INTRODUCTION
“I don’t really know where the title came from. It was just something people said, just a term we used. Like, when you don’t see somebody around for a bit, when they’ve sort of gone missing, socially. You say, so-and-so ‘moved uptown’ or, you know, ‘he’s riding the Uptown Special.’”
MARK RONSON (TO THE BEST OF MY RECOLLECTION), LONDON, JANUARY 2014
IF YOU’RE READING THESE NOTES—IF YOU TAKE ENOUGH OF an interest in Mark Ronson and his music to dig so deep into the sofa cushions, feeling around for one last shiny dime—then by now you’ve probably heard the story. It’s the conventional wisdom, part of the mythology of this record: the story of Ronson’s so-called lost or uptown years: how the scenes he made, and the beaches he washed up on, and the sweet American music he imbibed in the course of that strange journey became the raw material for this, his fourth album.
Just to make it clear at the outset: as far as I know, everything you’ve heard or read is bullshit. There’s nothing, no truth, in any of the outrageous claims that have been put forward, by the media and by various sketchy characters claiming to have “been there.” No Russian (or in some versions, Georgian) mobsters. No spiritual quest in the Nevada desert or under the tutelage of a slide-guitar-playing Delta hoodoo man. No monthlong, six-figure blackjack benders. No desperate transcontinental pursuit of an elusive, beautiful high-wire aerialist and “human cannonball,” as her circus company crisscrossed the country. All of that is slander at worst and at best the outcome of too many people with active imaginations getting a little too baked and then having at it on Genius.com.
Part of the blame for this mess, and he’d be the first to admit it, lies squarely on the shoulders of Ronson himself. He never showed much interest in talking about the “Uptown Years” (a term that always makes him smile), preferring, as he would patiently explain to friends and interviewers alike, to let the music speak for itself. Until he played these songs for me, I had never heard much from Ronson about those years except when, for whatever reason, he would be caught off guard by some sudden fond memory of his days on the road as a roving ambassador for the American Automobile Association (AAA)’s Car Safety and Care-A-Van program. I can’t say that I was surprised when I learned the truth, though. Anyone who knows Ronson has heard his little lectures on the importance of regularly checking tire pressure, or keeping a well-stocked emergency kit in the vehicle. Whatever the reason for Ronson’s having fallen into what he prefers to call “my little uptown funk,” there is nothing mysterious in the cure he hit upon: lighting out for the territory, like Huck Finn, in a well-maintained, low-mileage 1994 stretch Lincoln Town Car,* its rear seating area and capacious trunk loaded with boxes full of literature on winterizing your vehicle and not, as some have claimed, bootleg Chinese semi-automatic rifles, stolen pharmaceuticals, or (you have to love this one) an alcoholic circus bear named Julio.
With the CD-and-digital release of Uptown Special, however, as a seemingly endless parade of night-runners, minor dudes, and demimondaines have been dragged blinking into the light and encouraged to recount, or rather concoct, the “Shocking Truth about Ronno’s Uptown Years,”* Ronson’s reticence has come to seem, in hindsight, like a tactical error. As the bizarre tales and baroque inventions have proliferated, Ronson has reluctantly begun to concede that he may not have entirely succeeded in his effort, on Uptown Special, to get across, purely through music and lyrics, the story, the true story, of the time he spent “riding the Uptown Special.”
After conducting extensive interviews with Ronson in London, and with his full cooperation and encouragement, I have prepared these liner notes. They are as accurate as I can make them, given the limitations of memory and the fact that the device I used to record the interviews was afterword stolen by a man who attacked and robbed me as I was coming out of the North Sea Fish Restaurant.* I hope that in addition to popping certain people’s crazy-balloons, these notes will prove welcome to interested fans of Ronson’s music, some of whom no doubt recall the joy and the mystery you used to be able to find, routinely, in the sleeve of an LP, where the liner notes, the lyric sheet, and a thing called Meaning once played their shy, flirtatious games.
“UPTOWN’S FIRST FINALE”
THIS BRIEF INTRODUCTION, HAUNTED EQUALLY BY STEVIE Wonder’s chromatic harmonica and the ever-present specter, in summer weather or warm climates, of your engine overheating, hints at the setting of track seven, “Crack in the Pearl,” Ronson’s epic cautionary tale of poor maintenance leading to an unplanned breakdown in the desert “nine exits north of Las Vegas.”
“SUMMER BREAKING”
WHILE ITS TITLE MIGHT SUGGEST ANOTHER WARNING ABOUT the threat posed to a car’s engine by extreme temperatures (something Ronson feels cannot be overstated) and the need to regularly monitor vehicle fluids, “Summer Breaking” is concerned with another, more alarming automotive danger. In the spring of 2011, the “totally dope” (i.e., “hip” and/or “cool”) DJ/Producer/AAA Roving Ambassador was invited to bring his one-man Car Safety and Care-A-Van to West Oakland, California, where he addressed a receptive and attentive group of young people. The topic? A bizarre and extremely hazardous “pastime” known as “ghost-riding the whip” or simply “ghost-riding” in which participants deliberately abandon a slowly moving vehicle in order to dance around or even on top of it.* After introducing his “typical teenager” protagonist, a young woman engaged in the kind of unwise practices that increase the likelihood of risky behaviors like “ghost-riding the whip,” Ronson admonishes her to “be the girl you [ . . . ] pretend not to be” and “play the game” of making safe and sensible choices.
