exotics and historicals that I got interested in after exploring the contemporary hard-boiled stuff, etc. That was at a point when I had essentially abandoned the post-Chandler<\/a> mystery genre, and that Block novel<\/a> was the thing that got me looking in again. And a good chunk of my positive reaction to that novel was really reaction to DVR’s lyric. There’s easily<\/em> a hundred books I might never have read in the intervening years if that lyric in the title hadn’t caught my interest, or if the whole book (to which the lyric is essential) hadn’t grown that seed of interest into something much larger.<\/p>\n Everything else aside, you have to look in awe on the genius of “Each knows the question he must ask\/And each man knows the answer” being followed closely by “Where answers do not signify\/And there aren\u2019t any questions.”<\/p>\n Six short verses and it captures the entire tawdry romance of alcoholism. Even Bukowski<\/a> needed more words than that.<\/p>\n A close second, and an excellent companion piece, to Down Where The Drunkards Roll<\/a> in the category.<\/p>\n I’d put the MP3 up here, since I was, of course, compelled to get the recording<\/a>, but I think I’d rather have you focus on the words themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And so we\u2019ve had another night Of poetry and poses And each man knows he\u2019ll be alone When the sacred ginmill closes. And so we\u2019ll drink the final glass Each to his joy and sorrow And hope the numbing drink will last \u2018Till opening tomorrow. And when we stumble back again Like paralytic dancers Each knows the question he must… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[458,459,194],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-books","tag-music","tag-poem","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-fZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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