Click Here to Hear I RATHER WOULD GO by The Little Wretches on YouTube
I RATHER WOULD GO was debuted all the way back in The Little Wretches’ early shows at The New Group Theater. The original edition of the band was very much modeled after the “Rockin’ Robins” edition of Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers. John Creighton and Chris Bruckhoff were The Little Wretches’ “Rockin’ Robins.”
At the New Group Theater, we were very much anti-rock. Our contemporaries were evoking The Stooges, and “hard core” was the “new thing” for the kids who wanted to be ahead of the curve. The Little Wretches swung in the opposite direction.
On this recording of the song (and on the entire album), The Little Wretches are unapologetically loud and direct. Rosa Rocks manages to cover the territory once occupied by John and Chris.
I have always been proud of the lyrics, again as timely today as the moment they were imagined:
You’re born into captivity.
You don’t know you’re a slave.
You learn to love your captor,
And captivity you crave.
Your chains you think are jewelry.
Your comfort is your gauge.
If this is good enough for everybody else,
To me, it’s still a cage.
I rather would go.
When you grow up by the train tracks,
You learn how to hop a freight.
And if you grow up by the slag dumps,
You learn how to tap a keg.
But if you grow up in the shadows,
You learn how to force a smile.
If this is good enough for everybody else,
How come I feel so defiled?
I rather would go.
