DBT Tracks - Week #1 - Zip City

[Clams]

One of the things I miss about 9B is if you had a question about a DBT song you could just search the title and dig up an old thread. Well, with a nod toward Cortez's artist of the week thread, I'm going to start a thread for a different DBT song each week. Feel free to post anything related to said song: comments or questions about the lyrics or guitar playing, your reaction when you first heard it, anything you might know about local references or the backstory, etc.

Might as well start with one of everyone's favorite DBT songs... Zip City. That bad ass riff and an even more bad ass ending ("...ain't got no good intentions"), plus typical Cooley lyrics that make you ask more questions than they answer (is the brother gay? Is the sister a slut or a drug dealer - or something else?). And is there anything better than being two hours into a DBT show and hearing Cooley play those opening chords??? Discuss...

[mhc]

All I can say about Zip City is that it is Cooley's Opus.

[bootlegend]

Is there another interpretation about the brother? I have always assumed he was gay, hence needing to keep the closet door closed.

Always thought the sister was a slut, but I can understand the drug dealer theory.

[Fool No Where]

I used to think this was played too frequently live. At the risk of "stealth bragging" I feel differently having made the 26 mile drive. I don't know if it's his opus, but Cooley sure put a lot of great images into this one.

for granted is a mighty big word for a country girl like you
you'll be right where they fall the rest of your life
puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me

[RevMatt]

This song is as great as any teenage angst song ever written.

The experience is nearly universal for any American male. Unless you were captain of the football team you couldn't get a girlfriend in your own grade, as all of the older guys were dating them. So, what is a seventeen year old guy to do? Go younger. Even better, a younger girl from a few towns away. That way she won't hear from her older sister all the embarrasing things you did back when you were thirteen and going through the Beavis and Butthead stage of adolescence. So, he is a seventeen year old, with a car, presumably dating a fifteen year old girl he met from church. Probably from the youth group. That's where I found a girlfriend when I was in the exact same situation.

The girl's Daddy is onto him. He knows this kid's intentions. Rather than being a total jerk and forbidding his daughter to date this guy entirely, he decides to keep her on a short leash. The opening image of the song, the girl's Daddy has to pull his car out of a ditch. He's pissed off royally. So begins the song.

The narrator starts off angry at the father for sending him away and first attempts a scathing description of the girl's family. Fact is, he can't manage a whole lot of really bad things to say about them. She has decent, hardworking parents. An older brother who might be gay -- maybe that's the only real scandalous thing he can come up with. But the words he uses -- keeping the closet door closed rather than calling him the "f" word shows that he has some sympathy for the brother who probably wants nothing more than to leave Zip City at the first possible moment. The sister "putting that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me", well, that's the whole reason why he is dating a fifteen year old girl in the first place.

The real strength in this song is that the narrator learns something about himself by the end of the song. That he wants more for himself than a ready made family as soon as he graduates from high school. That, yes, eventually he could probably manage to get inside this girl's drawers. But he does not want to pay the cost, which would be marrying the girl and spending the rest of his life in Zip City. (Sell that car to buy her a ring? No way.) He also realizes that in the present moment she really just provides some company so he doesn't have to deal with his thoughts all alone. He also realizes that his intentions aren't good, that the father is probably right about him but there ain't much he can do about that.

Brilliant song.

[Flood18]

Is there another interpretation about the brother? I have always assumed he was gay, hence needing to keep the closet door closed.

Always thought the sister was a slut, but I can understand the drug dealer theory.

Ive always had 2 interpretations. One being hes trying to keep the closet door closed from the dad abusing him and whatnot. And then the gay one, which i think is more likely.

[RevMatt]

Is there another interpretation about the brother? I have always assumed he was gay, hence needing to keep the closet door closed.

Always thought the sister was a slut, but I can understand the drug dealer theory.

Ive always had 2 interpretations. One being hes trying to keep the closet door closed from the dad abusing him and whatnot. And then the gay one, which i think is more likely.

