Surprisingly, for an out-and-out rock 'n' roll band, "LONELY PLANET BOY" was an acoustic number decorated with delicate sax and ethereal Spectorised backing voices. David's own is almost angelic as he wrestles with loneliness and communicatory problems. 'Can;t you hear me calling/I'm a thousand miles away'. Even without the Dolls thrashomatic trademark the song works beautifully. Indisputably, "FRANKENSTEIN" remains the monumental Dolls song. Clocking in at six minutes, it's an opus of wit and power. David sings continually with just a slight break for a slice of Johnny's individualistic fret stretching. The lyrics are immaculately violent. The song is about SM and BD and loving someone who just happens to be grotesquely ugly, 'is it a crime?' pleads David, 'for you to fall in love, with a Frankenstein???'. It's a clothesline drama wherein you can almost smell the close excitement of Manhatten. "Now You're all storming around here/With your list and your demands/In a place where they don't expect NOTHIN'/You're trying not to dirty your hands'...David's voice is at its trashiest... 'And now whose shoes are too big??And now whose jacket's too small?? Here is the definitive New York Dolls song with its cleverly constructed desperate ending and the overall anger and disgust at youthful mental decay:'When you don't expect nothing/you know you're not alone.' "TRASH" is about, well, trash, generally. It was intended to be the Dolls first single. Sylvain's immaculate backing vocals are the highlight, but David is very upfront caterwauling the rules of romance...'I'll go to Lover's Leap with you/I'll go to Planet Blue with you/I;ll go to Fairyland with you'...but...'Please don't you ask me if I love you/Because I don't know if I do.' "BAD GIRL" is a barbaric rocker of no intellect. Johnny's guitar almost retches and is the most perfect example of his unique style. There is a lazy vitality on "SUBWAY TRAIN". The Dolls took their daily experiences and made them the subjects of their music. "PILLS" needs no elucidation.
And there was just as much to be said about the album cover. The Dolls, harshly made up like grotesque hermaphrodite caricatures - more seamy than anything else. Seated delicately on a white satin couch, Arthur's hand placed firmly in Sylvain's lap as David gazes dreamily into a compact-glass. The back picture is less ambisexual. David's court shoes speak volumes as he props himself up against a New York candy store ...don't-ya-know-this-is-MY-neighbourhood? Johnny, apparantly with a thick-sliced loaf shoved down the front of his red spray-on satin trousers, Sylvain innocently clutching '16' Magazine, and Arthur in inane Boo Radley deadpan otherness. It's tack, it's gross, it's perfection.
"When a kid comes in and sees that picture he's gonna forget about The Allman Brothers and he's gonna have to buy it". David Johansen was confident.
To celebrate the success of the album going Top 40, the Dolls held a Halloween party at The Waldorf Astoria which became the social event of the year. The prize for the best costume was a weekend for three in a Newark hotel. And there was more notoriety when the Dolls played the Club 82...in drag. It was David's idea as he warned the rest of the group before the show: "I'm not doing this gig unless we do it in drag!" Well, most people were already convinced that the Dolls were a drag group anyway, so...
