Music Review // Sheri Miller "Chelsea Summer Nights (Acoustic)"

 

Through the delicate acoustics of plucked strings, Sheri Miller sings a song about the Chelsea Hotel, which was made famous in NYC by the artists who liived there.  Just to offer up a brief bit of history if you are unaware, both Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg lived at the Chelsea Hotel, as did William S. Burroughs who wrote most of the novel Naked Lunch there.  And then the history can go into the 1960's with names such as Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin.  It's just a real who's who of artists who have had such a large influence on pop culture throughout the decades.

As far as tributes go, this is a moving tribute to a place full of so much history.  I often long for places such as Studio 54 and CBGB's, as I feel like we just lack any type of place like that right now.  Although sometimes we don't know the impact of these places until enough time has passed, so maybe we just don't see it yet.  Still, this song has lines such as: "Time marches on but you are my truth" and "Glimpse the way we were back then", pointing to the nostalgia.

The song also pays tribute to people who stayed there, with the line "I held you like a yellow taxi" being a nod to Joni Mitchell, for example.  There is literally enough information about the Chelsea Hotel to write a book about it and I think that this song might bring some of that to light- maybe someone will hear it and discover an interest in something they did not know before.  Maybe you like Bob Dylan and through this hotel will have your eyes opened to William S Burroughs.  

But I think perhaps the most important part of this song is not just that it is specifically about the Chelsea Hotel but rather about what that represents.  There are places we have likely visited in our lives that are either no longer there or are just not the same as they once were long ago (I'm looking at you Toad's Place in New Haven) and so we have those fond memories of them.  More than just being a distinct story about a specific place, this is a general tale of longing for the past and "Chelsea summer nights / I'm not afraid to die".