People Who Died

You Tube – People Who Died Video – From the movie "The Basketball Diaries". Sorry for the delayed start.  

Jim Carroll's ode to his screwed up life. To his friends that didn't make it. A long song. The version I use is five minutes. It starts, four down-stroke chords, and then it's rolling, careening. Tongue-twister lyrics and a depressing refrain. If you're not listening to the words, you think it's an upbeat song. Straddling the line between new wave and punk, it's a song that most people seem to like. I like it for its energy and beat. End of the workout, fifty-some minutes in. When I want everyone to push one last hard drill. To finish strong and spent.

Last week I used it for Tabata. This is cheating. Tabata is four minutes, and you're smoked at the end. This was 20% longer. But the song is so fast, so fun, people hang on. Keep pushing beyond comfort, even beyond suffering. Twenty seconds on – 100% effort (I always say 120%, it makes the point). And ten seconds off – nothing is expected for those few moments. On, off, on, off. True Tabata is eight sets. People Who Died, ten sets. The last five are brutal. Typically, I follow it with alt-country. Iris DeMint or Laura Cantrell. I'm sucking wind too, and I don't want to talk. The music says we're done.

Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old

Fell from the roof on east two-nine

Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug

On 26 reds and a bottle of wine

Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old

He looked like 65 when he died

He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died x4

They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten

So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan

Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head

Bobby od'ed on drano on the night that he was wed

They were two more friends of mine

Two more friends that died / I miss 'em--they died

Those are people who died, died x4

They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room

Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs

Judy jumped in front of a subway train

Eddie got slit in the jugular vein

And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others,

And I salute you brother/ this song is for you my brother

Those are people who died, died x4

They were all my friends, and they died

Herbie pushed Tony from the boys' club roof

Tony thought that his rage was just some goof

But Herbie sure gave tony some bitchin' proof

"hey," Herbie said, "tony, can you fly? "

But tony couldn't fly . . . tony died

Those are people who died, died x4

They were all my friends, and they died

Brian got busted on a narco rap

He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers

He said, hey, I know it's dangerous,

But it sure beats riker's

But the next day he got offed

By the very same bikers