Lyrics, Weakly

Bryan Adams: Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?

2011-05-20T17:40:00.000-08:00

So i knew i was overdue to post something here at Lyrics, Weakly, but i wasn’t sure which song to post. But then, like a bolt from the blue, this past Tuesday i heard Bryan Adams’s 1995 #1 hit “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”

Now, i realize that i’m wading into dangerous territory here—if you read the comments on the sort of site that collects user comments about songs, you discover that there are people out there who really, really, really love this song, and by featuring this song here i’m certainly likely to draw their ire. However, if this blog is about anything, it is about truth, justice, and the American way, where “the American way” is defined as “the right to point out that songs are really, really, really bad”.

Well, that and the right to point out that, despite my utter loathing of AutoTune, Bryan Adams may be the poster child for a singer where i really, really, really wouldn’t mind having his voice subjected to the process.

But even if somebody with a much smoother voice were to sing this song, i still wouldn’t be a fan of it. Why not? Well, let’s take a closer look at the lyrics:

To really love a woman
To understand her

Oh, cool! This is a how-to song! Not only are we going to learn how to love women, we’re going to learn how to understand them, too!

You gotta know her deep inside

So i need to know about her insides? Cool, that’s easy.

Hear every thought, see every dream

Well, now this might be a bit more difficult.

But really, Mr. Adams, are you sure that knowing so much about her dreams is really a sign of love? I’d think of it as more a stalker thing, myself.

And give her wings when she wants to fly

I’d actually advise against this, given claimed historical experience.

Then when you find yourself lying helpless in her arms
You know you really love a woman

Please excuse me for a moment while i figure out what lying helpless in someone’s arms has to do with loving them.

Hmmm…

No, hold on, i still haven’t figured it out.

No, still trying.

Ah! I’ve got it!

When you love a woman you tell her that she’s really wanted
When you love a woman you tell her that she’s the one

Okay, so i’ve had some fun with the first few lines of this song, since Mr. Adams was providing some very bizarre advice—but then he turns around and gives us this, the sort of thing you’d find in any sort of relationship self-help book?

I suspect that it may be the result of this song being written not just by Mr. Adams, but also by Michael Kamen and Robert John “Mutt” Lange, and the three of them working together just threw lines out there, figuring that something had to stick. Now, i don’t know who wrote which part of this song, but my vote is that the sensible lines came from Mr. Lange, for no reason other than him having the nickname “Mutt”.

’Cause she needs somebody to tell her that it’s gonna last forever

Or, in other words, she’s insecure.

So tell me have you ever really, really, really ever loved a woman?

Let’s see…Yes on the telling her it’ll last forever, yes on telling her she’s the one, yes one telling her she’s really wanted, no on hearing every thought she has…Dang! And here i’d been thinking i was in love with—really, really, really in love with—a woman, what with me having been married to her for nearly fifteen years and all, but i guess i’m not. Glad Mr. Adams was here to set me straight!

To really love a woman

But fortunately, Mr. Adams will now tell me what i need to do!

Let her hold you ’til you know how she needs to be touched

Um, Mr. Adams? I’m cool with the let her hold you part of the advice here, and i think that that’s actually rather good advice. But how in the world is letting her hold me going to let me know how she wants to be touched? I mean, why not just ask her? Wouldn’t open, clear communication about physical needs and desires be more effective than hoping for a Vulcan mind meld sort of experience with…

Oh, sorry—that’s right, you’re the teacher, i’m just the student. I’ll be quiet now.

Please, Mr. Adams, teach me. Teach me what i must do.

You’ve gotta breathe her

Huh?

I mean, since she’s isn’t made of oxygen, i don’t really see how i’m supposed to do that.

Therefore, i assume you mean this as a sort of metaphor—but no matter how much i try, i can’t figure out how exactly this metaphor works. I guess that means there’ll be some clue to it in the next line.

Really taste her ’til you can feel her in your blood

Um, dude?

I mean, i know that this isn’t without precedent in the natural world, but beyond the fact that it’s usually the other way around, i have to say that i’m just really, really, really not into eating other people.

I can sense your disappointment from here. Sorry.

And when you can see your unborn children in her eyes
You know you really love a woman

Oh.

Oh, my.

You know, after hearing that line i don’t think that i really, really, really care that i’ve disappointed you, Mr. Adams.

I mean, seriously. If you look on the intertubes, you find lots and lots of people who say that this is the most romantic line of any song ever recorded.

No, i mean it. Really, really, really seriously.

But as always, i tend to subject lines like this to a “singles bar” test—that is, would it come across as creepy if it were used as a pick-up line in a singles bar. Well, let’s imagine the scene:

Mr. Adams: I love you.
Random woman: Get out of here.
Mr. Adams: No, i mean it. I really, really, really mean it.
Random woman: What?
Mr. Adams: I know i love you, because i can see my unborn children in your eyes.
Random woman: Um, bouncer? Can i have your help over here?

See, it just wouldn’t work.

Of course, if you see unborn children in anyone’s eyes, i’d suggest that it’s time to excuse yourself from the room, and never to return. Of course, that’s just me, and i’m clearly just not romantic enough to really, really, really love a woman.

And then we get the chorus again. Just to remind you, it’s all the things that you do when you really, really, really love a woman.

When you love a woman you tell her that she’s really wanted
When you love a woman you tell her that she’s the one
’Cause she needs somebody to tell her that you’ll always be together
So tell me have you ever really, really, really ever loved a woman?

But apparently that’s not all! Mr. Adams provides us with some additional things you need to do:

You got to give her some faith

Okay, fine—but how exactly do you do this? Faith is an abstract concept, and a very personal experience—how do you give that to someone?

Well, unless Mr. Adams means that you’re supposed to give her cheaply made shoes. That i could certainly do.

Hold her tight
A little tenderness
Gotta treat her right

Here’s the sanity of “Mutt” showing up again, i’m thinking.

She will be there for you, taking good care of you
You really gotta love your woman, yeah

Well, at least we know that Mr. Adams isn’t entirely altruistic in the whole enterprise—after going through all the trouble of saying nice things to her, telling her she’s the one, hearing her thoughts, giving her wings and shoes, there’s payback. I wonder if there are any clues about what she’s supposed to do in the next couple lines?

And when you find yourself lying helpless in her arms
You know you really love a woman

You know, i’m actually still trying to figure this one out, trying to figure out the conversation that would lead up to this sort of feeling.

“Hey—that rag smells of chloroform”
“That’s not chloroform, babe, it’s love!”

Apparently, she’s supposed to supply the drugs.

And now, to review:

When you love a woman you tell her that she’s really wanted
When you love a woman you tell her that she’s the one
’Cause she needs somebody to tell her that it’s gonna last forever
So tell me have you ever really, really, really ever loved a woman?

Well, according to Mr. Adams, the answer is no. So hey—to my wife, sorry about that.

Just tell me have you ever really, really, really ever loved a woman?

Um, dude, i already answered this question. It’s really, really, really annoying when someone keeps asking a question once it’s been answered.

Just tell me have you ever really, really, really ever loved a woman?

In all honesty, have i really, really, really loved a woman? Yes. Stalked and been dangerously obsessive about her? I really, really, really hope the answer is no.

Rod Stewart: Do Ya Think I’m Sexy

2011-04-01T19:53:00.002-08:00

So things have been pretty quiet the past several weeks here at Lyrics, Weakly (new motto: Where the pun in the blog’s name becomes less apt with each passing day!), but i’ve been wanting to post a new song, really i have. And since yesterday was Thursday, Thursday…, tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards, it’s certainly time to do so.

But we’re not going to be looking into Rebecca Black’s “Friday” this evening. After all, as no less an authority than Rolling Stone has pointed out, “Friday” is one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

No, this week i’m presenting something much, much worse—Rod Stewart’s 1978 worldwide hit “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”.

Oh, wait. That was the wrong video (though you and i both know it’s much, much better than anything Mr. Stewart would have created). Try this one, instead.

But enough of the visuals—let’s bounce to the disco beat as we get to the lyrics…

Sugar
Sugar
mmm…ooh

One of the advantages of posting these is that i get to learn what the lyrics really are to songs where i’ve never been able to figure out the words. (Well, at least most of the time.) Of course, i have to say that learning what Mr. Stewart moans at the beginning of this particular song has never been all that high on my to-do list, but i suppose that now i can say that i know this additional piece of information and so i should be happy, since knowing is half the battle.

She sits alone waiting for suggestions
He’s so nervous avoiding all her questions

Okay, here’s a problem: If she’s alone, how exactly is she asking him questions? This is, after all, 1978, so it’s not like she’s on her cell phone or texting questions to him or such.