“FEEL RIGHT”
WE AMERICANS LOVE OUR CARS, BUT IN ORDER TO “FEEL right,” according to Ronson, it’s important to get out from behind the wheel sometimes and get some exercise. Extolling the health benefits of bicycle riding (“It’s exercise with thighs and hip muscles”), Mystikal also offers Ronson’s tips on bicycle safety (a perennial concern of Ronson’s music, as per his 2010 hit “The Bike Song”), delivering a vivid reminder about the importance of always wearing a helmet while biking in order to avoid serious head injury: “You gon’ fuck around and [ . . . ] knock your fruit juice loose, banana, your watermelon and pomegranate, too.”
“UPTOWN FUNK”
FAR FROM THE BACCHANALIAN DANCE FLOOR CALL-TO-ARMS it has widely been taken for, this is Ronson’s heartfelt confession of the dark period, following the release of his underappreciated 2009 album “Record Collection,” when he slipped into the depression that he now jokingly refers to as his “little uptown funk.” In fact, during this time, Ronson was seriously “funked up.” He became obsessed with the film actress Michelle Pfeiffer, suffered from repeated psychosomatic hot flashes (“Too hot!”), and shocked friends and family with his uncharacteristically disheveled and confused physical appearance, even going so far as to show up at an important function dressed in an Yves Saint Laurent suit and a pair of worn-out old canvas trainers. With the introduction, in the song’s interlude, of Mr. Julio Ruiz, the AAA’s Special Programs director, and with the purchase of a secondhand stretch Town Car, Ronson hints at his eventual recovery and renewed sense of purpose in life.
“I CAN’T LOSE”
IN THE COURSE OF THE AUTUMN OF 2011, DELIVERING TALKS in cold-weather regions on proper winterization and safe driving techniques for winter weather, Ronson perfected an amusing routine focused on one of the major culprits in snow-and-ice-related traffic accidents: driver overconfidence. Between their faith in antilock brake systems and the like, and their misplaced faith in their own skill levels, many drivers feel that they “can’t lose” control of their vehicle. Ronson’s gentle but pointed mockery, reflected in this song (whose original opening line was reportedly “When I drove you last night, baby/And we hit that patch of ice”), elicited many a droll chuckle and nod of recognition in the senior centers and church basements of the Midwest and Northeast.
“DAFFODILS”
WITH A CLARITY AND A DIRECTNESS THAT REALLY REQUIRE no annotation, Ronson delivers another hard-hitting warning, this time on the dangers of mixing driving with prescription (and many over-the-counter) medications. Those who neglect manufacturers’ warnings to avoid operating heavy machinery (the “kick dragon” and “vapor wagon” of the first stanza) may find themselves driving “right off the map”—and off the road!
“CRACK IN THE PEARL”
ACCORDING TO RONSON, THE MOST AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL track on the record, a sad account of how a long-anticipated road trip to Las Vegas was ruined by his own failure to adequately maintain his vehicle and to prepare it for prolonged exposure to intense desert heat. “I didn’t flush and replace the coolant every 24,000 miles, I didn’t check the water in the radiator, I didn’t make sure the battery was fastened tightly in place, which cuts down on heat-generating vibrations. When we broke down, nine exits north of Las Vegas, we couldn’t get all the way onto the shoulder, and I didn’t even have a flare in the trunk.” He paused to shake his head ruefully. “I just totally blew it, and the whole trip that was supposed to be so great turned out to be a total drag. Not at all how I laid it out for my buddy, not how he pictured it.” It was a real road-to-Damascus moment for Ronson. “That’s when I first started to get serious about car care and safety.”
“IN CASE OF FIRE”
“LEAVING LOS FELIZ”
LIKE “UPTOWN FUNK,” A SONG THAT REFLECTS THE MALAISE and mounting sense of something lacking from his life that led Ronson to “move uptown” and seek a renewed sense of purpose by taking time off from his transatlantic music career to reconnect with the “American highway” (from Harlem to Hollywood to Jackson, Mississipi, as “Uptown Funk” itinerizes it) and spread the gospel of sensible automotive safety and maintenance practices.
“HEAVY AND ROLLING”
THE CULMINATING MOMENT OF THE ALBUM’S JOURNEY, ITS New York City homecoming, and the thematic counterweight to “Crack in the Pearl” with its account of roadside calamity, “Heavy and Rolling” is Ronson’s paean to the glories of life behind the wheel of his beloved, flawlessly maintained Town Car with its low center of gravity, rolling on tires that have been inflated according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. Rarely in the history of pop music has an artist come so close to articulating the deep, quiet satisfaction of knowing one’s vehicle is as ready as it can be for any and all of the potential hazards faced by drivers today. (2015)