"let their gimmicks go rotten"
 

From the song by Jim Carroll and featured in the movie Suicide Squad.

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan

What does this mean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AMWPO4Bup8

Re: "let their gimmicks go rotten"
 

The song is about the important people in his life who died.

Allen Ginsberg was an influence to Jim Carroll. Ginsberg "G-berg" did die from hepatitis.

I don't know who Georgie is.

Re: "let their gimmicks go rotten"
 

The identities of some of the friends who are named in the song are known (https://www.catholicboy.com/chapter4.php), but not Georgie, as far as I am aware.

Re: "let their gimmicks go rotten"
 

OK. That IDs some of the people. But I still don't get the line "let their gimmicks go rotten". Which is my main question. And I did not mark this as answered unless I hit the button by mistake. So I am setting back to unanswered for now.

Re: "let their gimmicks go rotten"
 

1) I'd like to take back my conjecture that G-berg = Allen Ginsberg. He didn't die from hepatitis until 1997, and this song was produced in 1980.

2) Gimmicks = drug paraphernalia according to the https://slangdefine.org/g/gimmick-3fa3.html The sharing of dirty needles gave them hepatitis which killed them.

3) G-berg and Georgie were just friends of Jim Carroll.

Ok. That makes sense. I did search but never saw that sites answer.

Re: "let their gimmicks go rotten"
 

In my opinion, G-berg and Georgie could represent broader ideas or societal ills. Their rotting and subsequent death could be metaphors for the decline or destruction of these values or the consequences of a society focused on immediate gains rather than long-term well-being.