DISRUPTING THE MINDSET OF COMMONPLACE APATHY: JOY ON FIRE’S “WEEKDAY AVE.”

Behold “Weekday Ave.” I sometimes consider it to be the jewel of Joy on Fire’s hard-charging (and mildly charting) 2022 album States of America. Your humble blogger served as lyricist and vocalist for said album, and as you might imagine, Dear Reader, I brought some poetry to the mix. In this regard, you might detect echoes of Robert Hayden and Paul Celan. See below for those details, as well as the full lyrics, but first let’s have a look “under the hood” at the fabulous musicians who provide “Weekday Ave.” with its formidable pulse.

Songwriter and guitarist / bassist John Paul Carillo directs the highly textured musical expedition of “Weekday Ave.” — one that seamlessly enters a variety of idioms. The song burns low-medium (or straight up the middle) with some notable climbing action. While JPC may describe the overall sound of Joy on Fire as “punk jazz,” this piece resists category. Ultimately, “Weekday Ave.” offers a potent urban elegy, but not without the energetic stripe of optimism that courses through the band’s catalogue.

Enter saxophonist Anna Meadors, who displays enviable versatility throughout. She doubles the vocals, chants in opposition to the vocals, and confers the sort of lyrical statement on saxophones (alto and bari) that endows the song with most of its emotional content. (She also audio-engineered the proceedings, including the addition of some synth keyboards.)

Drummer Chris Olsen delivers propulsive, off-kilter percussion, which amply contradicts the typical enervated rhythms found, these days, on a typical American weekday avenue.

The outro is sheer magic, and owes to John’s guitar communicating with psychedelic themes as well as futuristic content. It should be retroactively added to the sci-fi flick Blade Runner.

As for the lyrics, they are mostly original, but borrow from two twentieth century poets.

If you know Robert Hayden’s masterpiece “Those Winter Sundays,” then you might recall the phrase “weekday weather” as it applies to the speaker’s father, whose hands cracked selflessly during manual labor in just such climatology. From there, I arrived at “Weekday Ave.” — the typical American thoroughfare capable only of generating “glassy condos,” “cute t-shirts,” and symbolic outrage during a crisis. The enjoyable play between “Weekday Ave.” and “weekday haven’t you” ensued straightaway.

I drew a little more from post-Holocaust European poet Paul Celan, whose lines “Die Welt ist fort // ich muß dich tragen” (“The world is lost // I must carry you”) ring outward from his 1967 collection, Atemwende, or Breath-Turn. I invert and jumble these thoughts, with the singer (me) requiring the burden of being carried. Much of everything returns to love, and the inward turn we all take, when we lose someone. While Celan may have intended his lines to read with centripetal gravity, the genius of his language may reside in its elasticity — and universality.

As John’s outro proceeds, the concept of feeling inwardness springs forth. I suppose there is a difference between inwardness and feeling inwardness. The way there is a difference between “Weekday Ave.” and “weekday haven’t you.” The way we might trip along, numbly, without forming “a thinker’s word.” 

The lyrics follow below. States of America can be heard and purchased [here]. As always, Dear Reader, we urge you to don sensible attire, alter your mindset responsibly, and hardly resist when your body begins to move without any inhibitions. Oi.

     Weekday Ave.


     Scream, a siren
     The scream alone
     “O” of outrage
     & secondhand time

     [Chorus:]
     Weekday Ave.
     Or weekday haven’t you?
     Weekday Ave.
     Weekday Ave.
     Weekday Ave.
     Or weekday haven’t you?

     Yeah! / Yeah!

     Glassy condos
     & cute t-shirts
     Never require
     A thinker’s word

     [Chorus]

     Da-da da-da! // You must carry me
     Da-da da-da! // The world is lost
     Da-da da-da! // And if the world is lost
     Da-da da-da! // I feel inwardness!

     [Da-da da-da! + Chorus]

     I feel inwardness […]


     personnel

     John Paul Carillo: bass guitar, electric guitar, songwriting
     Anna Meadors: Vocals, alto sax, bari sax, sound engineering
     Chris Olsen: Drums, percussion
     Dan Gutstein: Lyrics, vocals

     “Weekday Ave.” & States of America appeared on Procrastination Records (2022).