This is my great, sweeping ballad … my Piano Man, if you will. Tinged with chili powder.
The story’s pretty straightforward. You’ve got this couple leading stressful, unsatisfying lives, but making do the best they can. A large part of their coping strategy revolves around a regular date on Thursday nights at the local Holiday Inn bar, where they can nosh on some beer and chips. They obviously get an inordinate amount of pleasure from this cheesy little dive and see no irony in that. They are not slumming, they are not doing anything post-modern. They are enjoying themselves, and it’s important.
Note that although this is the title track of the CD, it is not about the place where the cover picture was taken. If you read my liner notes, you’ll see that the original Fiesta Time was quite the swinging joint in its day, far from the rather lame place I depict in the song.
The only actual restaurant inspiration this song has comes from a Chinese buffet that may or may not still be on the immediate outskirts of a mall in Burlington, VT. The food was marginal to bad, but as I looked around, I saw a number of people that struck me as “the regulars”. Clusters of women sharing a work lunch. Grandparents and grandkids. They weren’t put off by the the skin on the mandarin gravy or the fact that the hot ‘n’ sour soup was neither. They were just enjoying the atmosphere and the company. That’s as important as authenticity of cuisine, and probably more so. These places serve a genuine function. I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make.