I've stayed away from any sinister explanations about the girl's family, like abuse. I think the point of the verse where he describes each member is that he is trying to say something bad about them but really can't come up with much. They are decent people, probably not all that different from his family. (The fact that he knows both the physical details of The Salem Church of Christ and the fact that the girl's father is a deacon suggests that the narrator's family attends the same church.) Maybe a couple of problems they have to deal with but no different than any other family with three teenagers. By the end of the song the narrator realizes that the father is right about him, that he has no good intentions and only wants to get in the girl's pants. The one son may be gay but the way the narrator discloses this suggests that being gay isn't the kid's problem but the culture not accepting him is the problem. Both the singer and the brother need to get out of Zip City for different reasons.

[Clams]

the more enigmatic line is the fact the brother "was the first born [who] got 10 fingers and 10 toes"

Agreed that that's the more puzzling line. I take it to mean that the brother is "otherwise normal" (got 10 fingers and 10 toes just like the rest of us) despite being gay.

[RevMatt]

I put a link to the Wikipedia article about Zip City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_City,_Alabama

Not all of us are from Northern Alabama. I remember the first few times I heard the song, I misinterpreted it because I didn't know anything about Zip City. I thought it referred to the area just across the border, where you could get hookers and booze. The area once controlled by The State Line Gang and Sherriff Pusser. I first thought that at the end of the song the kid decided to forget about the girl, to just go on up and get a hooker. It wasn't until I looked up Zip City and realized that it was the suburb where the girl's family lived.

[beantownbubba]

the more enigmatic line is the fact the brother "was the first born [who] got 10 fingers and 10 toes"

Agreed that that's the more puzzling line. I take it to mean that the brother is "otherwise normal" (got 10 fingers and 10 toes just like the rest of us) despite being gay.

I think this means that the brother's the first one in the family line not to be a result of in-breeding (first one born "normally"). Clearly he's gay, i don't see how else to interpret the "closet" line.

Rev, I'm a little surprised by how much u see the narrator growing. To me, he knows from the 1st line what he wants, what he's in this "relationship" for, he just didn't realize how difficult it was gonna be. Basically he's debating whether the aggravation's worth the potential, ummm, pay-off, and since he knows he's gonna have to work for it, and wait for it (at least so far) and gonna have daddy looking over his shoulder the entire time, he's realized that it's not worth the drive.

Never thought about the sister as a drug dealer, but i suppose it's possible. To me the lyrics just scream "slut" (and some frustration on the narrator's part, lol).

[cortez the killer]

Don't know why I put up with this shit when you don't put out and Zip City's so far away.

[Smitty]

yeah I think the sisters just a slut...

[TruckerClown]

the more enigmatic line is the fact the brother "was the first born [who] got 10 fingers and 10 toes"

Agreed that that's the more puzzling line. I take it to mean that the brother is "otherwise normal" (got 10 fingers and 10 toes just like the rest of us) despite being gay.

I think this means that the brother's the first one in the family line not to be a result of in-breeding (first one born "normally").

One of the first things a nurse does on every baby is count fingers and toes to make sure they are all there. That's about the only lyric that doesn't have other potential meanings. I don't see any hint of an inbreeding elsewhere in the song.

It, along with WWW, are Cooley's masterpieces (with dozens of littler smaller masterpieces just below them).

[Fool No Where]

yeah I think the sisters just a slut...

If she were a slut, she'd be puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town. Period. Instead, she's omitting one person, making her a bitch.

[beantownbubba]

yeah I think the sisters just a slut...

If she were a slut, she'd be puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town. Period. Instead, she's omitting one person, making her a bitch.

ROFL, a VERY important distinction, FNW!

I know there's no other reference to in breeding, but then why else would it be worth mentioning that he was the FIRST one in the family to be born that way? Why else even mention counting fingers and toes? It's not like anything else in the song is about nurses, hospitals, newborn procedures or anything of the sort.

[Smitty]

yeah I think the sisters just a slut...

