Other The East Village Vampire
In The Neighborhood (Not The Tom Waits Track...)

I live in a very cool part of Melbourne Australia called St Kilda.

It is right on the beach next to the city. Kind of a mix between NYC’s Conney Island and Sydney’s King’s Cross precinct. It has always been the perfect spot for some inspiration. I've written about St Kilda before - see my song 'Dramatic Highs, Dramatic Lows'.

Although St Kilda might have changed over the years it is still one of those funky areas where random parts society seem to intersect. Walking through the streets you’ll see everything from Hasidic Jews, white collar yuppies, prostitutes, students, drug fiends, exercise nuts and more. It is the same streets where famous Aussies like Nick Cave and infamous figures like Chopper Read use to hang out.

Written and recorded in the middle of 2012, ‘In The Neighborhood’ was simply my observations after taking a walk early one Sunday morning. I saw everything from Hasidic Jews discussing religious matters, prostitutes and drunks on the march home, students still out and about and people off to church. Such a crazy mix. All these images just came out in a song.

The music is based around a non-stop bluesy riff. To me there is a bit of Tom Waits in there (maybe Swordfishtrombones era), hell I even used one of his song titles. Although it is a pretty slight song it is a very me kind of sound. Raggedy and bluesy. Interestingly, the percussion you can hear (i.e. bongo sounds) is really just me banging my acoustic guitar. It was all pretty spontaneous.

Anyway, it is just a bit of fun. Hope you enjoy.

LYRICS...

Cha-cha-boom...

They talk of G-d on the night shift

All black hats and beards

Because a book said they should

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood...

Down the street there are ladies - How much baby?

Show you a time in the room

Give the drunks some wood

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood...

Classes end on a Friday

Get a skin full of booze

Wouldn’t stop if they could

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood...

You walk to church on a Sunday

Past the bums in the street

If you only should - could - would...

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood,

In the neighborhood...

In The Neighborhood by The East Village Vampire is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.