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“Jawbreaker, “Chesterfield King”
Viewed through the lens of all the lame emo that’s followed it, Jawbreaker’s “Chesterfield King” seems kind of quaint. But the song—a lone, bright gem amid all the sludge and glumness of the band’s 1992 album Bivouac—is the prime example of Black Schwarzenbach’s emerging literary bent, which the singer-guitarist would perfect on Jawbreaker’s next two discs. With plainspoken yet vivid lucidity, Schwarzenbach opens the story in medias res, with himself and a female friend on the brink of romantic revelation. Fear chases him out of her house, after which he shares a smoke and a beer with a homeless woman outside a 7-11. Emboldened by the moment—and the bracing caress of autumn air, this being emo and all—he races back to his girl’s house to seal the deal, poetically and inconclusively, of course. Lines like “I took my car and drove it down the hill by your house / I drove so fast” might sound a little too much like an, um, dashboard confessional, but “Chesterfield King” remains a perfect, roughhewn chunk of prose sunk into one of the catchiest punk tunes of all time.”