Playing "Back Street"

Edwin:

"Backstreet" is about my upbringing in Cleveland, Ohio, where I was raised at, I was raised in Cleveland. I never did...actually...it's really, really crazy...when I first got in the business, when I was doing interviews and stuff like that, and when I would listen to other artists and their views, all their stories were about being from the ghetto, being impoverished and not having enough to eat, no education and you know, all these really downtrodden, real sad stories. Well, I couldn't tell that story because my father woulda' beat me up had I told a lie like that. If I'd a said that I was raggedy and lived from hand to mouth, and that I didn't have no education and stuff, my dad woulda' went mad, I mean absolutely mad, so I couldn't tell that story, I had to tell everybody the way it was.

I actually lived a very, very good existence, plus the fact that my mom woulda' freaked out if I'd a said all those things like "oh yeah, we didn't have no clothes, no food", my mom woulda' went nuts right, so I couldn't tell that story, so I had to tell everybody that I lived in a very, very happy family in a good neighbourhood, 'cos all my life I was raised in a mixed neighbourhood...I never knew what segregation was, I never even seen a fringe of it. My best friend lived across the street and he was Italian, his name was Carnouchie. It was a completely mixed neighbourhood...so I just never did know any of the ghetto thing.

Yes, what I used to do, one of the guys in my singing group named Richard lived in the ghetto and my mom used to go mad at me 'cause I would go over Richard's house and Richard had about 7, 8 or 9 brothers and sisters and I would go over Richard's house where they all lived, all slept in the same bed, you know, it was a really bad scene and a couple of the kids would wet the bed, you know, and they had 'roaches and when I came home my mom used to make me take off all my clothes at the door and wouldn't let me come in the house with the clothes on. "You bin' at that Richard boy's house, don't come in here with them clothes on" but he's my best friend, you know, I mean, I loved their existence, I never, ever washed my existence in their face, we never talked about that, we were just friends and that was it, end of story. Whenever I could help them in kind of way I brought them to my house to eat and stuff like that. It was never, ever, "You live here and I live there". The song is a real autobiography