Let me start out by saying that the Fiery Furnaces are my favorite band. By a long shot. Best band. Ever.
Now that that’s out of the way, I went with this song because it’s about a small and strange town on the westside of Michigan called Benton Harbor. I also really like this song. It’s one of my favorite Fiery Furnaces songs. Favorite band, one of my favorite songs, one of my favorite states. My, it’s all coming together.
I’ve only been to Benton Harbor once and it was by accident. Emily Bate and I were on tour together, in my crappy little two-door silver Hyundai. We were going to Chicago. All of the sudden, my car started making weird sounds and bopping around. I pulled off at Benton Harbor to see if someone could fix it. The shop took forever looking at it and Emily sat around ogling this lesbian mechanic. I can’t remember her name. Was it maybe Christine? Emily would probably remember. It was funny.
So finally they came back and said it would be 300 dollars and they wouldn’t get the part in for another 4 days.
“But we have to get to Chicago for a show TONIGHT,” I said--“fuck it.”
We got in the car and drove to Chicago. The car almost died in the middle of miles and miles of dead stop traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway and we got to the show just barely in time. The next morning, I found someone in a shady Chicago neighborhood to fix it for 100 dollars in 2 hours. Now that’s service.
I realize this story doesn’t speak well for Benton Harbor. Maybe that’s why this song is called Benton Harbor Blues.
Benton Harbor Blues.mp3
There’s also a cool video.
I should say that not everything about Benton Harbor is bad. It’s really close to St. Joseph, which is where my super awesome friend Becky is from.
There are also plenty of good things about the Fiery Furnaces. You can find a lot of them here.
Michigan Fun Fact #2: In New York, Coney Island is a strange and amazing amusement area in Brooklyn. In Michigan, a Coney Island is a fast food joint, where you can get breakfast or a late night snack. There are many different Coney Island chains (Leo’s Coney Island is one that comes to mind). They specialize in greek food and hot dogs. My favorite Coney item is the chicken finger pita. It is what it sounds like it is.
I rode my bike in the snow to the mini-mart. I thought of the ways that I've broke my own heart.
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3 comments:
I'm sure I've told you this before but that mini mart is the first place I ever bought underage alcohol with the ID of a 26 year old curly haired woman who was the sorority sister of my friend's older actual sister. I was 19. Once I figured out that they didn't care, I would buy alcohol for all the neighborhood teens there every day.
No one else had an ID, so I would go in alone and buy bottles and bottles of malt liquor. I could barely hold all those bottles in my arms while waiting in line. I wonder if they thought I could drink all of them.
your minimart is famous!!!
my guess is that benton harbor blues is related to the ff staying in benton harbor while recording at the fabulous keyclub
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