Perhaps I am coming late to the game, but I feel like I’m in high school again. My new obsession, Belle and Sebastian’s “Piazza, New York Catcher.”
Elope with me, Miss Private, and we’ll sail around the world
I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl
How many nights of talking in hotel rooms can you take?
How many nights of limping around on pagan holidays?
Oh, elope with me in private and we’ll set something ablaze
A trail for the devil to eraseSan Francisco’s calling us, the Giants and Mets will play
Piazza, New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay?
We hung about the stadium, we’ve got no place to stay
We hung about the Tenderloin and tenderly you tell
About the saddest book you ever read, it always makes you cry
The statue’s crying too and well he mayI love you, I’ve a drowning grip on your adoring face
I love you, my responsibility has found a place beside you
And strong warnings in the guise of gentle words
Come wave upon me from the wider family net absurd
“You’ll take care of her, I know it, you will do a better job”
Maybe, but not what she deservesElope with me, Miss Private, and we’ll drink ourselves awake
We’ll taste the coffee houses and award certificates
A privy seal to keep the feel of 1960 style
We’ll comment on the decor and we’ll help the passer by
And at dusk when work is over we’ll continue the debate
In a borrowed bedroom virginal and spareThe catcher hits for .318 and catches every day
The pitcher puts religion first and rests on holidays
He goes into cathedrals and lies prostrate on the floor
He knows the drink affects his speed, he’s praying for
a doorway
Back into the life he wants and the confession of the bench
Life outside the diamond is a wrenchI wish that you were here with me to pass the dull weekend
I know it wouldn’t come to love, my heroine pretend
A lady stepping from the songs we love until this day
You’d settle for an epitaph like “Walk Away, Renee”
The sun upon the roof in winter will draw you out like
a flower
Meet you at the statue in an hour
Meet you at the statue in an hour
Okay, I get most of the references, and I’ve done a little research on a few others. I get the pun on the Say Hey Kid. But looking more generally at the song as a whole–indeed, thinking of it as a performance–moves past the realm of mere interpretation into the place where music best sits, emotion. I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t do a little exegesis here, but that something slips away in the telling, and that’s exactly why the song works for me.
If you know the song, what do you think?
