Album: Boomtown (1986)

Charted: 37

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• Ms. Cristina drives a nine four four
  Satisfaction oozes from her pores
  She keeps rings on her fingers
  Marble on her floor
  Cocaine on her dresser
  Bars on her doors
  She keeps her back against the wall
  She keeps her back against the wall
  
  So I say
  I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown
  Pick a habit
  We got plenty to go around
  Welcome, welcome to the boomtown
  All that money makes such a succulent sound
  Welcome to the boomtown
  
  Handsome Kevin got a little off track
  Took a year off of college
  And he never went back
  Now he smokes too much
  He's got a permanent hack
  Deals dope out of Denny's
  Keeps a table in the back
  He always listens to the ground
  Always listens to the ground
  
  So I say
  I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown
  Pick a habit
  We got plenty to go around
  Welcome, welcome to the boomtown
  All that money makes such a succulent sound
  Welcome to the boomtown
  
  Well the ambulance arrived too late
  I guess she didn't want to wait Writer/s: DAVID FRANCIS BAERWALD, DAVID RICKETTS
  Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 7

• Ad2 from Vail ColoradoThis song is and always was an anti drug warning message to young people in the 80s. This one hit wonder band came at the end of the original MTV video era using a Les Paul custom with clean sustain, two hand hammer pull off technique, and top 40 mainstream melody that was groundbreaking at the time. Anyone who interprets this piece as glorifying drugs or pro drugs is completely missing the whole point.
• Grayson from The DesertGreat album from a great decade.
• Palomarjack from TehachapiWhat? No flip comments from the drug and booze... "lusers"? Come on, any song that dramatizes it, gets all kinds of compliments and narratives about how great their party days were/are and how it all should be legal. Oh well. That's the way it goes.
  
  By the way, the version that plays here is not complete. Miss Christina, you know, the rich skank in the first verse? Well, she dies, because "the ambulance was too late". Not in my opinion, they arrived just in time to pick up her corps. And no, Miss Christina was not a smuggler, just another "luser". Remember? "The ambulance arrived too late." They don't link to that one here because it is "inseeeeee...nsitive" to her demise.
  
  "In a way, it's an anti-drug song." Uh, really? Ya' think?
  
  Recently you could easily put "crank" in the place of cocaine. It reminds me of a woman my wife knew that used crank very heavy a few years after this was released. She was north of Palmdale Ca and had a head-on at the rail road tracks in the center of Sierra Highway with a drunk driver. They both died, "A match made in heaven", don't ya' think? She was found packed up under the dashboard with her mirror and her face covered with crank. Why is this relevant? Her name was Christen, her nickname for Christina.
• Michael from Okc, OkAltho this song is easily about drugs, I also think it paints a very bleak picture of the devastating effects it causes on the characters. In a way, it's an anti-drug song.
• Nick from Tampa, FlI assumed this was a song about Miami, based on when it was recorded and the subject matter. Miami during the 80s could be viewed as a boomtown, where the economic boom was not caused by mineral strikes, but by the flourishing illegal drug trade.
• Joshua from La Crosse, WiActually the song is about people involved in different aspects of the illegal drug trade - "Miss Christina" the smuggler and "handsome Kevin" the low-level dealer (the lyrics don't say whether he's selling to street-level pushers or directly to users).
• Don from San Antonio, TxI read somewhere that David R really got turned off by touring, because the "Boomtown" guitar solos drew the wrong type of audience they were expecting. I'm assuming it was lots of hard rock metalheads that wanted to rock out. I have to admit myself, that I'm not really the folk-type and it was those beautiful Randy Rhoads-type solos (think "Tonight" or the "Little Dolls" exit solo) that led me to buying that album. But I'm glad I did, I've been a fan ever since. Dave B moved to Austin, not sure if he's still here?

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