But let’s just gloss past this issue so that we can get a good idea of the scene: We’re in a discotheque, probably in New York City (we find out there’s high-rise apartments nearby later in the song), filled with young men wearing polyester leisure suits and women wearing unexpected amounts of eye makeup, and Mr. Stewart informs us that they’re avoiding any meaningful human interaction.

Wait a minute! I never made the connection before, but it makes sense! Young, urban, and putting forth the image that they don’t really need any of the people or things around them—these are hipsters, 25 years before there was a word for such a thing. Even John Travolta makes sense now.

Dance, sad dancing hipster, dance! (Make sure you scroll down a bit on that link, by the way.)

His lips are dry, her heart is gently pounding
Don’t you just know exactly what they’re thinking?

I don’t know about her, but i’d guess he’s wondering if she has any ChapStick.

If you want my body and you think I’m sexy
Come on, sugar, let me know
If you really need me just reach out and touch me
Come on, honey, tell me so

You know, this is ordinarily a text-only blog, and i provide links to any audiovisual content. Here, however, i do feel the need to provide some embedded images to demonstrate my point.

No, Mr. Stewart, we do not think you’re sexy, and believe me, we have absolutely no desire to touch your body.

Your money, on the other hand, there’s apparently a lot of women out there who wouldn’t mind touching that.

He’s acting shy looking for an answer
Come on, honey, let’s spend the night together

Okay, a couple things here.

First of all, this is acting shy?!? I mean, what would be more forward? Maybe “Should i call you in the morning or just nudge you?” “That dress will look better once it’s on my bedroom floor”? “Pardon me, are you in heat?” “Nice shoes, let’s screw”?

Second of all, i realize that i hadn’t even hit puberty when this song came out, and so i wasn’t busy figuring out the intricacies of the whole human mating ritual thing yet, but did this sort of line actually work back in the late 70s? ’Cause if it did, i think we have all the evidence we need that people now are way more intelligent than people were back then.

(Yeah, I know, we already had evidence of that. I mean more evidence, i guess.)

But anyway, the woman Mr. Stewart (you know he just has to be wanting us to believe he’s the guy in this story) is speaking to goes for it and accepts the offer—because she responds back with what has to be the most mindbending acceptance of a sexual proposition ever:

Now hold on a minute before we go much further
Give me a dime so I can phone my mother

Okay, dude, let’s say you’re after no-strings casual sex, and you find someone who’s willing. Just as a rule of thumb, if his or her response runs along these lines, leave. Now. Yeah, it may just be one furtive night, but you don’t want those sorts of mommy issues anywhere near any part of your body or property. Seriously.

Of course, even given that a dollar went further back then than it does now, purchasing a woman’s, um, services for only 10¢ seems like a pretty good deal, if you’re into that sort of thing. So you’ve got that going for you, at least. (Warning: That link isn’t safe for work, particularly if your boss is reading over your shoulder.)

They catch a cab to his high rise apartment
At last he can tell her exactly what his heart meant

Apparently he needs to be more direct, since the line come on, honey, let’s spend the night together was just a bit too circumspect for the occasion.

If you want my body and you think I’m sexy
Come on, sugar, let me know
If you really need me just reach out and touch me
Come on, honey, tell me so

True story alert! (Well, at least according to the Wikipedia page for the song, which means it must be true, right?) Mr. Stewart lifted the melody for this song from Brazilian artist Jorge Ben’s song “Taj Mahal”. Listen and decide for yourself!

Or, alternatively, you could listen to one of the many covers of Mr. Stewart’s version. And then you can weep for the future of humanity.

His heart’s beating like a drum
’Cause at last he’s got his girl home
Relax, baby, now we are alone

Actually, this seems like cause for concern to me. This is particularly worrying, given that he’s at home alone with this woman who is likely untrained in emergency medical procedures, and there are indications elsewhere in this song that there is an expectation of sexual activity. All in all, it looks like Mr. Stewart might have to end this story with a trip to the hospital.

Of course, that would mean the song would have to end, so it would be a win for us.

And actually, an instrumental break right here gives us hope that maybe Mr. Stewart has, in fact, left the building, but it turns out to be a false hope, since we’re told that

They wake at dawn ’cause all the birds are singing

You know, any time i’ve ever been in a high-rise building, i haven’t heard the birds singing in the morning. I’ve occasionally heard cars driving in the morning traffic, but that’s not nearly as romantic an image, now, is it?

Also, if there was any justice in the world one of them would have been awake and gone already by this point. The other one would be waking up about right now with a missing kidney.

Two total strangers but that ain’t what they’re thinking

Well, that would be because they’re not total strangers.

Think about it. Even if they never exchanged engraved calling cards, they have had at least one short, fumbling, but very goal-directed conversation, as given earlier in the song’s narrative. Therefore, i’m pretty sure that both Emily Post and Miss Manners would agree that they can still consider themselves properly introduced, and no longer strangers.

Outside it’s cold, misty and it’s raining
They got each other, neither one’s complaining

No, they’re not complaining because they’re inside, not because they’ve got each other. I strongly suspect that if they were outside in the cold misty rain, they’d be complaining even if they were with each other.

He say’s I’m sorry but I’m out of milk and coffee
Never mind, sugar, we can watch the early movie

What?!?

Really, does this line even begin to make sense? I mean, i’m trying to think of any way that this would happen in normal human conversation. Think about it:

“Oh, bummer, i can’t find anything to drink.”

“No worries—let’s watch a movie instead.”

I mean, for some reason i doubt that watching a movie is going to slake y’all’s thirst, you know?

Of course, this is the same couple that had a conversation earlier that essentially started “Let’s have sex”, which was answered by “Sure—but first i have to tell my mother i’ll be exchanging bodily fluids with someone i just met”, so i guess i shouldn’t be surprised by the content of any further unusual reported conversation between these two.

If you want my body and you think I’m sexy
Come on, sugar, let me know
If you really need me just reach out and touch me
Come on, honey, tell me so
Tell me so, baby

Historical fact: This song was released in 1978, but AT&T didn’t start using their “Reach out and touch someone” slogan until 1979. Of course, i figure Mr. Stewart didn’t make any claims against AT&T for any sort of infringement, because, as we all know, they were omnipotent, so the odds would have been stacked against him.

Anyway, that’s all for this round—just a song about one more day in the history of gonorrhea. Pleasant dreams!

Ke$ha: Take It Off

2011-01-21T19:12:00.001-09:00

So the pun in the name of this blog hasn’t been at all appropriate lately—a weekly schedule just isn’t happening, apparently.

However, the lights haven’t been completely out here at Lyrics, Weakly headquarters. There have been a couple songs waiting on the back burner, waiting merely for the moment that a bit of spare time would appear, would appear to save them from the limbo that they were stuck in.

Or something like that.

Well, spare time hasn’t arrived, but nearly six months ago one of my daughters requested that i write a Lyrics, Weakly post on the lyrics to the Ke$ha song “Take It Off”. Yes, a child of mine recognized the utter horror that is that song, for which i would simply like to say, along with the nation, thank heaven for little girls.

Incidentally, you really should click on the link up there that takes you to the video of the song—it’s really a nicely shot cautionary tale about the dangers of providing a bunch of poorly dressed dancers unlimited access to paint pigments.

Oh. And meth. Lots of meth.

Anyway. This song has blessedly receded from the airwaves, but a few months ago you couldn’t avoid it—i think i heard it on the local classical station at one point. But, just for old times sake, let’s deal with it once more.

There’s a place downtown
Where the freaks all come around
It’s a hole in the wall
It’s a dirty free for all

Now, i’ll let it be known that i’m all about giving credit where credit is due—so let’s give Ms Ke$ha credit for coming up with an interesting opening. The first time i heard this song, i found the use of a classic children’s dirty song coupled with AutoTune shifted into overdrive intriguing, and i wanted to hear what followed.

(What followed, of course, was that i shouldn’t have bothered. But so it goes.)

Fun fact! According to Wikipedia (so you know it must be true), the children’s song referenced here has several titles, including “The Streets of Cairo”, “The Poor Little Country Maid, “The Girls in France”, and “The Southern Part of France”. Ms Ke$ha, hats off to you for presenting us with such an endearing allusion to our shared childhoods.

Pity you didn’t stop there.

When the dark of the night comes around
That’s the time that the animal comes alive
Looking for something wild

Wow. I have to say, that’s a reference i didn’t see coming.

(See also “Wolf, Hungry Like the”.)

