The album cover shows Carroll standing with his parents, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, outside their apartment block on the corner of Cumming Street and Seaman Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.

[6] In Newsweek, Barbara Graustark stated "Not since Lou Reed wrote 'Walk on the Wild Side' has a rock singer so vividly evoked the casual brutality of New York City".

[9][10][11] "Crow" was written about Patti Smith's falling offstage and breaking vertebrae in her neck, resulting in the need for 22 stitches, at a show in Tampa, Florida, in 1976.

[12] Perennial favorite "People Who Died" was heavily played by radio as a tribute to John Lennon after his assassination,[13] and was also included on The Basketball Diaries soundtrack in its original iteration.

The sensibilities here are similar to Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, but former Rolling Stones label chief Earl McGrath keeps the production well within the mainstream.

1980's Catholic Boy seems to be New York's missing musical link between drugged-out beat-clown acts such as the Holy Modal Rounders and the darker sound of Richard Hell.

"Catholic Boy" was re-recorded by Jim Carroll with Pearl Jam and Chris Friel as backing band for the soundtrack of the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries.