Concrete Blonde - Joey

Fight Your Secret War

1. The U.S. military is apparently the heaviest drinking profession in America. No. Fucking. Shit. According to this research in the National Library of Medicine, PTSD is related to an elevated risk of alcoholism as well as behavioral and emotional dysregulation. You don’t say? After 24 years in the military and my own bouts with alcoholism, I didn’t see that coming. No one could have predicted this at all, absolutely no one, especially military folks who’ve seen the Horror up close and personally. The military also binge drinks more than other occupation. There are exactly no non-commissioned officers in any of the services who are surprised by this. We tend to find whatever legal means we can to numb the pain of existence. I recall the quote from Samuel Johnson that opens Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

   He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

   ― Samuel Johnson

   Behind the military, in a strong silver medal showing we have rock stars. They don’t have to be stars, they can just be musicians on their way to stardom or on the long journey to the middle as is the case with Wall of Voodoo guitarist Marc Moreland.

2. Wall of Voodoo was an alternative rock and pop outfit from L.A. whose most well-known contribution to the canon was Mexican Radio about those delightfully quirky and objectively awesome border-blaster radio stations. It was their only Top 100 hit stateside on their long journey to the middle. MTV certainly helped. Their first two albums, Dark Continent (1981) and Call of the West (1982) remain highly regarded with truly dynamite work from guitarist Marc Moreland. The band quickly devolved into a mess of substance-abusing behavior, with Marc setting land-speed records for alcoholism in the process. Sometime in July or August of 1987, Wall of Voodoo was doing their best work in Australia with fellow L.A. band Concrete Blonde opening for them. Blonde’s lead singer, Johnette Napolitano and Moreland met and were magnetized from the jump (If I could marry a singular voice it would be Johnette’s or Hope Sandoval’s, and no one should argue with me).

   I had met Marc Moreland in Australia the first time (Concrete Blonde) toured. That was the first country we toured outside of America. We were opening for Wall of Voodoo in Australia and we just became tighter than anything in a very short time. There was a lot of mutual worship there.

   -Johnette Napolitano

3. Joey is the ninth track from Concrete Blonde's third studio album, Bloodletting (1990). Napolitano wrote the song in a cab on the way to a photo studio in Philadelphia. It was the last vocal recorded on the album due to Napolitano's reluctance to record the lyrics, which were hard for her. Joey is from her point of view - the perspective of a woman who is in love with an alcoholic. Napolitano mentioned in her book, Rough Mix, that she wrote the song about her relationship with Moreland. Joey is not just a song; it's a testament to the complexities of love, addiction, and the struggles of alcoholism. The song takes a dark turn, shedding light on the frightfully destructive nature of addiction. Our protagonist, Joey, embodies the archetype of the charming yet troubled alcoholic, whose love for liquor supersedes all else. His name might as well be synonymous with a bottle of whiskey, as he spirals deeper into his addiction, leaving behind a trail of broken promises and shattered dreams. The gorgeous melody belies the poignant lyrics of Joey which serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who has ever danced with the demon. It's all barroom frolics until you realize you've become Joey, drowning in a sea of regret and missed opportunities, up in the wee small hours of the morning filled with Bourbon-drenched anger and left without recompense or recourse. In the end, Joey is a lamentation culminating in an understanding of the struggles of addiction back onto our poorly-written and strangely directed lives. The damnable misery of it is that we all know Joey and we may have sat on his barstool.