And now we lookin’ like pimps in my gold Trans Am

Ms Ke$ha, to be quite honest, it doesn’t take a gold Trans Am to make you look like a prostitute.

Got a water bottle full of whiskey in my handbag

You know, i think it might be time for an intervention.

Got my drunk text on I’ll regret it in the morn

No. You won’t regret drunk texting in the morning, ’cause you know you’ll just pretend it was all autocorrect’s fault.

Also, i would like to point out that this is actually Ms Ke$ha’s second time appearing on Lyrics, Weakly. The first was for “Tik Tok”, and i would like to remind both of my listeners that i noted at the time (about nine months ago) that what she was really going to regret was her morning regimen of brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels rather than a fluoride toothpaste.

And why do i mention this? Because mere days ago, xkcd made the same point.

This is significant, because Randall Munroe is a recognized Internet Genius—but if i posted an idea eight or nine months before he came up with it, then that means that i…

I’ll leave the obvious conclusion as an exercise for the reader.

But enough about me—i must selflessly turn my attention back to Ms Ke$ha, who is busy telling us

But tonight
I don’t give a
I don’t give a
I don’t give a

Oh, wild and crazy performer that she is, she teases us with the hint that she’s going to say a naughty word, and then doesn’t—not once, not even twice, but three whole times. Oh, ho, ho, Ms. Ke$ha, i bow in the general direction of your most original and never-before-thought-of use of the language.

(Though upon typing that, i realize that i shouldn’t have been so sarcastic—at the very least, “oh, ho, ho” appears to be a completely accurate way to describe her.)

There’s a place downtown
Where the freaks all come around
It’s a hole in the wall
It’s a dirty free for all

Yes, we’re aware—you told us so at the beginning of the song. I guess we should be happy for the reminder, what with alcohol’s effect on memory and all.

And they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off
Everybody take it off

See, i’m puzzled.

I have to admit that i don’t frequent strip clubs—it’s not my personal kink. But from what i am led to understand, at the sort of club where strippers take their clothes off, everyone else is definitely not supposed to take theirs off—that would distract from the performer.

But i suppose that if you’re willing to pretend to be unconventional to the point of spelling your name with a dollar sign, such norms make no difference to you.

There’s a place I know if you're looking for a show
Where they go hardcore and there’s glitter on the floor

Ah! Hardcore, hmmm? So now i get it—it’s one of those places. Sorry to have misunderstood.

But glitter on the floor? Fine, i’ll take your word for it—you look at the floor, i’ll stay over here.

And they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off
Everybody take it off

I still don’t understand why everybody has to disrobe, though.

Lose your mind lose it now

You’re a bit demanding, aren’t you, Ms Ke$ha?

Lose your clothes in the crowd

So what’s so unusual about crowds of naked people?

Oh, sorry, i forgot—you’re edgy, and therefore whatever you’re demanding we do must be wild and crazy and unprecedented. My mistake. Carry on.

We’re delirious tear it down ’til the sun comes back around

So now you want to tear the place down?

Weird. And what sort of a plan do you have to put that into effect, Ms Ke$ha?

N-now we’re getting so smashed knocking over trash cans
Eurbody breakin’ bottles it's a filthy hot mess

So let’s see if i understand.

You’re going to get drunk enough that you can’t pronounce the word “everybody”, and then knock over some trash cans.

Oooh, crazy. I’m sure that will just completely subvert the existing systems of power throughout the world. I don’t know if i can handle the sheer and utter enormity of this level of social nonconformity.

Seriously, Ms Ke$ha, just stop it. Please.

And I’m gonna get faded and I’m not the designated driver so
I don’t give a
I don’t give a
I don’t give a

You know, if i was the designated driver for Ms Ke$ha i’d worry that i’d end up with glitter and puke on the floor of my car. But maybe that’s just me.

There’s a place downtown where the freaks all come around
It’s a hole in the wall
It’s a dirty free for all

More repetition.

Speaking of repetition, as i mentioned earlier, this is the second time Ms Ke$ha has appeared on this blog—though, since i covered Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” a while back, some would argue this makes three times.

And they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off
Everybody take it off

I have decided that there is nothing more unsexy than Ms Ke$ha singing these lines.

Okay, so maybe there is. But not by all that much.

There’s a place I know if you’re looking for a show
Where they go hardcore and there’s glitter on the floor

I’m having this weird feeling of déjà vu, almost like i’ve heard these lines before, and recently.

Oh, wait—that’s because i did!

C’mon, Ms Ke$ha—if you’ve run out of ideas, just stop. it’s not like you’re going to make more money off of a nearly-four-minute song than a barely-three-minute one. And besides, then we wouldn’t have to listen to you push the AutoTune into ludicrous speed for quite as long, so we’d all win.

And they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off
Everybody take it off

You know what? I don’t care any more.

Oh, oh, oh!

Oh, wow! Something big and different must be coming up! Let’s see what it is.

EVERYBODY TAKE IT OFF!

Never mind.

Oh, Oh, Oh!
EVERYBODY TAKE IT OFF!

And again. In case we’d blacked out the first time.

Right now! TAKE IT OFF!
Right now! TAKE IT OFF!
Right now! TAKE IT OFF!
Oooh
Right now! TAKE IT OFF!
Right now! TAKE IT OFF!
EVERYBODY TAKE IT OFF!

You seem a bit urgent about this, Ms Ke$ha. I wonder why that might be.

There’s a place downtown where the freaks all come around
It’s a hole in the wall
It’s a dirty free for all
And they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off
Everybody take it off

Yep. More pointless repetition.

There’s a place downtown where the freaks all come around
It’s a hole in the wall
It’s a dirty free for all
And they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off
Everybody take it off

I just counted. There were twenty-six—yes, twenty-six!—repetitions of the phrase “take it off”. This is a three minute and forty-three second song, which means that she said that more than once every ten seconds. Come on, Ms Ke$ha—just knock it off.

Wham!: Last Christmas

2010-12-17T16:50:00.000-09:00

So Lyrics, Weakly has been silent for a long time—and I can tell you precisely where the blame lies: Kurtis Blow’s favorite sport. Yes, one of my children decided to play basketball this past fall, and it basically sucked away all the time i would have spent bringing joy to you, the reader of this blog.

But this leads to a problem—how are songs going to receive the mockery they so surely deserve? This is a problem, particularly during this time of year, when we get subjected to the same horrible, horrible Christmas songs over and over (and over) again. Well, i hear your pain—and so i’m back, at least until my daughter decides she wants to play lacrosse or something equally time-intensive, and i’m back with a Christmas song that really defies all logic.

The song? “Last Christmas” by Wham! (and many others, most recently Taylor Swift—but Wham! gets all the credit for being first).

(You really need to click on the link to the video and watch it all the way through, by the way. I mean, there’s the 80stastic hair everybody in it has, but i also like to imagine it as a movie, providing dialogue. The dinner scene’s the most fun for that. In other news, i probably need to develop different hobbies.)

Yes, 1984 may not have brought us into a dystopia of thought crimes and memory holes, and it was actually a pretty good year for music, but it still brought us songs like this one.

(I find it somewhat amusing, by the way, that the album this song came from was titled Music from the Edge of Heaven. I suspect that that’s actually correct—it was found there as it was about to be pushed off of that edge so that it would fall into hell, where it more properly belonged. But no, George Michael had to rescue it and bring it to earth, where it gets to torture our ears every. single. year.)

So let’s get on to the lyrics, shall we?

Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away

See, we’ve got an issue with logic already.

Fine, Mr. Michael, you gave her (we’ll go with her, given the video) your heart. Taken literally that’d be disgusting and a bit extreme, though certainly not without precedent. (It’d also be a bit counterproductive, since you’d be dead within a minute of giving the gift, maybe longer if you laid down first. But i digress)

But we know you don’t mean it literally (though, after listening to this song every other hour for the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we might wish you did). You mean it figuratively—you mean that you told her you were in love with her.

Fine. And on Christmas, too. How cute.

But then, on Boxing Day, she gave it away. (Which, given the origins of the holiday, makes sense, at least as long as she gave it away to a commoner.)

But, tell me, how exactly did she give your heart—that is, your expression of love—away? I mean, if i were to say to you something completely random, like, oh, say, “Wang Chung didn’t last nearly as long as Wham!, but their stuff has actually aged better”.

At this point, Mr. Michael, i have given you a metaphorical bit of my mind. However, it’s not actually possible for you to give a bit of my mind, even that particular bit of my mind, to someone else. You could give them a bit of your mind, certainly, and that bit of your mind might have the same content as mine (which would be refreshingly honest of your mind, by the way), but it wouldn’t be mine. My mind isn’t for you to give away.