If she were a slut, she'd be puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town. Period. Instead, she's omitting one person, making her a bitch.

ROFL, a VERY important distinction, FNW!

I know there's no other reference to in breeding, but then why else would it be worth mentioning that he was the FIRST one in the family to be born that way? Why else even mention counting fingers and toes? It's not like anything else in the song is about nurses, hospitals, newborn procedures or anything of the sort.

I don't take that he's being referred to as being the first one born that way - just that he was a firstborn (therefore making him the oldest of her siblings) and that he was born "normally" with 10 fingers/10 toes and that helps him keep the metaphorical closet door shut

[Fool No Where]

I think the fingers and toes reference is merely a vehicle of introducing the closet door. Think, when you first listened to this song, how many times would you have rewound to hear, "your brother's a fag?" Instead, we get this intricate little vignette within the song that tells us a great deal about Cooley's sense of humor and writing style.

[Smitty]

I think the fingers and toes reference is merely a vehicle of introducing the closet door. Think, when you first listened to this song, how many times would you have rewound to hear, "your brother's a fag?" Instead, we get this intricate little vignette within the song that tells us a great deal about Cooley's sense of humor and writing style.

exacytl

[beantownbubba]

Damn, u guys made me have to go back and listen to that damn song again. lol

And having listened to it again, I'm not quite convinced i'm right, but I am very comfortable w/ my suggestion, precisely because of Cooley's sense of humor/irony and arched-eyebrow but extremely perceptive way of looking at the world. The line works much better for me as a dig at the family as opposed to an observation about birth order (or simply as a set up for the closet door line). But as has been said many times before, the songs are open to interpretation and we're all welcome to our own.

[dime in the gutter]

i thought it was about heroin.

[RevMatt]

the more enigmatic line is the fact the brother "was the first born [who] got 10 fingers and 10 toes"

Agreed that that's the more puzzling line. I take it to mean that the brother is "otherwise normal" (got 10 fingers and 10 toes just like the rest of us) despite being gay.

I think this means that the brother's the first one in the family line not to be a result of in-breeding (first one born "normally"). Clearly he's gay, i don't see how else to interpret the "closet" line.

Rev, I'm a little surprised by how much u see the narrator growing. To me, he knows from the 1st line what he wants, what he's in this "relationship" for, he just didn't realize how difficult it was gonna be. Basically he's debating whether the aggravation's worth the potential, ummm, pay-off, and since he knows he's gonna have to work for it, and wait for it (at least so far) and gonna have daddy looking over his shoulder the entire time, he's realized that it's not worth the drive.

Never thought about the sister as a drug dealer, but i suppose it's possible. To me the lyrics just scream "slut" (and some frustration on the narrator's part, lol).

The narrator does not necessarily grow. Rather, he learns something about himself by the end of the song. He starts off kind of self deceptive and trying to justify himself. Here is how I see the song, verse by verse.

Title: Zip City -- Zip City is an unincorporated residential area in NW Alabama. It is called Zip City because it is not a city with a name, downtown area, etc. but a Zip Code. The narrator in the song has a girlfriend from Zip City. He lives 26 miles away in Colburn Heights. Zip City represents something to the narrator and is significant to the meaning of the song. Otherwise, he'd have called it something else.

Your Daddy was mad as hell, He was mad at me and you.
When he tied that chain to the front of my car and pulled me out of the ditch that we slid into.
Don't know what his problem is, Why he keeps sending me away
Don't know why I put up with this shit When you don't put out and Zip City is so far away.

This sets up the song. The girl's Daddy is pissed off because he drove into a ditch with his daughter in the car. The kid is angry, wondering why he puts up with this shit, what the old man's problem is. The girl won't put out which is why he is driving up to Zip City in the first place. Although the song is addressed to the girl, I don't believe she is present when he is thinking of the questions and lines. I think he is alone in his car, just told by the old man to go home, and he is pissed off.

