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Holy relic of Detroit high energy rock: Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith & the mysterious lyrics of ‘City Slang’


 
“City Slang,” the punk single Sonic’s Rendezvous Band released in 1978, is every bit as good as “Search and Destroy,” “Kick out the Jams” and “Sonic Reducer.” A summer day that doesn’t end with the cops confiscating your wading pool and scratching the needle across your priceless copy of “City Slang” is a summer day wasted. We’re all going to need a lot more priceless copies of “City Slang” around here.

 
Around 1975, after the breakup of the MC5, guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith put together a supergroup with former members of bands from the MC5’s Detroit scene. Sonic’s Rendezvous Band comprised Smith, Stooges drummer Scott Asheton (a/k/a “Rock Action”), Rationals guitarist and singer Scott Morgan, and Up bassist Gary Rasmussen. The “City Slang” single (“City Slang” in mono on one side, stereo on the other) was the only thing the band released before breaking up, though there are now several compilations and live records, including a (mostly live) six-CD box set.
 

Fred “Sonic” Smith in his spacesuit, onstage with the MC5
 
The words to the song have always been a mystery. Seven or eight years ago, I wrote Rasmussen through the Sonic’s Rendezvous Band MySpace page to ask for the lyrics to “City Slang.” He replied: What lyrics? In the live version of the song on Sweet Nothing, Smith does seem to be giving voice to pure glossolalia:
 

 
On the other hand, there’s this interpretation posted on Yahoo! Answers, where it is (perhaps dubiously) attributed to Scott Morgan himself:

Some dirt in my hand
A part of the land
Slip and slide communication
Downtown on the street
They measure the beat
To understand the situation
A taste on the tongue
And no place to run
With all the chances to be taken
The stranger he buys
The angel she flies
My heart is cold just like the nation
Like a dog they kick at night
Gypsy laughin’ but that’s alright
Momma’s cryin’ sister thinkin’
Well you know it’s just city slang

We rode in the car
Slept in the car
All the way to the citadel
Slept on the floor
Surfed on the floor
All the way to the Coronet
Rock was pissed in Paris
Mad in Madrid
Took the sonic European way
Gary and Rock
Sonic and Scott
Meet again up in Ishpeming
When you hear that hammer fallin’
Ain’t no reason to feel left out
Ain’t no reason to call any names
Well you know it’s just city slang

With Funky and Dog
To Minni and Mad
All the way to the Aragon
Cleveland and Chi
Ann Arbor, Detroit
All the way back to the Second Chance
Je suis un son
Un autre son
Qui n’entend qu’une cloche n’entend qu’un son
Je suis le son
Je suis son son

Hey what kind of fool do you think I am
Keep a-talkin’ those city dreams
Well you know alright you know what I mean
Detroit, Chicago now New York to L.A.
They all been talkin’ bout city slang

The first verse matches the single very closely, but the second and third don’t match at all aside from a few lines and phrases. These lyrics don’t match any live recording I’ve heard, either, and yet they seem credible enough. They mention a number of contemporary Midwestern landmarks—the Aragon Ballroom in Cleveland, the Second Chance club in Ann Arbor, the tiny township of Ishpeming, Michigan—and the passage in French, which consists of a proverb bookended by puns on the French word for “sound,” seems like the sort of thing Patti Smith’s husband might sing. Or am I the naive victim of a cruel hoax perpetrated by a teenager? You be the judge.
 

 

Face-damaging footage of SRB playing “City Slang”

Posted by Oliver Hall
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08.06.2014
11:26 am
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