Same with hearts.

So anyway, we’ve got an impossible situation, but fine, we’ll roll with it—we’ll take your word for it and pretend that it’s possible. So then—now that you’ve gotten into this, how are you going to deal with it?

This year to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special

Um, doesn’t this just kind of prove my earlier point? If she actually was somehow able to give away your heart after you’d given it to her, you wouldn’t have it to give away to someone else. Since you have it, that means that she didn’t actually give it away—well, unless she gave it back to you. If that’s the case, though, then you should be happy that your circulatory system is whole again, and you should really stop complaining.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away (you gave it away)
This year to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special (special)

Yes, he sang it again.

You know how most pop songs, you might have the chorus three times, maybe with an extra one at the end with some vamping thrown in? This chorus gets repeated six times (with occasional minor variations in the backing vocals)—and it gets repeated more times in the extended mix, if i understand correctly.

There's an extended mix of this song? Why yes, yes there is. It goes by the name of the “Pudding Mix”. I never knew Bill Cosby sang with Wham!, but then again, i don’t know a lot of things about the band, like whether the exclamation point at the end is actually a sound we should all be saying, like with the band !!! or when Xhosa clicks are phonetically transcribed.

Once bitten and twice shy

I am not posting a link to Great White’s cover of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” here. You should all be in awe of my self-restraint.

I keep my distance but you still catch my eye

Or, in other words, Mr. Michael is now stalking her.

Tell me baby, do you recognize me?

Well, if you’re wearing a good enough disguise, then no, she won’t.

Well, it’s been a year, it doesn’t surprise me

Okay, this is just a bizarre line. I mean, i can’t figure out what it’s supposed to mean. Is it supposed to mean that it’s been a year and so it doesn’t surprise you that she doesn’t recognize you, or does it mean that it’s been a year and so you expect that she recognizes you, what with the anniversary of the day she gave away your heart and all? Either way, i’m managing not to care.

(Happy Christmas)

In the song, this line is whispered almost menacingly. I worry a bit about your mental stability, Mr. Michael.

I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying “I love you”, I meant it

Aha! (Or, as we might say if we were talking about a much better 80s hair-band song, a–ha!) All is clear now.

When he talks about giving her his heart, he actually means he gave her a present! (According to the video, it was apparently actually a particularly hideous jeweled brooch.) She seems to have not liked the present, and so she then proceeded to regift it to someone with poor enough taste to want it.

Now I know what a fool I’ve been
But if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again

So if she’d just kiss you, you’d provide her with more tacky jewelry? Sounds fair to me.

(More seriously, lose the desperation, Mr. Michael. It’s not helping your cause.)

Then we get two more repetitions of the chorus, leading us to the bridge.

Oh, oh my baby

Exciting bridge.

Crowded room, friends with tired eyes
I’m hiding from you and your soul of ice

I’m trying to picture this—a big living room, people hanging around after a long evening of drinks and gossip, Mr. Michael crouching down behind the couch…

Maybe they’re tired because they’ve all spent too much time on the edge of nervousness, waiting for your inevitable snap. Or maybe you’ve already snapped, and you’re keeping everyone around to hide you from this woman with a soul of ice, who, because of that soul of ice, um, doesn’t…really want…to, um…find you.

Yeah, Mr. Michael? I think we’ve found a problem with your logic. I mean, i know this will shock you, but if she doesn’t care about you, then you have absolutely no need to hide from her.

She’s just not that into you.

My god, I thought you were someone to rely on

I’m resisting the urge to take this line and go on a riff about how it’s a statement on the existence of a loving yet distant god in relation to the problem of evil. Not because i think it wouldn’t amuse me, but because this song is starting to bore me, and i still have more than a verse to go.

Me, I guess I was a shoulder to cry on

So you caught her on the rebound and expected it to work out long-term? Dude, even a simple Google search would give you better advice.

A face on a lover with a fire in his heart

Honestly, i have no idea what this means. All i can come up with is images involving fire from zombie movies, and you can thank me now for not inking to any of them.

But whatever it means, it must be important, because Mr. Michael later repeats the whole verse it begins at the end of the song.

A man undercover but you tore him (me) apart

No, Mr. Michael, we’re on to you now—we know that it wasn’t really your heart, it was jewelry. Yeah, we know that means you’re out some cash, but don’t make it out to be some sort of medieval torture.

Ooh hoo, now I’ve found a real love
You’ll never fool me again

Well, unless your old love kisses you—then you’ll be a fool again, and presumably just as unfaithful to your current fling as your previous fling was to you. Yeah, way to promote “real” love, Mr. Michael.

And then we get two more repetitions of the chorus, plus one more repetition of the verse immediately above. I’ll be merciful and omit them, leaving you with the feeling that love is simply a game in which people tread on each other’s feelings with no worry for how the other might feel.

No, that won’t do, we need something more upbeat—Christmas is coming! Therefore, in honor of the phrase “a man undercover” in that last verse, as my Christmas present to you i give you what has to be one of the five best television theme songs ever, complete with Ted Koppel hair and mid-60s dancing white kids in the background.

(p.s. This was post number 50 for this blog. Here’s to hoping i have the time to post number 51 next week!)

Corey Hart: Sunglasses at Night

2010-10-08T19:07:00.006-08:00

So this week Lyrics, Weakly goes back to 1984 and Corey Hart’s top-ten hit “Sunglasses at Night”.

(If you can, you should watch that video wearing headphones. The left-right panning of the opening synthesizer riff is perhaps the most amazingly eightiestastic thing you can legally hear in the United States.)

According to the Wikipedia page for the song (check out the album cover showing the singer in the very act of popping his collar!), by the way, Mr. Hart originally wrote the song about a totalitarian society that forced everyone to wear sunglasses, but his record company pushed him to change the song into something more “romantic”. Given some of the content of the song as it was released, i think that the original version would have scared me into hiding in my closet.

Confused? Don’t be—just follow along:

I wear my sunglasses at night

Let’s all be candid here—all y’all reading this who were teenagers in the 80s, how many of you at least occasionally wore sunglasses at night? Don’t be shy—raise your hands. Mm-hmm, that’s what i though—all of you. Me, too, i must admit. Even wore ’em indoors.

I think it was supposed to make us look like glamorous celebrity cocaine users, back when we thought cocaine was glamorous. Instead, wearing sunglasses at night and indoors made us walk into walls. Such, though, is simply the price of fashion, no?

So I can, so I can
Watch you weave
Then breathe your story lines

She’s into weaving? And her stuff is so bright you need sunglasses to even look at it? I’m thinking she has a future on Etsy.

And I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
Keep track of the visions in my eyes

No, Mr. Hart, wearing sunglasses does not allow you to see visions in your eyes. To see visions in your eyes, or for that matter to see your eyes at all, you need a mirror. Glad to help.

Well, or maybe you just need sunglasses with rear-view mirrors. You can buy those these days.

While she’s deceiving me
It cuts my security

So Mr. Hart has realized that he’s being deceived, and so he feels insecure. I’ve got to give Mr. Hart credit here—he’s good at stating the obvious.

Has she got control of me?

Well, it depends on how you react to the deception, i suppose.

I turn to her and say

At this point, you’d probably expect Mr. Hart to say something like “Get out, and never darken my songs’ lyrical content again!” But as it turns out, Mr. Hart has to take things in a different direction, because it turns out that…

Don’t switch the blade
On the guy in shades, oh no

…she’s got a knife.

Well, that does change things a bit, doesn’t it? Things have suddenly gotten a bit more intense for good Mr. Hart. I wonder what he’s going to say to try to calm things down—it’s time to think fast!

Don’t masquerade
With the guy in shades, oh no

But maybe not that fast.

I mean, i don’t a costumed dance really needs to be at the top of your worry list right now. Well, unless she’s holding you at knifepoint to try to force you to go to one, but if that’s the case you might want to try to be a little more indirect about this.

I can’t believe it
’Cause you got it made
With the guy in shades, oh no

Well, i guess reminding her of how wonderful it is to be involved in a relationship with you, a man who wears sunglasses, could be one way of trying to get things back to normal.

And I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
Forget my name while you collect your claim

But this sounds creepy enough that you might not want to put things quite that way.

And I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
See the light that’s right before my eyes

Okay, Mr. Hart, you’ve completely lost me now.

You see—and it appears that you’re unaware of this, so i’ll try to take this slowly—the primary purpose of sunglasses is to block light from entering your eyes. Therefore, if you’re wearing a decent pair of sunglasses, you will find yourself lessable to see any lights that might happen to be in front of your eyes.

