The rawer, live version of this song was the first rendition I heard way back in 2005. On putting the CD in after the concert just to find this song so I could drive alone home singing to it, I found the ragged harmony gone; the voices, the rhythms all cleaner and consequently a little less inviting. That aside, it's still pretty fucking beautiful. I can even forgive their use of a z instead of an s, a mercy that's never been bestowed upon anyone else's distasteful substitution.

I just learned (if it can be called learning where Youtube comments are involved) that the song is based on a gay French political activist named Jean Genet.



My love of this song compels me to want to go read his biography. I wonder what I'd find in there that would lead me down a different path of interest. Mary Ruefle brought up a similar idea in one of her great essays--following footnotes from source to source, winding through a forest of intrigue until you come to an end, which is to say, full circle. What I'm saying is, go read all of those essays because I can't remember the name of that one specifically, but also because she's a mind on wheels.