Original lyric manuscripts for X’s songs ‘Los Angeles’ and ‘Sex and Dying in High Society’, typed by guitarist-songwriter John Doe; with the title of the former handwritten by the band’s singer Exene.  Also included is a first pressing of the band’s 1980 debut album Los Angeles, which features both songs, and two vintage photographs of the group.

The lyrics are typed on the back of advertising flyers from Brentano’s bookstore, where Doe worked during the group’s early days.  In his 2016 book Under the Big Black Sun, Doe writes, I had a day job working at Brentano’s bookstore at the corner of Wilshire and Rodeo…there I saw Farrah Fawcett, Helen Reddy & actually helped Gloria Swanson find nutrition books.

Doe wrote us that he used the Brentano’s flyers, because they were cheaper than buying typing paper, and that he thinks these were typed on his ‘trusty Olympia’ typewriter, which was included in the 2017 Grammy Museum exhibition X: 40 Years of Punk in Los Angeles.  Doe noted he would type out lyrics using carbon paper to make two copies at the same time; these are the top copies rather than the carbons. He added that he has some of the Brentano’s typed pages, but not these.

‘Los Angeles’ was first issued on the 1979 Dangerhouse Records punk compilation Yes L.A., and then rerecorded for Los Angeles.  The lyrics on this manuscript are as published. ‘Sex and Dying in High Society’ was first recorded during the Los Angeles sessions; these lyrics have a number of minor differences to those published on the album’s innersleeve, most significantly the words ‘styling iron’ instead of ‘curling iron.’

In his book Under the Big Black Sun, John Doe wrote about his early X songs,  I wanted to tell stories about this city [Los Angeles] that filled my eyes w/decay and anonymity. A place where random violence breathed in & out like the ocean.  I didn’t want to tell stories like Bob Dylan but like Bukowski (w/out the lurid sex but a suggestion of it)—minimal, unvarnished, detailed West Coast, filled w/ the kind of darkness The Doors and Love had promised…These were the first songs I wrote that were actually any good. 

Exene was a partner, co-conspirator & if not the lyricist, then the catalyst.  She would write a line like “Johnny Hit & Run Paulene,” tape it to the door & a few months later that story would come to me.  Even though she’d never written a song, Exene could write lyrics on a page, top to bottom, as if the music was already there.  All I had to do was match some music I’d been working on to the cadence of the words…

[Doors keyboardist and X producer Ray Manzarek] exalted Exene and my lyrics and compared them to Jim Morrison’s…These were songs you could hear once, probably catch the title & possibly remember the next morning.  These songs were meant to be played live, loud & sloppy.  Having an actual record that someone could put on their turntable was still off in the distance for most of us.

The New York Times noted Los Angeles is widely regarded as one of the most influential punk records of all time. Ken Tucker writing in Rolling Stone called the album a powerful, upsetting work that concludes with a confrontation of the band’s own rampaging bitterness and confusion. Los Angeles ranked at No. 16 in the Village Voice 1980 critics’ poll, and No. 286 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  All Music wrote Los Angeles is considered by many to be one of punk’s all-time finest recordings, and with good reason.

Lyric manuscripts each 7 1/2″ x 11″, both in Excellent condition.  Photographs each 8″ x 10″, both in Near Mint condition.  Live photograph has ‘Photography by Frank Gargani’ stamp on reverse.  LP in Excellent/Excellent condition.