I’m thinking you might be wanting a different type of eyewear.

And then we get repetition of several of the preceding lines, reminding us (in case we happened to forget, what with all the excitement) that Mr. Hart has been deceived by a woman who may have control over him, that he’s being held at knifepoint by her, and that he’d rather not go to a costume ball with her. Apparently all that is important to the narrative of the song.

Don’t be afraid
Of the guy in shades, oh no
It kinda scared you
’Cause you got it made
With the guy in shades, oh no

Um, dude, she’s armed. I don’t think she’s scared of you, really i don’t.

Though i have to give you credit for being willing to try all sorts of different ways to talk her down.

Oh, I say I wear my sunglasses at night

Yes, we know—you already told us.

I wear my sunglasses at night

As did we all back in the day. Remember? There was an entire mini-discussion about it right at the beginning of the song.

I wear my sunglasses at night

Right. It’s a given by now.

I say it to you now
I wear my sunglasses at night

Yes, that’s actually true that you’re saying it to us now, i suppose.

I wear my sunglasses at night

But there’s no reason to say it to us now again.

I wear my sunglasses at night

Mr. Hart, you can stop it now. Really. I mean it.

I cry to you
I wear my sunglasses at night

Well, no need to cry. Actually, if anyone should cry it should be us, for having to listen to you tell us about the preferred time for you to wear darkened eyewear.

I wear my sunglasses at night

You know, it just occurred to me that Mr. Hart isn’t telling us about anything else he’s wearing. I wonder if there’s a reason for that? (Warning: That link may or may not be safe for work, depending on precisely what your job description is.)

And after that you may need a unicorn chaser, which i’m always glad to provide.

Anyway, good night. I think i’m going to go put on my sunglasses and get some sleep.

Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart

2010-10-01T19:38:00.002-08:00

This week the Lyrics, Weakly wayback machine takes us all to 1983 and Bonnie Tyler’s biggest hit single, the #1-in-many-nations song “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.

You should, by the way, definitely click on that link to experience the legal acid trip that is the song’s video. And then, after you do so, you should experience this alternative version.

But enough about the video—this blog’s about the lyrics. It starts with a line by a male backing singer who reappears a few times (occasionally accompanied by an entire chorus of backing singers), so i’ll place those lines in parentheses (as i usually do) so you can tell them apart from the the bits that Ms Tyler sings.

(Turn around)

Odd. It seems that Ms Tyler is starting the song by facing away the guy she’s singing to. Unusual, but i’m sure there’s a reason for it.

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely
And you’re never coming round

But he just asked you to turn around! That means he’s here, right? So he’s come around to see you—but i guess you just haven’t noticed yet, since you’re facing away from him and all.

(Turn around)

So he realizes she must not have heard him the first time, so he’s repeating himself so that she will turn around and they can chat.

It’s nice to see a nice, ordinary domestic situation appearing in popular songs, you know?

Every now and then I get a little bit tired
of listening to the sound of my tears

Wow—you have really, really amazing hearing, Ms Tyler!

(Turn around)

So why can’t you hear this guy?

Every now and then I get a little bit nervous
That the best of all the years have gone by

I’d be most nervous about the hearing loss that performing music all these years has left you with, actually.

(Turn around)

Okay, dude, this is starting to get weird—it’s clear that she can’t hear you, even though she can hear the sound of her own tears falling. I’m starting to think that it may actually be that she’s ignoring you on purpose.

Every now and then I get a little bit terrified
And then I see the look in your eyes

Okay, Ms Tyler, i have to say that this doesn’t really make sense to me. I mean, what with your repeated refusal to turn around so that you can actually see any part of this guy, least of all his eyes, i’m not sure that you have the right to make such a claim about the calming effect of any part of his anatomy. I mean, for all you know his eyes aren’t very calming at all.

(Turn around bright eyes)

Good idea, dude—mix it up a little. Makes sense, since it was pretty clear by now that your original approach wasn’t working.

Every now and then I fall apart

Falling apart is, i have just learned, pretty expensive. (Maybe you’d be better off with a cheaper option?)

(Turn around bright eyes)

You’d think that by now you’d’ve learned that just repeating yourself over and over isn’t helping, dude.

Every now and then I fall apart

Yes, we know—unlike you, we could hear you the first time.

(Turn around)

You know, this is starting to seem a little passive-aggressive of you. I mean, you could always just walk around to the other side of her, after all.

Every now and then I get a little bit restless
And i dream of something wild

Ms Tyler, this is a family blog—we’d appreciate you keeping things a bit more innocent, okay?

(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit helpless
And I’m lying like a child in your arms

Wait—you’re lying in his arms but you’re facing away from him? You mean all this time you’ve been spooning? And you’re still acting like you can’t hear him? I really don’t understand y’all’s relationship at all, i must say.

(Turnaround)
Every now and then I get a little bit angry
And I know I have to get out and cry

But i thought you were tired of listening to the sound of your tears? You’re not making logical sense, Ms Tyler!

(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit terrified
but then I see the look in your eyes

Yes, i know—you’ve already told us, remember? No need to repeat yourself.

(Turn around bright eyes)
Every now and then I fall apart
(Turn around bright eyes)
Every now and then I fall apart

I give up.

But wait—new stuff!

And I need you now tonight
And I need you more than ever

Um, he’s right behind you. You’re in his arms. I’m pretty sure that means you’ve already got him.

And if you’ll only hold me tight
We’ll be holding on forever

Well, at least you would be if it weren’t for that pesky mortality problem.

Erm, wait. Wrong mortality. Try this one instead.

Ahem. Yes. Well. Back to your regularly scheduled snark.

And we’ll only be making it right
Cause we’ll never be wrong together

Um, isn’t that a bit of a self-fulfilling statement?

We can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time
I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark

I have no idea what this is about. I mean seriously, this makes no sense.

We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

But how are you always in the dark if you’re giving off sparks? I don’t get the logic here, really i don’t.

And a powder keg with sparks? See also mortality, above.

I really need you tonight
Forever’s gonna start tonight
Forever’s gonna start tonight

Um, if you give a starting point and no ending point, you’ve pretty much defined the starting point of a potentially infinite span of time.

Or, in other words, see also tautology, above.

Once upon a time I was falling in love
But now I’m only falling apart

Okay, this song has really dumb lyrics, but i’m willing to give credit where it’s due: Nice use of the verb “falling” in two completely different but parallel ways.

There’s nothing I can do

Well, what about trying turning around?

A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there’s only love in the dark

Love in the dark ages? There’s one i haven’t heard about in a long time. I have to admit that i never saw this particular pop culture reference coming—i mean, a CBS afterschool special promoting sexual abstinence isn’t what i’d’ve expected Ms Tyler to be into—but so it goes.

Nothing I can say
A total eclipse of the heart

Nthing you can say? Well, then, why didn’t you not say it?

(This then gets not not said twice more. And no, i don’t have the stamina to reproduce the repetitions here.)

(Turnaround bright eyes)

The background singer has now been joined by an entire chorus of background singers. Given that we’d established earlier that he and Ms Tyler are spooning, this ranks somewhere between creepy and kinky. And here i’d thought that we had an agreement to keep this somewhere to the innocent side of the ratings.

Every now and then I fall apart

Ms Tyler apparently feels strongly enough about this that she repeats it yet again after this. Maybe it’s a warning about her personal state of existence?

But anyway, then we get a repetition of the verse where Ms Tyler informs us she’s always in the dark except for the sparks that blow up the powder keg she lives in, and it continues to not make any sense.

Not that that’s a surprise.

But i’ll skip all of it, except to say that she closes by repeating the words Total eclipse of the heart several times, giving me the excuse (as if i needed one!) to post this.

Spice Girls: Wannabe

2010-09-24T20:28:00.003-08:00

So this week Lyrics, Weakly takes a trip back to 1996 (well, more 1997 in the United States), and specifically back to the start of the whole Spice Girls phenomenon and their debut single, “Wannabe”.

Yep, they named a song allegedly about girl power and friendship (though, as you’ll see below, it really seems to be about much weirder stuff than that) with a word denoting someone trying to fit in with a group that’s more popular than they naturally are. Something’s really rather bizarre about that disjunction, you know?

But the Spice Girls really were a bizarre thing overall, weren’t they? They claimed to be all about girl power, but they were also presented so as to appeal to a pretty wide range of male fantasies (the redheaded one, the athletic one, the rich and well-dressed one, the dark-skinned one, and—most creepily—the one presented as a large-breasted fifteen-year-old). Basically, the Spice Girls were a heterosexual Village People.

