Luxury

From In the New Old-Fashioned Way

I had just started dating someone when I purchased and became obsessed with In the New Old-Fashioned Way, and she came from a family with a lot more money than just about anyone I know. She told me about how her parents celebrated her sister’s wedding by renting a large house for a week and throwing a continuous alcohol-drenched party the entire time. She wasn’t pretentious, mind you, but instead one of the last people you’d ever think came from a wealthy family. If George Harrison had ever showed up at one of her house parties, none of them would have made a big deal about it, probably not even mentioning it later on. She might have mentioned it very matter-of-factly, the same way she told me she’d acted in movies or been a model. Surprises like that keep a relationship very interesting. I think of her every time I hear the recorded version of this song about going to a party where everyone was very pretentious.

“Luxury” is one of three album releases by Fluid Ounces that does not credit Seth Timbs as the sole composer. Curiously, it is credited to all original band members, making me wonder if the song initially developed out of a jam during rehearsals. Filled with pauses for individual instrumental riffs throughout, it has more of a jam nature to it than any of the songs on the record. My favorite moment in the song was developed long after the song was recorded (and after this video from 10-10-97). After Seth sings, “A cousin Alice in Vermont,” in subsequent live performances, the whole band would pause while the drummer hits two roaring beats before the band kicks back in and the lyric finishes, “has got a husband who’s a general.”