Hastings and Main - The Colorifics
Hastings and Main was written whilst I was living in Gastown, where the main streets are filled with tourists and clean and the back alleys are peopled with dumpster divers, homeless people, addicts and pain. The song was written in response to all the sadness and desperation I encountered while living in the area. People you felt you couldn't help because they were in the grip of an addiction more powerful than themselves.
Many of the lines came from actual events... A man did lose his finger trying to break into the touristy gimcrack store right beneath us! I imagined people coming to Vancouver from rural areas looking for adventure and finding the streets and addiction, alone without the support groups of their families, friends or communities.
The experience was so poignant it had to be expressed through music and the tone of the song had to reflect, first hand, the hard unyielding experience of the streets tempered with a melancholic realization of the unavoidable fate inherent.

--Bernie Boulanger

HASTINGS AND MAIN

Hastings and Main, feelin' no pain
Hit the road, hit the needle again
It ain't no livin' but I'm feelin' fine, so fine
Sweet city lights, promised delights
I found the gutter and the alley at night
And you can see the shape I'm in

Hastings and Main
I can feel your arms around me
And they hold me so that I can barely breathe
Pleasure and pain
And charms bizarre surround me
I've been spendin' my days on Hastings and Main

Streetside and broken
Beggin' for a quarter for a subway token
I'm payin' my dues and makin' my way
Asleep on a doorstep
It's cold in the alley but a safer bet by far
Than sleepin' forever on Hastings and Main

Hastings and Main
I can feel your arms around me
And they hold me so that I can barely breathe
Pleasure and pain
And charms bizarre surround me
I've been spendin' my days on Hastings and Main

Breakin' a window
Can cost you a finger but it's better that way
one less to be broken on Hastings and Main
I've got the money
So I'll see you later at the needle exchange
You do what you have to on Hastings and Main

Hastings and Main
I can feel your arms around me
And they hold me so that I can barely breathe
Pleasure and pain
And charms bizarre surround me
I've been spendin' my days on Hastings and Main

Ending my days
Spendin' my days
On Hastings and Main

B. Boulanger (c) 2002 (SOCAN)
Produced by the Colorifics