Anyway, here are the lyrics to the song. All of the Spice Girls take various turns in this, but i’m not about to try to identify which one delivers which line, or which one is the lead singer—i’m really not taken enough with them to spend that much effort on figuring out which voice is whose. You’ll just have to take it as a given, then, that there’s a good bit of call-and-response going on here, and so the pronoun shifts aren’t actually as jarring as they might look in print.

That said, the discourse incoherence is jarring at times. Like, oh, in the very first verse…

Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want

Cool. I mean, it’s not like I have the means of giving it to you, what with you being in a British band and me being on the other side of the Atlantic and all, but it’s nice to know what’s on your Christmas list. You know, should i ever be in a position to provide you with what you really, really want.

So tell me what you want, what you really really want

And this comes from someone else in the band. Nice of her, i think—she hears that her bandmate has a need, and so she signals that she wants to know the details of the request, presumably so that she can fulfill the need (at least, if she has the resources to do so).

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want

No, dude, your friend already said you should tell her—if you repeat this in that context it simply sounds like a desperate plea for attention. And, of course, you being a Spice Girl, you wouldn’t want to give the impression that you’re after undue attention, would you?

So tell me what you want, what you really really want

Nice of her friend—i’d’ve already walked away. (But then again, i have better things to do with my time than engage verbal teases in conversation—i mean, i could be at YouTube watching Russians yodel or something useful like that.)

But it appears our tease of a Spice Girl is finally going to give an answer, namely:

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna

With this much buildup, it must be something amazing!

I wanna really really really wanna zigaziga ha

Or not.

Seriously, every time i hear this verse (and i’ve been hearing it way too often writing this up) i feel like i’ve been rickrolled. I mean, zigaziga ha?!? Seriously?

But maybe this bit of arcane cant will be explained in the verses that follow. I mean, there’s no way we’ll be left with something that meaningless, right?

If you want my future forget my past

Read: I know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. And i plan to invoke my fifth amendment rights should you ask how i came by that knowledge.

If you wanna get with me better make it fast
Now don’t go wasting my precious time
Get your act together we could be just fine

It appears that the particular Spice Girl who’s singing here is really, really worried about her biological clock. This is perhaps unexpected, given that the oldest of them was about 24 years old when this song was released, but i suppose that that only goes to show how much value our modern Angloamerican society places on motherhood. There’s a sociology dissertation in there waiting to be written, i’m thinking.

(If you’re interested, i’ll even provide you with a title to use: On the Relationship Between Lyrical Content of Modern Dance Songs and Maternal Longing: A Post-Lacanian Analysis. No, no need to thank me—you don’t even have to acknowledge my contribution if you use it. In fact, upon further thought, please don’t acknowledge my contribution if you use it.)

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want

You’re just toying with us now, aren’t you?

So tell me what you want, what you really really want

You know, this response has gone beyond niceness—it’s now just enabling. You really want to avoid these sorts of co-dependence issues, you know.

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna
I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha

Well, i guess we should at least be happy that she only claimed she’d tell us what she really, really wanted once before providing us with this line this time.

Small blessing—it’s all about counting the small blessings.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends
Make it last forever friendship never ends

So this starts out actually making sense—if you want to be some particular Spice Girls’ lover you first have to pass through the gauntlet of being approved by her friends. Fine—that’s ordinary enough. But if you’re going to make such a request, you could at least give a rational reason for it. But the reason that’s given here? Because friendship never ends.

Right. That’s why all of you have been hanging out with the same people since kindergarten, right?

Of course not! Friendships ebb and flow—it’s part of the whole circle of life thing. There’s no shame in admitting that you won’t always be friends with the people you’re friends with now—just deal with it.

Of course, there may be shame in admitting you’re a very young woman with biological clock neuroses, but we’ve already dealt with that line of the song.

If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give

I’m guessing they named themselves the Spice Girls because Material Girl was already in use?

Taking is too easy, but that’s the way it is

First, i wish to highlight the triteness of the way this line ends—i mean, that’s the way it is? What, was the Pop-Song-O-Matic 5000 down the weekend this song was written, so they couldn’t come up with anything better? Even worse, is is, as far as i can tell, being used here as a rhyme for give. Really? You couldn’t even have come up with something that rhymed with the word give?!?

Here, try this: Taking is too easy, so that’s how you will live. It’s no better than the actual line in the song, sure, but i spent all of about four seconds on it and it actually rhymes—and it was easy to come up with, and i’m an amateur!

Second, taking is too easy? Um, you just said that this guy has to give—sounds like you’re gonna be doing some taking, but he doesn’t get to. Sounds, um, fair. You know, if you come across someone who really is that desperate to sleep with you, that is.

What do you think about that now you know how I feel
Say you can handle my love are you for real

If he’s imaginary he can handle anything you want him to handle, i’m thinking.

I won’t be hasty, I’ll give you a try

But earlier you said you wanted him to hurry—but you reserve the right not to?

Yeah, i’m calling you out right here as nothing but a manipulative b…um…ackbiter.

If you really bug me then I’ll say goodbye

First of all, by now the guy you’re singing to may be craving such a release.

But also, what’s the big deal about this? I mean, isn’t that the way romantic relationships work? Seriously—we don’t dwell on it all that much, but there’s a reason there are a lot of breakup songs, it’s because people end relationships with some frequency.

Face it, this doesn’t make you special. At all.

Yo I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want

I already know what you want, what you really, really want—you want to be able to dictate all of the terms of your relationships. And i suspect you’re going to be successful at that, too. Amazing what semi-attractive people are able to get away with, isn’t it?

So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna
I wanna really really really wanna

Might i suggest a chocolate biscuit?

zigaziga ha

No such luck.

By the way, according to various sources on the internet, one of the Spice Girls has informed the world that zigaziga ha actually means sex. I think this is like Bryan Adams claiming that the song “Summer of ’69” is actually about sex, not about 1969—if you say something stupid in a song and people call you on it, claim it’s about sex. Somebody’ll believe you.

You know what? I don’t.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends

I didn’t mention it earlier, but if this song is about sex, this is an almost-creepy line—to “get with” someone is to engage in romantic touching, possibly even sexual acts. So, once again if this song really is about sex, it seems to also be about polyamory.

Not necessarily an intrinsically bad thing, but not something my obviously old-fashioned-and-stuck-in-the-simpler-times-of-the-eighties self is really comfortable with pre-teens singing about, you know?

Make it last forever friendship never ends
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give
Taking is too easy, but that’s the way it is

Another option: Taking is too easy, but my brain’s like a sieve.

And now we get told about various personality traits of members of the group—and i’ll warn you, things get somewhat less family-friendly here.

So here’s a story from A to Z, you wanna get with me
you gotta listen carefully

So if i don’t want to get with you, i get to ignore you? Cool—two wins with one action!

We got Em in the place who likes it in your face

Oh. My.

I’m trying to maintain a PG rating here, i really am, but…

Wow. There’s really not much i can say about this one, then, is there. (Warning: Link almost certainly unsafe for work.)

We got G like MC who likes it on an

This is, quite seriously, the entire line. As a result, i really do have nothing to say about this—mainly because there’s no actual propositional content.

Next!

Easy V doesn’t come for free, she's a real lady

So whichever Spice Girl happens to be V, i’m finding it impossible to come up with a non-sexual reading for this. In fact, i’m finding it impossible to come up with a reading for this in which her sexual activities are, um, non-professional. Well, i guess we now know the sort of women the soccer players are into these days.

And as for me you’ll see

Hey! Finally! We’re going to find out what the lead singer wants, what she really really wants.

It’s about time.

So what is it? Let’s listen carefully, as we find out that she wants the object of her affections to…

Slam your body down and wind it all around
Slam your body down and wind it all around

Um, yeah.

Well, at least we have a better idea of where this singer gets her inspiration.

(And then we get a reminder that if you want to be her lover, not only must you perform acts designed to create pain for yourself, but you also must get with her friends. I’ll skip it, which brings us, blessedly, to the end.)

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta
You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta

Maybe the problem is actually that she’s a stutterer?

Slam, slam, slam, slam
Slam your body down and wind it all around
Slam your body down and wind it all around
Slam your body down and wind it all around
Slam your body down zigaziga ah
If you wanna be my lover

Sorry, not interested, you’re asking for too much that isn’t really my kind of kink. Thanks for being up-front with your desires, though—it’s certainly saved us both a lot of time.

