No Joy in Mudville (song)

"No Joy in Mudville" is a song by Death Cab for Cutie from their 2000 LP "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes". It is a tribute to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. The title comes from the ending line of the poem "Casey at the Bat".

References to The Velvet Underground

The song references Reed and The Velvet Underground, especially in their early days as a part of Andy Warhol's scene. The lines "Last night I dreamt that I was you/I was dressed all in black with dark glasses and attitude" describes Reed's attire (and that of much of the rest of the band) during this era.

The repeated lyric "To a brownstone, up three flights of stairs" is a direct lift from the song I'm Waiting For The Man.

"Your studies of fringe New York streets" also describes many of the songs from Reed's writing career with The Velvet Underground. A particular example would be Run Run Run, which names in detail several streets in New York notorious at the time for drug activity.

The line "they all said that you were the king of a gloomy disruption that surfaced when you would sing" references several early reviews of the band that mentioned the Velvets' polarizing effect on audiences, one of which had concluded "...the flowers of evil are in bloom, and they must be stamped out."

"If I could have had my way, this year would bridge '66 again" seems to indicate a desire to be back in 1966, when the band was touring with Warhol and recorded their debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico.

"Trust fund hipsters were casing the room, chock full of amphetamines" would be an apt description of the audiences at Warhol's factory that saw the Velvets' early shows.

"The overturned kick drum boom set the pace with incomparable cool" describes the unusual way Velvets drummer Maureen Tucker played her instruments.