Your Daddy is a deacon down at the Salem Church of Christ. And he makes good money as long as Reynolds Wrap keeps everything wrapped up tight.
Your Mama's as good a wife and Mama as she can be And your sister's puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me.

The narrator begins to run through the girl's family. The line about the sister is important because I believe that she is the real object of his desire but, if he can't have her, he will date the younger sister. He wants her to "put out" like the older sister but at fifteen she is too immature for this. But, like most American adolescents, it is the older guys and the jocks who get the good looking girls in your grade. So a seventeen year old male who wants a girl is forced to date younger. I think the reference to the Church suggests that this is where he knows the girl from. This verse is an attempt to be scathing, but he really can't come up with a whole lot to indict the parents or the sister.

Your brother is the first born, got ten fingers and ten toes
And its a damn good thing cause he needs all 20 just to keep the closet door closed.

I take this to mean that the older brother is probably gay, but in that family and in that community it takes all of his effort to hide his sexuality from everyone else. Thus far, he is the first person mentioned who doesn't really belong in Zip City. I don't think the ten fingers and ten toes refers to "inbreeding". It is very un-DBT like to show that sort of disrespect to the semi-rural community where they are from. The inbreeding comments usually come from college kids when they refer to the "townies" near their school. I think that it is the singer's way of saying that there is nothing wrong with the guy, he is normal, but he needs to stay in the closet as long as he is in Zip City.

Maybe it's the 26 mile drive from Zip City to Coburn Heights
Keeps my mind clean, gets me through the night
Maybe you're just a destination, a place for me to go
A way to keep from having to deal with my 17 year old mind all alone
Keep your drawers on girl, it ain't worth the fight
By the time you drop them I'll be gone
and you'll be right where they fall for the rest of your life.

Here is the first moment of self-awareness. He answers the question, "Why is he putting up with this shit in the first place." Well, there is the drive itself. He doesn't want to deal with his mind all alone, so it isn't just the potential for some nookie. He actually likes talking to the girl. She's nice enough, probably understands him a bit. Then he decides he isn't going to take her virginity. Why? It ain't worth the fight, which is having to make promises to her and her family that he has no intention of keeping. In that culture, premarital sex isn't encouraged, but it is tolerated to a point provided the guy honors the family by intending to marry the girl. And spending the rest of his life in Zip City is too high a price.

You say you're tired of me taking you for granted
Waiting up till the last minute to call you up and see what you want to do.
But you're only 15, girl, you ain't got no secretary
And for granted is a mighty big word for a country girl like you
You know it's just your Daddy talking
cause he knows that blood red carpet down at the Salem Church of Christ
Ain't gonna ever see no wedding between me and you.

At this point he addresses the girl's objection to their relationship, that he takes her for granted. He raises his defense, that she has no secretary and that she is just listening to her father who hopes she will drop this guy for someone who will live in Zip City.

Zip City, it's a good thing that they built a wall around you
Zip up to Tennesee then zip back down to Alabama
I got 350 heads on a 305 engine
I get 10 miles to the gallon
I ain't got no good intentions

Here, the wall represents the cultural rules and norms. He thinks they are a good thing. Not only to protect those who want to live the Zip City way -- marry young, raise a family, go to church, rely in the local economy -- but also for those who know they don't fit. The singer knows Zip City ain't for him. He has his own dreams and wants to live life on his terms. But it was the relationship with the girl from Zip City that taught him this. It taught him who he really is and what he really wants.

