Life's A Dirty Rat.

In the course of putting this together I had to make some choices about what went in, and what stayed out. There are a few also-rans and curiosities, which I think are worth noting:

I Like It Like That    Chris Kenner      single, 1961        

Dragstrip Riot     The Flesh Eaters 

A near thing that just missed out on inclusion. Although not a straight cover, it’s better than even money that this sprightly number, co-written with Allen Toussaint, influenced CD when it came to the writing of the title track from “Dragstrip Riot”.

Cyrano De Berger’s Back               X             See How We Are 1987   

A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die          The Flesh Eaters

John Doe brought this to the table in 1981 for the Flesh Eaters, then returned to it in 1987 with X, at a time when Dave Alvin had replaced Billy Zoom in the band. So what you have is two former  Flesh Eaters  playing in X, covering a song they originally did when they were in the Flesh Eaters. That all makes my head hurt a bit. Anyway, it’s out.

Howl      Allen Ginsberg    1955    

Poison Arrow, Come Into This Place        The Flesh Eaters, Divine Horsemen

CD borrowed the part of the opening line of Ginsberg’s beat poetry classic for “Poison Arrow”, which he later re-wrote for the Divine Horsemen as “Come Into This Place”. Recordings of Ginsberg reading “Howl” are easily available but run for over 20 minutes- too long to include here for the sake of a few seconds.