American Music Club (often abbreviated AMC) is a San Francisco-based band l… Read Full Bio ↴American Music Club (often abbreviated AMC) is a San Francisco-based band led by singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel. They've been recording and playing in SF clubs since the mid 1980's, showing a remarkable longevity for a band that has been far more critically acclaimed than financially successful.

Although born in California, frontman Mark Eitzel spent his formative years in Great Britain and Ohio before returning to the Bay Area in 1980. After a brief stint with the punk band The Naked Skinnies he founded American Music Club in 1983 with guitarist Vudi, bassist Dan Pearson, keyboardist Brad Johnson, and drummer Matt Norelli. This lineup would change over the next several years but Eitzel always remained the core of the band in terms of its vocals, lyrics and thematic focus.

Their 1985 debut, The Restless Stranger, offers a rough outline of their increasingly eclectic sound and firmly established Eitzel's worldview, a harrowing vision of life as seen through the bottom of a shot glass. 1987's Engine honed the formula: the addition of producer Tom Mallon as a full-time member expanded the group's sonic palette.

American Music Club earned a solid cult following on the strength of 1988's California. Their next LP, 1989's United Kingdom, appeared only in the nation which lent the record its name and consisted of leftover material and live tracks.

In 1991 American Music Club emerged with the record that is widely considered their masterpiece, Everclear. Critical acclaim attracted the attention of several major labels. Eventually AMC -- now consisting of Eitzel, Vudi, Pearson, multi-instrumentalist Bruce Kaphan, and drummer Tim Mooney -- signed with Reprise in the U.S. and Virgin throughout the rest of the world.

1993's Mercury followed and, despite positive reviews, Mercury fared poorly on the charts and earned virtually no recognition from radio or MTV. In 1994, AMC issued San Francisco, an erratic collection which balanced confessional tunes like Fearless and The Thorn in My Side Is Gone alongside slick pop constructs. Like Mercury, the record found critical acclaim yet foundered commercially and American Music Club disbanded as result.

Eitzel eventually explored a solo career, and purchased a Pro-Tools set up to record solo material, some released through Reprise and other albums through Matador. Vudi joined Swans for their last album and farewell tour, documented on Swans are Dead (Black Disc)/Swans are Dead (White Disc).

In 2003, American Music Club reunited to record a new album, Love Songs For Patriots, which was described by reviewer Mark Deming as "a stronger and more coherent effort than the group's last set, 1994's San Francisco, and while it's too early to tell if this is a new start or a last hurrah for AMC, it at least shows that their formula still yields potent results. Here's hoping Eitzel and Vudi have more where this came from."

The Dead Part Of You
American Music Club Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

The price of your soul is worth less than the cab fare
That gets you home before the living end.
The dead part of you leaves me with a blessing
From a destruction of your beauty, your self-hatred, your self-pity.
There's so little of you left.
There's so little of you left.
The dead part of you takes me out.
It says the beast in me is fading fast.

It leaves me with a great big goodbye hug.
It's busy clinging to the dead part of the past.
Oh, you only love one thing.
There's so little of it left.
He has taken everything.

And there's so little of you left.
You're just a baby in the back seat.
That a door slam sends crying into the world.
And a cab driver's in a hurry that man is more than,
More than anything we could hope for
From the world.
You only love one thing.
There's so little of it left.
He has taken everything.
There's so little of you left.
There's so little of you left.
There's so little of you left.

There's so little of you left.
There's so little of you left.

Overall Meaning

The opening line of the song, "The price of your soul is worth less than the cab fare," sets the tone for the rest of the lyrics. The song talks about someone who is broken and self-destructive, and their value has been reduced to something as trivial as a cab fare. The dead part of this person, their self-hatred and self-pity, is what's left of them, and it's what's driving them downward. Despite their behavior, the singer still feels a sense of attachment to this person, perhaps out of habit or a sense of duty.

The chorus, "There's so little of you left," speaks to the emptiness and hopelessness that the person has become. They are a shadow of their former selves, reduced to a crying baby in the back seat of a cab. Even as the dead part of this person takes over and they become increasingly destructive, the singer still feels a sense of loss for what they used to be. The final lines, "There's so little of you left," repeated over and over, drive home the sense of futility and impotence that the singer feels in the face of this person's self-destruction.

Overall, "The Dead Part Of You" is a haunting song that speaks to the fragility of the human spirit, and the sometimes-horrific consequences of self-destructive behavior.

Line by Line Meaning

The price of your soul is worth less than the cab fare
Your soul is worth so little that even the cab fare to get you home is worth more.

That gets you home before the living end.
The only reason you're going home is to avoid the inevitable end of your life.

The dead part of you leaves me with a blessing
The worst part of you leaving is actually a relief for me.

From a destruction of your beauty, your self-hatred, your self-pity.
Your self-destructive behavior, self-loathing, and self-pity have destroyed any beauty you once had.

There's so little of you left.
You've lost so much of yourself to your destructive behavior that there's almost nothing of the real you left.

The dead part of you takes me out.
The worst part of you is dragging me down with it.

It says the beast in me is fading fast.
The destructive part of me is starting to fade away now that you're gone.

It leaves me with a great big goodbye hug.
Your worst part is leaving me with a big, final, and painful goodbye.

It's busy clinging to the dead part of the past.
Your worst part is stuck dwelling on the past and cannot move on.

Oh, you only love one thing.
You are only capable of loving one thing and it has consumed you entirely.

There's so little of it left.
You've lost so much of this one thing you love that it's almost gone entirely.

He has taken everything.
Whoever “he” is has taken everything that was good about you, leaving only the worst parts behind.

You're just a baby in the back seat.
You are helpless and vulnerable, like a child in the back seat of a car.

That a door slam sends crying into the world.
Something as simple as a door slamming can cause you to break down and cry uncontrollably.

And a cab driver's in a hurry that man is more than,
Even a stranger like a cab driver, who is in a rush to get somewhere, has more value and worth than you.

More than anything we could hope for from the world.
Even someone who appears to have such little importance has more value than anything we could ever hope for from the world.

There's so little of you left.
This line's repetition emphasizes how much of you has been lost.