Why are the boys back in town, and where did they go in the first place?

Cafe Society
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Inspired by Brandy, you’re a fine girl. But when did you live?, but also by listening to a Thin Lizzy two-fer on the radio.

First they played ‘Jailbreak’…

Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak
Somewhere in this town

Uh, somewhere in this town? Maybe, I dunno, the town jail, just to throw down a WAG?

Anyway, afterward they played “The Boys Are Back in Town”

Guess who just got back today
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away

I had always wondered about this-- a group of wild-eyed boys who were crazy, and liked getting into fights. Why did they leave town all at once as a group, and why are they all suddenly back in town?

Then it hit me-- TBABIT is a sequel to Jailbreak– the boys tried to pull off a bank robbery or some kind of heist in another town, got caught and went to jail. But now they’ve escaped and returned to their home town! Mystery solved :sunglasses:

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According to Duran Duran :
The wild boys are calling
On their way back from the fire
In august moon’s surrender to
A dust cloud on the rise

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I always thought The Boys were a bunch of assholes. And the singer isn’t much better, he thinks fightin’ and drinkin’ is just a good Friday night.

“If that chick don’t want to know, forget her”

Put me on that list.

Wikipedia says The Boys were

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I figured it was about a traveling band, because so many songs from that time were about being in a R&R band. Writing about what you know was over done there for a while.
eta: I never knew the lyrics.

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There are five prisons in Dublin, Ireland. Somewhere is a lot of places.

@Just_Asking_Questions seems to have nailed the meaning, or what most people say is the meaning, which is sometimes right somewhere.

Folks in Manchester, England, will tell you “The Boys Are Back In Town” is about the Quality Street Gang, a criminal enterprise not unlike the Mafia. Phil Lynott spent much of his youth in Manchester, where his mom ran a club called the Showbiz. The QSG would often hang out there, always “dressed to kill” (they were so named because of their fashion sense).

A key member of the gang was Jimmy “The Weed” Donnelly, the subject of a song on Thin Lizzy’s next album called “Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed.”

The Dino’s Bar And Grill mentioned in the song is probably a real place, but which one is up for debate. Deno’s was a Manchester nightclub the Quality Street Gang would frequent; Dino’s Lodge was a Hollywood cabaret with a Dean Martin theme (Martin was a business partner). It shows up in the opening credits of the TV series 77 Sunset Strip.

Drink would flow at both establishments, but if you’re looking for a place where blood would spill, it was definitely Deno’s.

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Spacers, most likely. On leave and looking for frelks. Brief Analysis of “Aye, and Gomorrah” | Queer Writing Practices

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This’ll show you how different my youth was. Any time I hear song title The Boys Are Back in Town, I think of The Busboys first and Thin Lizzy second.

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Hey now, I wonder if her boyfriend is one of the boys that is back?

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Well, whoever he is “love will be stronger, After the Boys of Summer are gone”

Maybe the the Boys are back in town, from the Beach.

(Which brings us to the Beach boys, somehow)

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Maybe you have something there! The Thin Lizzy song does say:

Won’t be long 'til the summer comes
Now that the boys are here again

Perhaps Thin Lizzy and Don Henley were both singing of some sort of mythological harbingers of Summer, who appear to humans as youthful males.

11

I’ve always thought this is one of the greatest rock lines of all time.

“Man, when I tell you she was cool, she was red hot. I mean, she was steamin’”

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Friday night? And here I was thinking that Saturday night’s alright for fighting.

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I figured it was a bunch of soccer hooligans who trashed an out-of-town venue, then returned to no one’s relief.

14

They refer to baseball players as “the boys of summer”, even though baseball runs from frigid April until freezing October, and cuts into football.

So Henley’s song is about a guy who can’t get the girl because she has season tickets to the Dodgers.

See? Not every rock song is about sex, drugs, girls and cars. There’s at least…uh…two, maybe three, about baseball.

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Like Paradise by the Dashboard Light. That’s about baseball, right?

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We could always go on a “Surfin’ Safari”
When the season ends.

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It’s a endless summer.

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Baseball used to start in May and finish in September, thanks to lots of doubleheaders. Sundays, mainly, to give workers a chance to see five hours of baseball. Before WWII few stadiums had lighting, so all games were day games. How could the working class get to them? Answer: they didn’t. Attendance was in the low thousands for most games, especially during the Depression.

The season keeps being extended, more teams are added to the playoffs, and the season can start in March (opening day this year was March 28) and end in November. Because of money, money, money.

Hey, maybe the boys are baseball players and they’ve been on a road trip. So two songs about baseball.

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But…oh, oh those summer nights…

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Tell me more!