downtown l.a.
been listening to this one a lot lately.
downtown l.a. is a depressing place. you can see young men with deep lines in their face. they could all be something if somebody cared. but nobody knows they’re even down there.
“they could all be something if somebody cared.”
i keep coming back to that line. it’s not just about l.a. or the 80s. you see this everywhere. the kid who had to drop out because the family needed money. someone working a shit job just to survive, no time left for anything else. people with real talent that nobody ever noticed.
we like to pretend everyone has a chance. just work hard. learn to code. start a hustle. put yourself out there. but that’s mostly bullshit. most people don’t fail because they’re not good enough. they fail because no one was there when it mattered.
old woman walking with a sack on her back. picking up garbage people put out back.
cale doesn’t try to make this poetic or beautiful. he just tells you what he saw.
a man down there he couldn’t be lying. he was sleeping in the street he couldn’t keep from crying. said he’d been there for 21 years. through the bars and the brawls and the blues and the tears.
21 years. that’s a whole life in two lines.
the song sounds lazy, almost like background music. then you actually listen:
in the inner city, it ain’t no good. it’s a long, long way from hollywood. bad kind of people got a hold of the street. they got something that the poor people need.
“a long, long way from hollywood.” same city, different world. the dreams are right there on the billboards but they might as well be on another planet.
and then: “they got something that the poor people need.”
that line says everything. some people have what others need. and they’re not sharing. that’s it. that’s the whole system.
jj cale doesn’t shout. doesn’t preach. just shows you something and lets you figure it out yourself.
anyway. listen to the song. let it sit with you for a while. and maybe next time you walk past someone sleeping on the street, you’ll remember: they could all be something if somebody cared.
i know this is all pretty cliché. i don’t care. probably no one’s reading this anyway. i just needed to put it somewhere.
if nothing else, take this as a song recommendation. it’s a good one.