96
Popular Culture Review
and sadly at the creatures within, and there is an atmosphere of mystery in his
act. Across the store’s window are the words, “We Save the Lives of Babes.”
When Nucky looks in the shop, the song “Some of These Days” plays in the
background in a slow, melancholy tempo, but also with a cooing sound, like a
mother singing to her child {Boardwalk). The use of this particular slow tempo
and melancholy sound is not accidental, for “Some of These Days” was a
popular song in the 1920s and one which Sophie Tucker sang in many different
tempos and melodies (Lambert). A faster tempo and brighter key could have
been chosen, but the slower, somber one with a motherly, cooing sound was
preferred in reference to Nucky and babies. The audience hears:
Some of these days you’ll miss me, honey
Some of these days you’re gonna be so lonely
You’ll miss my huggin’; you’re gonna miss my kissin’
You’re gonna miss me, honey, when I’m far away
I feel so lonely, for you only . .. (Lambert)
The song is about nostalgia that results from loss, and it vocalizes that
which Nucky feels for his own son. This is not, however, where the connections
end. Much like the coupling of alcohol and children in the scene between Nucky
and Mrs. McGarry, liquor is related to babies once again in terms of the store
itself. Within the shop, the babies are seen with bows wrapped around their
waists — like many bottles of wine — and the incubators in which they are
placed have glass doors, much like a liquor cabinet. Not only is there this visual
connection, but there is a dialogic one as well. In episode ten of the series,
outside of the incubator store, there is a scene where Jimmy — Nucky’s ex
protege — and his wife Angela and their son are standing outside of the
incubator store, looking in. Jimmy jokingly says to his son, “Look, Tommy.
Look. This is where we got you. They cooked you up in one of those incubators,
wrapped you up in a diaper, and then we took you home” {Boardwalk). This
reference to the illegal alcohol distilleries, in which batches of beer or wine are
“cooked up” — the alcohol of which was not meant to have survived in the first
place (is illegal) — is not difficult to connect to premature babies, who would
not have survived either, had the incubator stores not intervened. The creation of
alcohol and the creation of human lives are linked in their precariousness, their
fragility, and the fact that they are that which would be deceased were it not for
the intervention of others. In terms of the lost objects of Nucky, this connection
of liquor and babies show that the desire provoked by alcohol and by children in
life is great and in death is greater. For Nucky, the two objects become
inextricably linked and interchangeable. What drives Nucky to seek out children
is the same thing that drives alcoholics to drink — to fill a void left within by