“Back on the Flat” is my pick for the greatest song to come out of the 1990s.
And I’ve heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Alive,” and “All Around the World” etc…
That I would make such a statement is a tip off that my drug of choice is sports talk radio. Nothing numbs the mind from the existential crush of daily life like a heated discussion of who is the greatest quarterback of all time.
If someone made a documentary about The Blackwells, “Back on the Flat” would play over the opening credits of some early footage of us playing and then cut to shots of us now, 25 years later, smiling, shaking hands, and the tears would be flowing, at least for me.
“A long time ago, in another place. A long time ago, I was far away.”
I'm not going to say, "this song is about." I can't say what was going through Andrew Plonsky's 23-year old mind. (I haven't asked in 25 years, and I don't think the answer has changed.) From the text, we can confidently say that "memory" is a theme.
First off, Drew gets the Robert Ray Excellence in Lyric Writing Award for this one. (He is the first, and so far the only recipient.) I’ve never heard another song that captures the vibe of The Vulgar Boatmen lyrically. A feature film unfolds around a few snippets of lyrics that you have to construct in your imagination. Who is “they” who were so much younger then? Who is long since dead? How long has the speaker been away? What about the girl? “I remember that you were pretty.” Does the “were” mean that she’s no longer pretty? Endless fascination.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned that a very important, but often overlooked, aspect of great writing is who the writer is writing for. I read that Melville wrote Moby Dick (after my second reference to it I'm actually going to have to read the freakin' book) for Nathanial Hawthorne. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were writing songs for each other...
Drew wrote a masterpiece for sure, but he also had an environment in which a masterpiece would be recognized. Steve was older than us and had played in a lot of bands, so when he instantly recognized the quality of the songs we were working on, it was encouraging. All three of us were trying to write songs at a high level. There was a lot of collaboration but also a lot of trying to find our own voice.
One other thing, to form The Blackwells Marc and Drew left their lives in Washington, D.C. and Chicago to move to Pittsburgh, in a house on a hill, with the crazy dream of college buddies trying to make a go of it as a rock and roll band. In "Back on the Flat," it seems Drew had a prophetic vision of what it would be like looking back on the experience.
What really surprised me though was going back and listening to "Belfast" and "Grounded." I'm pretty sure those are Marc's lyrics. It sounds a little to me like the history of The Blackwells through the eyes of a poet. One small example, "We're all doing fine ever since moved over on the hill, but I still don't much about it and I never will." I'll leave any further literary analysis to Brian, Molly, and Emma.