And so we’ve had another night
Of poetry and poses
And each man knows he’ll be alone
When the sacred ginmill closes.
And so we’ll drink the final glass
Each to his joy and sorrow
And hope the numbing drink will last
‘Till opening tomorrow.
And when we stumble back again
Like paralytic dancers
Each knows the question he must ask
And each man knows the answer.
And so we’ll drink the final drink
That cuts the brain in sections
Where answers do not signify
And there aren’t any questions.
I broke my heart the other day
It will mend again tomorrow.
If I’d been drunk when I was born
I’d be ignorant of sorrow.
And so we’ll drink the final toast
That never can be spoken:
Here’s to the heart that is wise enough
To know when it’s better off broken.
At least 15% of the reason I like Lawrence Block is up there. I bought a used copy of When The Sacred Ginmill Closes 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, Valin, Connelly, Pelecanos, Lehane, Crais, Parker, 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 mystery genre, and that Block novel 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 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.
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’t any questions.”
Six short verses and it captures the entire tawdry romance of alcoholism. Even Bukowski needed more words than that.
A close second, and an excellent companion piece, to Down Where The Drunkards Roll in the category.
I’d put the MP3 up here, since I was, of course, compelled to get the recording, but I think I’d rather have you focus on the words themselves.
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