But it had a rocky start in printed form.

“Howl” was instantly revered by the Beat crowd and eventually gained worldwide fame.

In the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floatingĪcross the tops of cities contemplating jazz.' Who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking To the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,ĭragging themselves through the negro streets at dawnĪngelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection The beginning of the long run-on sentence that makes up the first part of the poem is the most quoted bit:

“Howl” was a stylistically wild, groundbreaking poem that quickly became both famous and infamous. “Alvah Goldbook” was Kerouac’s humorous alias for the Ginsberg and “Wail” was the fictitious name he gave to Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” - which Ginsberg first read in public that October night. And I was the one who got things jumping by going around collecting dimes and quarters from the rather stiff audience standing around in the gallery and coming back with three huge gallon jugs of California Burgundy and getting them all piffed so that by eleven o'clock when Alvah Goldbook was reading his, wailing his poem ‘Wail’ drunk with arms outspread everybody was yelling ‘Go! Go! Go!’ (like a jam session).” In his novel, The Dharma Bums(published in 1958), Kerouac called it “the birth of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.” He then described this memorable scene: So were local Beat celebrities Gary Snyder, Phil Lamantia, Michael McClure and a then virtually unknown poet named Allen Ginsberg.

An excerpt of this song was read by Andy Richter in Gigantic.Three years after Jack Kerouac coined the term “The Beat Generation” a group of Beat poets gathered at the Six Gallery on Fillmore Street in San Francisco for a poetry reading.

The poet graciously gave permission for the band to quote the poem, and in a gesture that harkens back to a simpler time, asked for nothing in return.

The opening line of the song, 'I saw the best minds of my generation/destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical.' comes from the opening line of Allen Ginsberg's epic poem, ' Howl' ( full text).

Described by Linnell as 'one of the sort of unreliable narrator lyrics' (from an interview promoting Gigantic).

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The best minds of my generation