Note: This is the second part of our series on songs of The Hold Steady which take up the dual themes of nightlife and the complexities of adult relationships. Part I is available. This piece will deal with the song “Killer Parties.”

“Killer Parties” written by Craig Finn, is track ten, the final track, on the Hold Steady’s debut, Almost Killed Me from 2003, however this piece will take up the live version from 2008’s A Positive Rage. The song contains the title line for their debut album, and is one of their most indelible songs.

The live version is over 10 minutes long, and opens with a classic Finn spoken piece. The song features swirling guitars and a propulsive, if simmering, bass line. If “Most People are DJs” is a banger, “Killer Parties” is more of a slow burn. The A Positive Rage version has a long musical intro before Finn speaks:

“Alright, alright, alright, alright, Halloween 2007 metro (?) what’s up? I’m looking out at you now and I’m pretty sure I’ve met over half of you (laughs). And so, if we’ve spent all this time together and maybe you know, it’s maybe, sometimes I might happen to tend to talk too much. Everyone has their faults. I’m in a 12 step program as we speak for it. It’s called shutting up. But I am gonna say one more thing. And then, I say the same thing almost every night. I don’t, I don’t, I’m not fooling anyone. But I only say it cause it’s true. The thing is it’s just well, it’s just that, I don’t, well, well, it’s there is so much joy in what we do up here. I want to thank you for sharing that joy with us. Chicago Illinois we’re The Hold Steady, thanks for being here.”

Here we see Finn’s conception of his band. The Hold Steady is a community (“I think I’ve met more than half of you,” with Finn as the leader. I have been to see The Hold Steady live and wrote about it here (Austin is a music fan I connected with at the Steady shows at the Brooklyn Bowl in 2018):

Hold Steady fans are pretty much fanatics, and along with Austin and I there were a handful of serious Steadyheads who were there early to grab their slice of territory right in front of the stage. They were super possessive about the space they had claimed, and they all seemed to know each other. This crew was welcoming enough to me as a newcomer to their little universe, but they were also a little cliquey. At that time I was in my extraverted mode and I was rapping with all and sundry. There was this one guy I specifically remember who sized me up and said “I want to not like you, but there’s some kind of aura around you man.” Thanks buddy.

All big bands have their version of the Steadyheads of course, but there is no mystery about why people love this band and return again and again. Finn and company are open and inviting–I believe they genuinely love their audience and Finn’s gratitude for his fans is one of his most appealing traits.

The song opens with a verse about Charlemagne, a recurring character in Hold Steady songs whom I believe to be a drug dealer:

If they ask about Charlemagne
Be polite and say something vague
Like another lover lost to the restaurant raids

Finn loves this conceit whereby a song opens with the report of “something happening,” and that something is unsaid. He uses it to great effect on “A Bathtub in a Kitchen,” which opens thusly:

Francis, I was lying when I said I hadn’t heard what happened
I probably heard later on the very same day it went down
That’s the funny thing about people moving into big cities
Spend so much time trying to turn it into their tiny town

Francis, our guess is, suffered an overdose. Did the same thing happen to Charlemagne? It’s possible, but whatever it was we needn’t talk about it. Finn demonstrates right away his trademark compassion. Charlemagne’s life is his own, and it’s personal. Best not to ask; best to keep it vague.

If we have lived long enough we all have people from our lives like this, people to whom something happened and they just kind of fell off the map. Drugs, bad relationships, mental crises, or just the cutting off of ties as someone moves on, shit does happen. I don’t know what the restaurant raids are, but apparently somewhere where people go to get lost. When and if we do find them again we sometimes find the same person, and sometimes someone different.

Verses two and three open into the chorus:

And if they ask why we left in the first place
Say we were young and we were so in love
And I guess we just needed space
We heard about this place they called the United States

And we found out Virginia really is for the lovers
Philly is full of friendly friends that will love you like a brother
Pensacola parties hard with poppers, pills and Pepsi
Ybor City is tres speedy, but they throw such killer parties

Killer parties almost killed me
Killer parties almost killed me

Finn is from the (relatively) small town of Minneapolis, and moved to New York City, I believe in the late 90s. When we leave, we inevitably leave people behind, and sometimes this hurts, both the leaver and the leavee. I know this first hand as a long-term expat I have left my family and friends behind in large part for a life in Asia. While I still keep up relationships, it is never quite the same as staying in your hometown around those with whom you grew up. I don’t regret leaving, but there are pangs of sorrow when I think of all I have missed. Like Finn, and maybe for similar reasons, I just needed some space.

When Finn sings “we heard about this place called The United States,” I think he is talking about New York and the real big city, a mythical place where the lights are brighter, the parties bigger, and opportunity abounds. This is also an oddly patriotic statement–the U.S. here comes across as the promised land in its most classical conception.

In addition to New York, Finn and crew have been around, Virginia (the landing place of Europeans in America), Philadelphia, the first capital, Pensacola, and of course Ybor City, the party capital of Florida which Finn references repeatedly in his songs. Ybor City serves as the ultimate destination for killer parties, the last place you end up on the back end of an epic bender.

And then the payoff, “killer parties almost killed me.” Finn is pretty open about his early carousing, and it is easy to believe that some of these nights led to near-death scenarios. While I myself have sampled pretty liberally of the nightlife in my own time, this was nothing like Finn. However, I would say, I’ve been around, and there are times and situations that “almost killed me” as well. I know where Finn is coming from. He is here looking back on an earlier era–his partying days may not be over but now he is in an up and coming band and has other responsibilities to take care of. Nonetheless, he can still live vicariously through his earlier incarnation, as well as the youth of today.

Verses four, five and six are repeated and the song is over:

And if she says we partied then I’m pretty sure we partied
I really don’t remember
I remember we departed from our bodies
We woke up in Ybor City

And if she says we partied then I’m pretty sure we partied
I really don’t remember
I remember we departed from our bodies
We woke up in Ybor City

If she says we partied then I’m pretty sure we partied
I really don’t remember
I remember we departed from our bodies
And we woke up in Ybor City

The nights are a blur–Finn partied but he gets the details second hand. He does remember transcending, and the long hangover of a killer run, in good old Ybor City. I feel like Ybor City, which Finn may or may not have actually been to, serves sort of like El Dorado here, the lost city of gold in South America. Is Ybor City even real? Can you get there from here, or do you have to run the gauntlet of long days and longer nights to get there? I’m not sure, and am not sure Ybor City would be good for me.

I am an ex-introvert reinvented as an extravert, a topic I have spoken about this at length with several friends. While I am a little long in the tooth for a lot of clubbing these days, I do love the nightlife and love running around, meeting people, and seeing where the night takes me. And it takes you to some strange places. I think this is the real theme of the song–the appeal of the night, of the road, and the need to leave and get out in the great wide world. I love this song, and return to it regularly in all manner of personal circumstances. It’s a relatively simple song–Finn conceals nothing up his sleeve except the exact nature of Charlemagne’s fate, but in my opinion a great one.

to be continued…