Question for Traffic fans -- re: the song 'Low Spark...'

I've always liked Traffic, though I wouldn't call myself a big fan. I just wondered if anybody had ever shed any light on whether the following verse was about somebody in particular or not:

"The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
While you're living beyond all your means
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams
But today you just read that the man was shot dead
By a gun that didn't make any noise
But it wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest
Was the low spark of high-heeled boys"

It seems so specific, and yet John Lennon never shed any light on a similarly specific-sounding verse from 'A Day In The Life,' so I was just curious if anybody knew if Jim Capaldi had ever said the verse was about anybody in particular.

I wore that album out. I have not thought of that song in a long while. Thanks for bringing that up, I wonder if it is out on CD. Going to check.

The only radio station I can stand to listen to here in Dayton, anymore, is a locally owned classic rock station that plays, for the most part, really tame crap. I heard this one the other day, though, and it's been stuck in my head all week!

We should probably get a 'best of Traffic' CD, too.

of very fine albums during a time that there were lots of very fine albums. I remember having to save up for every one because there were so many good ones.

the death of a friend of The Beatles, Tara Browne, who was the Guinness heir. He died at the age of 21 in a car crash on 12/18/66 (drove through red lights: "He didn't notice that the lights had changed...").

I've read a lot about the Beatles, but I'd never seen anything detailing that line from 'Day In The Life.' I know a lot of that kind of stuff, but it's really tough to keep up with all the Beatles backstory, there's so much of it. How did John Lennon manage to live so much in 40 years? I feel like a slacker, and my life hasn't been entirely boring!

Your friend Google says, over and over and over again:
OK, so what *is* this song about? Jim Capaldi, in _Goldmine_ #97, explained
that he and actor Michael J. Pollard were in Morocco preparing for a movie
that was never actually made:

Pollard and I would sit around writing lyrics all day, talking about
Bob Dylan and the Band, thinking up ridiculous plots for the movie.
Before I left Morocco, Pollard wrote in my book 'The Low
Spark of High Heeled Boys.' For me, it summed him up. He had this
tremendous rebel attitude. He walked around in his cowboy boots, his
leather jacket. At the time he was a heavy little dude. It seemed to
sum up all the people of that generation who were just rebels. <...>
The 'Low Spark', for me, was the spirit, high-spirited. You know,
standing on a street corner. The low rider. The 'Low Spark' meaning
that strong undercurrent at the street level.


Apparently, just pushing around ideas for a movie that never got made. Here's a rare spyware-free link: http://getsome.org/guitar/olga/main/t/traffic/low_spark.crd

But that was about all I found -- though you never know what DUers will know. I just thought maybe somebody would have picked up something I'd managed to miss, or that wasn't common knowledge.

I guess, for that matter, I've wondered about about that verse in 'Low Spark' for at least 20 years ... okay, I'll be honest -- probably more like 'since 1981,' since that's the year I got my driver's license and heard the song in the car. Hearing it while I was driving was what really set off the question. You hear songs differently when you're behind the wheel, for some reason -- I always heard lyrics differently, when I was driving.