Dead Ends and Girlfriends – “Moon Lake Village”

I have to constantly remind myself that the songs that make up Dead Ends and Girlfriends were all written when I was between 16 – 18 years old. There isn’t a lot of life experience behind them. Considering my musical idols at the time were Screeching Weasel and The Queers (bands whose lyrics include “Jeannie’s got a problem with her uterus,” and “Hey you motherfuckers I only drink Bud”), I wasn’t much for lyrical substance. This song is certainly no exception.

At the time this song was written I had been dating a girl for about a year or so. She was great and we got along well, finding common ground in the underground punk rock scene. We were an exclusive couple and fairly serious, I suppose. As serious as a pair of 17 year olds could be anyways. So I was a bit shocked when, after I went away to college, she told me she was moving out of her house and renting an apartment with a guy I had never met. He was considerably older and he may have been a professional skateboarder, not that it makes much of a difference. I was naturally skeptical of the entire arrangement but she assured me they were just friends. She needed to get out of her house and at the time she had few other options. The entire situation was quite funny to me so I wrote a song about it. It’s such a stupidly simple song and it would be a hell of a lot more interesting if there were a better story behind it. But, alas, there’s not. And, just in case you might be wondering where the name of the song came from…. that’s right, it was the name of the dumpy apartment complex they moved into together.