In Popular Culture
Testa's violent death inspired the first line of musician Bruce Springsteen's US hit song, "Atlantic City". The song opens with the following line,
"Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night/Now they blew up his house too".
The song depicts a young couple's romantic escape to the New Jersey city Atlantic City, but it also wrestles with the inevitability of death, as the man in the relationship intends to take a job in organized crime upon arriving in the city. The song also evokes the widespread uncertainty regarding gambling during its early years in Atlantic City and its promises to resurrect the city. This uncertainty and the man's uncertainty about taking the less-than-savory job are echoed in the lyrics "Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back."
Read more about this topic: Philip Testa
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Heroes are created by popular demand, sometimes out of the scantiest materials, or none at all.”
—Gerald W. Johnson (1890–1980)
“We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)