Word: joey
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...Joey follows directly from the tradition of Dylan songs epitomized by John Wesley Harding: the title song, on first appearance, seems to be simply another tribute to the myth of the "outlaw-hero". A closer listening, though, reveals that all of the traditionally apothesized qualities of the outlaw have been either turned on their head--"he travelled with a gun in every hand", "with his lady by his side he took a stand" (what self-respecting outlaw would make his stand with his lady by his side?); or else cloaked in puzzling ambiguity--"he was never known to make...
...narrator of Joey is someone on the fringes of Gallo's circle, possibly a member of the New York theater crowd that turned him into a cultural hero even before he died. The narrator identifies himself twice, once recalling the one time he saw Joey, after his release from prison...
Appropriately enough, Gallo is identified in the narrator's mind with a movie idol, with the cinematic image of a mobster. The narrator appears next at Joey's funeral and declares piously...
...same inversions which dominated John Wesley Harding prevail in Joey. He goes out to seek revenge for an attempt on his brother's life, but when the opportunity actually arises, Joey says, "We're not those kind of men/It's peace and quiet that we need/To go back to work again." Which sounds quite romantic and pacifist, but in context is saying simply that mob warfare is a poor atmosphere in which to conduct the business of gambing and numbers-running. Upon his release from prison, "He tried to find a way back in/To the life he'd left behind...
...Howard Hughes--remained largely out of view. It was a catastrophic year for the best and the brightest, as JFK and Doris Kearns emerged with blotted copybooks, though for different reasons. Attempts to create new heroes failed miserably, despite heroic efforts in the cases of Ruben "Hurricane" Carter and Joey "Kid Blast" Gallo. And some shady characters weathered the year better than might be expected. Idi Amin, Isabel Peron, Indira Gandhi, and Stephen S.J. Hall all cling tenaciously to office...