I'm pretty sure Honky's Ladder was the only Afghan Whigs song ever featured on our undergraduate station. In fact, the only reason I know we even bothered with the song was because the program director at the time – a fussy guy named Frankie, who would 1) be replaced by the end of the fall semester by Syd ("the Kid"); and 2) would be seen a year or so later driving UPS trucks – verbally told DJs not to ask over and over again "who Honky was" or "what was up with his ladder."
Evidently over the summer, these less-than-brilliant questions and other similar comments had been used so much that it wasn't funny anymore. If there were people commenting about Honky and his Amazing Technicolor Ladder, I would not be surprised. As much talent as the station had, there were always a handful of people who couldn't think of anything to say about a particular song or artist and therefore come up with some seemingly funny one-liner (also see And I'm dying at 90). If it worked okay the first time, they would usually reuse it each shift the song appeared. And if an influential and popular DJ said it first, other people would try it out on their shifts. Sometimes the joke worked with the person who thought it up – their style of delivery or attitude could pass it off as amusing – but it usually didn't work when DJs blandly recited with little understanding.
From the way Frankie talked about it in the occasional staff meetings, someone who wasn't there over the summer could get the impression that the song might have gotten a bit overplayed, too. Between over-saturation and sub-par efforts at show prep (see Boy, you can't play me that way) this might have been why the song was eventually taken out of rotation. I wonder now if the song was going to be added back into rotation as some point and Frankie either forgot or was fired first and the track became ancient history. While you would think – or hope – something else by the Wigs could have been entered to take its place, I distinctly recall Honky's Ladder being on a weekly preview disc and therefore probably the only track by the Wigs.
For the record, the Wigs broke up in 2001 after one other album in 1998.
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Honky's Ladder
(Greg Dulli)
The Afghan Whigs
From the album Black Love
1996
Got u where I want u
Motherfucker
I got 5ive up on your dime
And if u wanna peep on something
Peep what I got stuck between
Your eyes
And since I don't believe
A word u say
Save it for another, baby brother
Swallow time 2 pay
Up on the ladder they sing
How high?
Does a brother have to climb
2 touch the light
But wait 'till I get done
With u
If u tell me
"Don't get mixed up with the Devil"
That's exactly
What I'm gonna do
Caught u while u waited
For your boy 2 come
And fix u up again
Come a little closer, baby
I only wanna try 2
Be your friend
Since I ain't got nothing
Left 2 lose
Got u where I want u
Motherfucker
Don't u try 2 move
Up on the ladder they sing
How high?
Does a brother have 2 climb
2 touch the light
Won't u take me up there
With u? U said u would
No one ever could shake
That ladder like I could
So I wait