[Smitty]

Another small lil tidbit that may/may not have anything to do with the "inbreeding" issue (funny a yankee automatically assumes a song that takes place in alabama has to address that subject((juss fuckin with ya btb)) ) - Cooley mentioned in an interview sometime lately (don't feel like lookin it up) that he ran into the girl he wrote that song about and was kinda embarrassed but apparently she was flattered - I guess calling your sister a whore and your brother secretly gay can be accepted, but I can't imagine she would feel the same way if incest was insinuated (unless it flew over her head too)

[beantownbubba]

Another small lil tidbit that may/may not have anything to do with the "inbreeding" issue (funny a yankee automatically assumes a song that takes place in alabama has to address that subject((juss fuckin with ya btb)) ) - Cooley mentioned in an interview sometime lately (don't feel like lookin it up) that he ran into the girl he wrote that song about and was kinda embarrassed but apparently she was flattered - I guess calling your sister a whore and your brother secretly gay can be accepted, but I can't imagine she would feel the same way if incest was insinuated (unless it flew over her head too)

Hey, it's fair comment Smitty (about me being a yankee, well let's say a northerner, lol). I thought of it myself, but damned if i was gonna mention it. I leave it for others to decide how much that enters into it but i'm not gonna deny it's possible.

[RevMatt]

Another small lil tidbit that may/may not have anything to do with the "inbreeding" issue (funny a yankee automatically assumes a song that takes place in alabama has to address that subject((juss fuckin with ya btb)) ) - Cooley mentioned in an interview sometime lately (don't feel like lookin it up) that he ran into the girl he wrote that song about and was kinda embarrassed but apparently she was flattered - I guess calling your sister a whore and your brother secretly gay can be accepted, but I can't imagine she would feel the same way if incest was insinuated (unless it flew over her head too)

Yeah, I read the interview too. I also read somewhere else that the whole family liked the song. After all, they didn't end up with Cooley for a son-in-law so 20 plus years later they can all laugh about it.

I also read that the incident where the father pulled Cooley's car out of the ditch was true. The girl's parents were going out for the evening and told her that under no circumstances could she have Cooley over. Cooley drove up anyway, intending to split before the parents got home but backed his car into the ditch.

I always liked how Patterson ended "The Deeper In", their incest song. "Seven years in Michigan!" Kind of saying, screw all of you who automatically assumed this song takes place in the South. Can't get much further north than Michigan, especially the northern penninsula where you have to drive through Canada to get there.

[Smitty]

Another small lil tidbit that may/may not have anything to do with the "inbreeding" issue (funny a yankee automatically assumes a song that takes place in alabama has to address that subject((juss fuckin with ya btb)) ) - Cooley mentioned in an interview sometime lately (don't feel like lookin it up) that he ran into the girl he wrote that song about and was kinda embarrassed but apparently she was flattered - I guess calling your sister a whore and your brother secretly gay can be accepted, but I can't imagine she would feel the same way if incest was insinuated (unless it flew over her head too)

Yeah, I read the interview too. I also read somewhere else that the whole family liked the song. After all, they didn't end up with Cooley for a son-in-law so 20 plus years later they can all laugh about it.

I also read that the incident where the father pulled Cooley's car out of the ditch was true. The girl's parents were going out for the evening and told her that under no circumstances could she have Cooley over. Cooley drove up anyway, intending to split before the parents got home but backed his car into the ditch.

I always liked how Patterson ended "The Deeper In", their incest song. "Seven years in Michigan!" Kind of saying, screw all of you who automatically assumed this song takes place in the South. Can't get much further north than Michigan, especially the northern penninsula where you have to drive through Canada to get there.

He used Michigan because the actual state it happened in (Wisconsin) didn't fit the meter of the song

True that it didn't fit the song, but I thought he wrote Michigan out of error on the album, then later found he realized the article he based the song upon took place in Wisconsin - if you listen to some of the live shows after DD was released, he actually sings "Wisconsin" instead of "Michigan"

[Steve French]

Anybody going to post the pictures of the Salem Church of Christ? the one with "DBT" on it is classic and I forgot to save it from 9B....

[Fool No Where]

[RevMatt]

Funny pic, but DBT fans probably shouldn't do that. Cooley's relatives probably still go there and the graffiti is probably embarrasing to them.

[Given to Fly]

From the Alabama Ass Whuppin site

http://alabamaasswhuppin.blogspot.com/2 ... -tour.html

[Swamp]

i thought it was about heroin.

So, that's whats wrapped up tight in the reynolds wrap.