6/30: Carnies

A wheel of fate, a game of chance.

How I prayed just to get away,
To carry me anywhere—
Sometimes the angels punish us
By answering our prayers,
By answering our prayers.

A song about a psychopathic carnival barker shouldn’t be this good.

There is so much I love about this song—use of the “g*psy” slur notwithstanding (Neil really ought to have known better at this point.)

The grinding power chords. The escalating chord progression on the verses. That drum/guitar riff at 2:37 that evokes both “Caravan” and “Headlong Flight,” in a brilliant leitmotif that ties the album together (And lyrically, of course, to Roll the Bones.)

Also—gosh, that line: “Sometimes the angels punish us by answering our prayers”—what a gut punch. Aching and awful in equal measure. .

“Carnies” is one of the hardest-rocking songs the trio ever wrote. Four decades hadn’t dulled their edge, only sharpened it. We should all be so lucky.