#Stagger Lee

[djevilninja]

I was standing on the corner When I heard my bulldog bark - He was barking at the two men who were gambling in the dark. It was Stagger Lee and Billy, Two men who gambled late; Stagger Lee threw seven, Billy swore that he threw eight.

Lloyd Price - Stagger Lee

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

[travsd]

Lloyd Price: Mr. Personality

March 9 was the birthday of an important figure in rock and roll history whose name and contributions have never been well-known enough to satisfy justice, Lloyd Price (1933-2021). Price came out of the New Orleans music scene, and his importance tends to get overshadowed by other figures who came both before and after him. But if you don’t know his name, you surely know his songs. His first was…

[originalharmonysalad]

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Nick Cave Sings Stagger Lee

[bloodandpurifyingflame]

Every year or so I find myself just captivated by a particular music video and for 2023 that music video was the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds version of Stagger Lee.

Like, please, watch this:

(TW for song lyrics including: murder, violence, explicit sexual language and possible sexual coercion)

Everything about this video utterly bewitches me. The pink shirt and white pants, Cave's intense and offputting stage presence and jerky-but-limp-wristed movements, the weird sense of homosexual ennui of the background performers, the lyrics, the yowling scream at the end that could either be death or orgasm...truly one of the music videos of all time.

[myimaginaryradio]

Stagger Lee - The Grateful Dead - 1978

[masturbatress]

Nick Cave's Stagger Lee: a realistic depiction of modern down-low bisexuality

[jacke-12]

Stagger Lee (1958) - Lloyd Price

Genre: rhythm and blues

Peak position on US Billboard Hot 100: 1

Rhythm and blues singer Lloyd Price, known as "Mr. Personality", had a few hits (such as "Personality" which earned him the nickname). "Stagger Lee" was his biggest, a now definitive musical incarnation of the story of Stagger Lee / Stack O'Lee / Stagolee, a dark folk tale about Lee Shelton's real life murder of Billy Lyons in 1895.

There have been countless versions of this song / story, of which I have heard a significant amount of due to a little past project of mine to hear as many as possible (I swiftly tired of this). There are many great ones - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds darkly comic version on Murder Ballads was mine and I imagine many's first introduction to the character, and of course there's Mississippi John Hurt's also definitive version. (For a more obscure one, I recommend Taj Mahal's. He has a wonderful voice and he even does sound effects.) However, this has remained my absolute favourite version, a raucous, lively track that Tarantinifies the violence (i.e. makes it hugely enjoyable in a morally questionable way).

Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife", which I have previously reviewed, scratches a similar itch to this track in the way it revels in the dark lyrical content. But I would say this track removes the sinister elements - it is simply too ebulliant to be anything other than hugely fun. I suppose it is sinister in that lines like "Oh he shot that poor boy so bad / 'Til the bullet came through Billy / And it broke the bartender's glass" become so good to sing along to, because he sings it with such eagerness. It's the sort of song that you could easily forget just how grim of a story it is, but that is almost always true of these folk criminals - the fictionalising of them makes details like Lee killing Billy to get his "brand new Stetson hat" back seem badass rather than reprehensible.

The song also sounds live and unpolished in a very appealing way (as does the whole album The Exciting Lloyd Price, a worthwhile listen even if it doesn't all match up to this track or the other single "Lawdy Miss Claudy"). Lloyd Price is fighting to be heard above the muddy chaos backing him, which reminds me a lot of what makes Bob Dylan's electric albums so good - the sound of the live instrumentation, especially the horns here, while not being as crisp or clear as some might like, have so much more character and grit as a result. It doesn’t always sound good, but in a song with a nasty edge like this it is absolutely fitting.

The fact that this sort of song could top the charts without censorship surprises me, but maybe censorship wasn't targeted towards something as trivial as murder. I am glad it did top the charts, as I imagine it would be much harder to stumble across it like I did if it hadn't. One of the best pop songs of the 50s.

[thecharmingchimaera]

I can’t explain it, but something tells me that the main characters of Nick Cave’s Stagger Lee and Primus’ My Name is Mud would get along well.

Where’s my gory, gritty movie

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

[ph0enixart]

[lilflowerpot]

corporate wants you to find the difference between these pictures [lotor vld] [astarion bg3]

...................................................okay.........okay yes, I'll admit it, I'm an astarion girlie, of course I'm an astarion girlie, just LOOK AT HIM he's my type to a damn T, are you really surprised??

tall dark & deadly

inhuman

grey-moral bastard

intelligent beyond reason

powerful beyond being reasoned with

emotionally unavailable

can cut you with their stare alone

"is that a knife in your pocket or are you just h- that's a knife."

the prettiest bitch on the planet (may or may not have killed their competition to ensure this)

colour palette as chilly as their demeanour

✨gaslight gatekeep girlboss✨

could and would burn the world for their goals (and, more sentimentally, the people they love)