My one big user-interface problem with Blogger

2010-09-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

So i decided on a song for this Friday’s installment of Lyrics, Weakly, but it was such a tempting target that i wanted to make sure i hadn’t discussed it before and simply forgot about it. To make sure, i went over to the blog and…well, it didn’t look right. The most recent post was Boys Don’t Cry’s “I Wanna Be a Cowboy”, which was not what i expected to see there. So i poked around, and discovered that i had left last Friday’s post a draft, never actually publishing it to the blog.

(Really, now that they’ve fixed the Chinese porn spam problem, my biggest complaint with Blogger is that the buttons to publish and to save as a draft are right next to each other—i’ve been caught by that a couple times on another blog i write, so you would have thought i’d’ve learned by now to always check the blog right after something gets published. But no, apparently not…)

Anyway, rather than put last Friday’s post up this morning, i’m deferring it to this Friday so it’s at the top of the page for a full week—it deserves it, as i’m sure you’ll agree when you see what it is. Of course, that means that you’ll have to wait an extra week to see what horrors managed to hit #1 in 1983, but in exchange for getting a full week to revel in the horrors that hit #1 in 1996? Yeah, 1983 can wait.

Boys Don’t Cry: I Wanna Be a Cowboy

2010-09-10T19:33:00.063-08:00

And so this week, Lyrics, Weakly travels back in time to 1986.

You know, 80s music is big on the radio right now—there are lots of radio stations playing all 80s music, all the time. And if you listen to these stations, you could be forgiven for thinking that that was a really great decade for rock music—i mean, you’ve got everything from the new wave of the Cure and the Smiths and the Police to the synth-pop of Soft Cell and Tears for Fears to classic rap and hip-hop from Run-DMC and A Tribe Called Quest to really excellent straight-ahead pop from Michael Jackson and Duran Duran and Madonna when she made good music. (I mean, even the hair metal of bands like Poison and Twisted Sister is fun in a campy sort of way.)

But then you hear a song like Boys Don’t Cry’s “I Wanna Be a Cowboy” and you remember that this was a top-twenty hit back in the day, and you figure out the secret to why 80s radio stations sound so good—it’s because they can pick and choose from an entire decade to flesh out their playlists, and they can just pretend that horrors like that song never existed.

So how much of a horror is it? Well, first i’d suggest clicking through the link above and watching the video if you haven’t already, and basking in the amazement of the flat, tuneless delivery on the part of “singer” Nick Richards (co-writer of the song with bandmate Brian Chatton) along with the complete disregard for the intricacies of meter and rhyme. (And that’s not to mention the whole “What the [insert expletive of choice here]?”-ness of the video itself.)

And then, after that, we can get to the actual words of the song.

Riding on the range
I’ve got my hat…on
I’ve got my boots…dusty

So Mr. Richards is telling us about his day, going through all the normal stuff—you know, where he is, what he’s wearing.

I like the pauses, by the way—evidence that he’s checking to make sure that he’s telling the truth. I imagine that in concert he might ~~sing~~chant I’ve got my hat…off/I’ve got my boots…actually, i’m wearing sneakers up here.

I’ve got my saddle
On my horse

As opposed, of course, to having his saddle on his cat.

He’s called…T‑t‑t‑t‑t‑t‑trigger
Of course

Yes, yes, of course. But i’m thinking that “Hi-yo, T‑t‑t‑t‑t‑t‑trigger, away!” might be kind of hard to consistently say, and that could be a problem. I mean, what if you’re in a hurry and you accidentally say “Hi-yo T‑t‑trigger, away!” and somebody else’s horse takes off, leaving you sitting in place and about to be caught by the posse? Yeah, sure, it sounded like a cool name when you came up with it, but it’s gonna get you stuck in jail one of these days, mark my words.

I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy

Wait a minute—you only want to be a cowboy? So you bought the outfit (and horse), figuring that then you could make a better case for it? Well, most people would have just sent out a resumé, but whatever works for you, i guess.

And i have to admit that i’m really struggling here with the whole “cowgirl” motif—i hear that word, and all i can think of is the movie with perhaps the worst trailer in the history of cinematography, Mad Cowgirl. (If you wish, you can view the trailer here, but i’ll warn you that, aside from being vaguely unsafe for work, it’s…disturbing, and not in a good way. The rest of you can read the synopsis at its Wikipedia page.)

Alternately, maybe Mr. Richards is suggesting that the woman he’s singing to would be happier if affiliated with the Monster Raving Loony Party? Yeah, that makes more sense—this whole song is actually a political manifesto.

And now we get an interlude in which the speaker is female. I’ll mark these lines by underlinging them, so that you can tell them apart from the lines Mr. Richards ~~sings~~haltingly speaks. (Background vocals are in parentheses, as you’d expect.)

Riding on the chuck wagon

A woman’s place being in the kitchen, even out on the range, eh?

Following my man
His name is Ted
Can you believe that?

Why yes, yes i can. Ted is most certainly a name, a fairly common name in fact, and it is also a man’s name. Therefore, yes, i can believe that your man’s name is Ted.

Also, this is even more believable when i consider that Mr. Richards’s first name is Nick, and by identifying your man’s name as Ted and not Nick, you are showing the sort of wise judgment i would expect of any woman.

(Ted, on Ted, fighting off danger)
Camping on the prairie
Plays havoc with my hair

Semi-random pop culture note: There are actually multiple places on the interwebs where you can find the traces of people seriously discussing the hairstyles from the series Little House on the Prairie. I don’t know what this says about our world, but it can’t be good.

Makes me feel quite dirty
Though we all do sometimes

You know, i realize that this is supposed to be a double entendre, especially since it’s delivered in a breathy and supposedly-seductive voice, but i can’t help but giggle a little inside every time i hear it—and while i’ll admit to liking a good laugh now and again, I’m really not the sort of person who gets all hot and bothered by it. (Warning: That last link is unsafe for work, and could raise some serious eyebrows if your significant other sees you there.)

(Ted gets so dirty)

Well, the unnamed woman already told us they all feel quite dirty sometimes, so this isn’t much of a surprise. But thanks for working to keep us informed, background singing Greek chorus!

I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy

We already knew this, Mr. Richards. Repeating it over and over makes you just seem desperate for the position—and that’s not likely to be helpful.

Looking like a hero
Six-gun at my side
Chewing my tobacco
(Whip-wee-whip-wee-whip-wee-whip)

Really? Imagine this in your mind’s eye, folks. I don’t know what you get, but i get something like this, but holding a pistol. Not my particular image of a hero, but your mileage may vary, i suppose.

Out on the horizon
I see a puff of smoke

Apparently, while Mr. Richards is into the use of smokeless tobacco products, others around him are smoking cigarettes.

Indians on the warpath
(White man speaking with forked tongue isn’t it?)

So that last line wasn’t sung by the background singers, but rather it was spoken by someone who was supposedly speaking like an Indian—and all i can really say is “Wow”. I mean, dude, i’m not an American Indian, but even i feel insulted by that line.

Or not

No, no, after you’ve portrayed them that way, i’d argue that they have every right to head out on the warpath after you.

I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy

More desperation from Mr. Richards.

My name is Ted

No, it’s not—we’re already aware that your name is Nick. Also, i don’t care how much of a ditz the woman who sang earlier is, she’s going to figure that out, too. Just give it up.

(Yippee-yippee-yi-yippee-yippee-yi-yo-yo)
(Yippee-yippee-yi-yippee-yi-yo-yo)
(Oh yippee yippee-yo-yo)

If you listen to the track, you can hear that this is the point where the background singing Greek chorus got into the helium.

And one day I’ll be dead yo yo

But sadly, not before producing this song.

But, to its credit, i think we can all agree that the yo yo appended to the end of this line makes it the worst-delivered line in all of 80s music.

Well, okay, so i guess that’s not much of a compliment—but after a song like this we take what we can get, right?

Blink-182: All the Small Things

2010-09-03T19:58:00.004-08:00

This is a momentous episode in the broadcast history of Lyrics, Weakly: This is the first song that’s being covered here by request of one of my children. Yes, I’ve dealt with some songs because my children have drawn my attention to them, but this one was an actual request from a child, since, as she said herself, the words to it make absolutely no sense.

It almost brings a tear of paternal pride to my eye, it does.

Anyway, the song that was requested was a song by Blink-182 (or, according to some sources, Blink 182—i’ve run across some intense arguments on the net about putting in or leaving out the hyphen, and you know, i don’t care enough to even link to them), the 2000 top-ten hit “All the Small Things”.

I’ll happily admit that it’s a fun song to listen to, but it’s not one i ever really got into—and i also never took the time to listen to the lyrics. Now that i have, i can say that this is one of the most non sequitur-laced songs out there. I mean, it certainly wouldn’t displace my nominee for the top spot in that category, but it may well be in the top five.

