Certain Songs #781: The Jim Carroll Band – “People Who Died”

Album: Catholic Boy
Year: 1980

Jim Carroll’s Catholic Boy was a weird weird beast. While it had some of the power and drive of (and couldn’t have existed without) punk rock, Carroll clearly had nothing to do with punk rock or new wave.

He was more like Tonio K, a singer-songwriter who seemed to like the fact that punky energy might draw attention to the stories he wanted to tell. And since he was originally a poet, there’s also a Patti Smith comparison, of course, though you never got the sense that he was looking for transcendence in music like she was.

Though, interestingly enough, the songs on Catholic Boy were’t wordy: Carroll tended to write a couple of verses and a chorus and then repeat them over and over again to fill out the length of the song, kinda like what Kurt Cobain would do a decade later.

In any event, the song from Catholic Boy that got the most notice was the punky “People Who Died,” a travelogue of all of the death that Carroll had witnessed during his druggy youth.

Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

And with the lead guitars set to Chuck Berry stun and the backing vocals massing up, they barrel into a what remains an unforgettable chorus.

Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

And here’s the thing: we were just kids, and the world where death was that common combined with sincerity of “People Who Died” made it feel to some of us like just this side of a novelty tune. Even though Jim Carroll was deadly serious and clearly sad at losing his friends. And yet . . . it was kind of funny.

Especially when he sang about Tony’s death:

Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys’ Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
“Hey,” Herbie said, “Tony, can you fly?”
But Tony couldn’t fly, Tony died

Why “Tony, couldn’t fly, Tony dieeeeeeeed!” became a thing we repeated to each other to make us laugh is beyond me now. Probably the callousness of privileged youth, perhaps uncomfortableness at how much he meant it, and definitely nervousness about the subject of death. Not abstract death, like in a Black Sabbath song, but specific death of specific people.

In any event, of course, none of this detracted from my understanding of what a great song “People Who Died” was, and is.

So please enjoy this video of Jim Carroll singing this song with Lou Reed’s crack early-1980s band.

“People Who Died” performed live by Jim Carroll & Lou Reed, 1984

Fan-made video for “People Who Died”

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