Dancing Backward in High Heel
Singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain are the sole surviving founders of this glam’n’grime institution — “swindlers of the abyss,” as Johansen puts it in his weathered-leather growl in “End of the Summer.” They can still muster the familiar action like the atomic-jukebox roll of “Round and Round She Goes” and the hip-smackin’ “Streetcake.” But under the lipstick and howling-Stones guitars, the Dolls always aspired to the rough-granite poise and battle lessons of great blues and soul. Here, in the slow, Percy Sledge-salted grit of “Kids Like You,” Johansen warns the next gang in town that wild youth comes at a price — one his band paid in spades.
Listen to “Fool For You Baby”:
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