Sunday, July 08, 2007

Steve Earle on Greenwich Village

Steve Earle on Greenwich Village, from the June 11/18 issue of The New Yorker:

"I need to be able to walk out of my door and see a same-sex biracial couple walking down the street holding hands. That makes me feel safe."

4 comments:

Ms Baroque said...

I feel safe in my neighbourhood because of all the six-year-old Hassidic kids walking without grownups.

Except that really - in the city, who feels safe? I could just as easily be looking at the sweet old-fashioned children and get my bag pinched.

Andrew Shields said...

Pinched by the Hassidic kids? Or by a same-sex biracial couple? :-)

Neither of those is a profile that any police department anywhere is looking for, I think! :-)

Except for the police officers who look for the couple, so as to look away if anyone begins to beat them up. :-(

mrjumbo said...

Steve Earle, in "Be Here to Love Me," says, "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that!"

I'm not sure I agree with him about Townes (though I've got nothing against "Pancho and Lefty" and a bunch of others), but having a hero like that has stretched Steve Earle into some pretty remarkable songwriting himself.

Nice to see him coming full circle.

Andrew Shields said...

With all due respect to Mr. Earle, he's wrong on two counts: first, Mr. Van Zandt is not the best songwriter in the whole world. Second, Mr. Dylan is not the one whose coffee table he needs to damage in order to make his point. Surely it's Greg Brown that he should be regarded as insulting with his claim about Mr. Van Zandt's "ranking"! :-)