8 of 69: I Only keep this Heap for You

"Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side"

Saving Graces.

You've just spend an entire weekend enjoying the gorgeous late Spring weather and then Monday rolls around and demands you return to work. Inside. In a basement. The saving grace? The second you step in the old stone structure the sky opens up and it's raining dogs and cats. So what happens if the girl you like just so happens to be a big hit with the menfolk, could theoretically be with anyone up to and including professor Blumen (who alledgedly makes her feel like a woman) and you aren't exactly doing so well in the looks department? Relax. Everything is okay. After all you're the luckiest guy on the lower east side. You've got wheels and she wants to go for a ride.

"Luckiest Guy", for me, is the first game changer on 69LS. If the album were boiled down to a dozen or so essential songs, this would be on the ballot for sure. It's beautifully simple if not offering the deeper registers of meaning like some of the others that came before it. It's merely the tale of a dude with a busted mug, the girl he loves and the rusted heap he hangs on to just for her.

It strikes me these kids are young and poor. Maybe its just in his head, but I doubt that any of the many guys buzzing around the object of the singer's affections are actually astronomers or buying her expensive gowns. Andy, bicycling across town in the rain just to bring her candy seems much more likely. And even if that guy pedaling through puddles is a regular Don Juan, you're the only one (for the moment) who can make the wind blow through her hair and laugh like a little girl. Yeah, maybe there's no chance for anything more, but sometimes the laughter of the pretty girl in the bucket seat next to yours is enough.

grade: "Infatuation" (5 out of 6)