Features: Bruce Hornsby (piano,accordion, vocals, synthesizer); George Marinelli (guitar, backing vocals); John Molo (drums, percussion); Joe Puerta (bass, backing vocals).
This is a story song that has a couple of social observations.
Some boys go out drinking and shooting pool and get into a big fight. The key line is “Do what your daddy told you, well I just went out and did that”, meaning that they have attitudes that have been passed down for generations.
In this song, the excuse for the fight is that some newcomers, some strangers from the city, “don’t walk just right.” The pool parlour boys react against something different that makes them uncomfortable, but they’re also just flexing their muscles for the hell of it, because they’ve seen that as the thing you do for fun on a Saturday night.
It’s hard to say whose fault it is – theirs or the ones who they looked up to when growing up. At any rate, as the song says, “the line was drawn for another showdown, like they’d always seen it done, and one man’s night for a drunken old time left a scar on another one.”
From “Bruce Hornsby & The Range – A Night On The Town” Sheet music published in 1990 by Cherry Lane Music Company, Inc. (ISBN 0-89524-580-9)
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Night on the Town
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Veneta, OR
Band show; soundboard
July 28 1996