This is not an honor to covet.

But enough about that—you’re not here to hear me talk about non sequiturs, you’re here to hear me point them out as they come up. So sit back and listen to the words that Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge came up with, presumably while he was so shorted on sleep that he couldn’t think straight.

All the small things

Oh, cool—Mr. DeLonge is apparently writing a song about really small things, like the three-and-a-half-inch long Madame Berthe’s Mouse Lemur, or the 1.3 gram Etruscan Shrew, or the four-inch long Barbados Threadsnake, or maybe even the 139-micrometer long parasitic wasp Dicopomorpha echmepterygis. It’s always good to see a punk-pop artist taking an interest in the life sciences.

According to the always-reliable Wikipedia page for this song, though, Mr. DeLonge wrote this song for Jennifer Jenkins, the woman who later married him. I’m rather surprised she didn’t take being compared to a parasitic wasp rather personally, but then again i’m not a rock star’s girlfriend.

True care truth brings

What does this line even mean? I mean, i haven’t even ripped it out of its syntactic context—it really makes no sense.

Oh well, everybody has a bad line now and again. I’m sure it won’t happen again, right, Mr. DeLonge?

I’ll take one lift
Your ride best trip

I’m trying hard to make sense out of this, i really am.

But the best i can do with this is that Mr. DeLonge is promising Ms Jenkins that he’s going to bum rides off of her. I wouldn’t have thought that such behavior was an auspicious sign for a relationship, but what do i know?

Always I know
You’ll be at my show
Watching, waiting
Commiserating

Commiserating about the fact that she has to listen to songs like this, I’m thinking.

(Sometimes a lyricist just hands you a gift, you know?)

Say it ain’t so

Okay. It ain’t so.

I will not go
Turn the lights off
Carry me home

Okay, we’ve got issues again.

After all, if you get carried home, Mr. DeLonge, you’re presumably being carried from a place that is not home. Therefore, if someone fulfills your request for carrying, you will in fact be going from the not-home place you were at when you first made the claim that you will not be going.

In any event, you end up not telling the truth, and that as a result of your own ordering of others around. Hope that teaches you a lesson.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na

Wow. Now i see why Mr. DeLonge gets all the adoring fans, what with being able to write lyrics that get to the heart of human relationships so concisely as this very line.

Late night come home
Work sucks I know

Dude? You’re a big-name rock star. Even if you hate your job, none of the rest of us want to hear it, okay? (And we wouldn’t believe you anyway.)

She left me roses by the stairs
Surprises let me know she cares

Yes, of course—this is the way i know my wife cares for me, when she leaves roses some place other than, say, in a water-filled vase on the table. It really lets me know that romance has reached its greatest heights when roses are just left any old place to die.

Say it ain’t so
I will not go
Turn the lights off
Carry me home

Wait a minute—this is sounding familiar. In fact, if i recall correctly, it was the lead-in to the line that…Oh, please, not that again—not already!

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na

Yes, already.

(And then we get another repeat of the chorus, skipped here, but thankfully without yet another “na, na, na” drone.)

Keep your head still
I’ll be your thrill

Just for a moment, imagine someone saying this to you in real life: “Keep your head still, [insert your name here], I’ll be your thrill!”

I submit that this can only mean that something dangerous is about to happen, and it’s going to come at your expense. Basically, it’s time to run away.

But somehow, here it’s romantic. Right? Or something.

The night will go on
My little windmill

My little windmill?!?

This has got to be the worst pet name in the entire English language since Percy Bysshe Shelley used to call Mary Wallstonecraft Shelley “Pecksie”.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na

Oh, no—stealth “na, na, na”s!

And after that, we get repeats of previous choruses—but i think we’ve heard quite enough already, yes?

In closing, though, i must say that i’m very happy that Mr. DeLonge and Ms Jenkins ended up getting along so well. After all, judging by the romance level of the images in this song i’m sure i wouldn’t be happy in a relationship like this, but different strokes and all that, right?

Oasis: Champagne Supernova

2010-08-27T19:17:00.002-08:00

Welcome to Lyrics, Weakly, where we listen to the songs so you don’t have to!

First of all, a bit of an apology to Karate Mom—she requested last week’s song, but i neglected to acknowledge her request in the intro. So, then, here’s the acknowledgment.

And speaking of acknowledgments, here’s one for Mariana this week, for requesting “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis. It’s a long song at well over seven minutes, and one of the more nonsensical songs i’ve ever listened to (which is saying a lot).

The most amazing thing isn’t that this song reached #1 on the Billboard modern rock chart—by now we expect that of dumb songs—but that, in an absolutely beautiful bit of synchronicity, the song it replaced at that position was one of the few #1 songs that could give this one a run for its nonsensical money, Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic”. (And that was preceded by “Wonderwall” by, once more, Oasis, which to be honest isn’t much better, and that by Bush’s “Glycerine”…really, the spring of 1996 may well have been the peak of dumb music. But then you start looking at 1986, and 1976, and you realize that dumb is simply what music does. Which, i suppose, is a good thing for the business of this blog.)

But enough about the idiocy of the modern music industry—we’re interested in the idiocy of this song. And since there’s a lot of it, let’s dive in now, shall we?

How many special people change?

Well, all of them do, actually. See, as long as you’re alive, your cells are in a constant state of change. In fact, even after you die you go through processes of change, though they’re not necessarily as rapid.

But i’m sure any sort of ignorance of such scientific truths was simply a momentary lapse, and that no further such false statements will be found anywhere in this song, right, Mr. Gallagher?

(And i’d also like to note that i can’t tell if this question refers to people who are special to you, or to “special” people. ’Cause if it’s the latter, that’s a little bit mean, you know?)

How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

Well, given Mr. Gallagher’s particular history of drug use, i’m thinking that any of us could pick a random place any of us have been during the past thirty or so years and we’d be right.

Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball

Um.

Yeah.

Okay, see, i’ve got a problem with this couplet—mainly, i can’t tell what in the world it means. But, being the brave lad i am, i’m going to give it a shot.

The main problem, i guess, is that there are multiple possibilities.

The first one is that Mr. Gallagher is playing with the fact that cannonballs don’t actually have any power to move themselves—so since by walking you’re moving, no matter how slowly you walk down the hall, you’re always going to be faster than a cannonball.

The second one is that he’s trying to give some sort of impression of great speed, since most imaginings of cannonballs have them hurtling at a target—but since i’m unaware of any prominent imaginings of cannonballs hurtling through a hallway (not saying that none exist, but i sincerely doubt they’re very common), this is a really bizarre image to use.

Well, except that…

Where were you while we were getting high?

…when you consider the sheer quantity of recreational chemicals that went into this song, such bizarreness suddenly seems less unlikely.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide

Is it just me, or is this a Fleetwood Mac reference?

Yeah, it’s probably just me. Still puts me off a bit, though.

In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

A champagne supernova. Really? A champagne supernova?

And i thought the whole cannonball thing was confusing.

All right, i can do this—let’s just break this down piece by piece, shall we?

First of all, supernovae are massive events, releasing so much energy that they can outshine entire galaxies. Further, they occur due to the effects of nuclear fusion and always involve stars a good bit more massive than our own sun. It is unlikely—though i will admit that this has technically not been proven—that one could actually use champagne to trigger a supernova.

In any event, since a supernova results in an ejection of energy and plasma away from a core that eventually becomes very dense, potentially even a black hole, i would think that a landslide in conjunction with a supernova would be the least—and, probably quite literally the last—of your worries.

Wake up the dawn and ask her why?

Eos, goddess of the dawn, was known to have abducted young men who struck her fancy. Therefore, Mr. Gallagher, i would suggest that you do exactly what you’re suggesting. The rest of us might get lucky.

(Though i suggest that you make sure your insurance is up to date before you do so.)

A dreamer dreams she never dies

Obviously, she dreamed she was falling.

Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Dude, we already know you’re baked. You don’t have to keep telling us about it.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a Champagne Supernova in the sky

Not only is this a nonsensical image (supernovae don’t have landslides, landslides don’t occur in the sky, &c.), it’s not even a terribly pretty one. I can let nonsense slip past occasionally if it’s being offered in the service of poetic imagery, but if i suspect (as i do here) that it’s only because you knew you had to fill the meter with something or the song wouldn’t make it onto the album, well, then it deserves to be held up as a steaming example of all that is wrong with musical “talent” these days.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a Champagne Supernova
A Champagne Supernova

Why the repetition? I’m guessing it’s because even Mr. Gallagher’s stoned-beyond-sensibility brain had enough functioning neurons to realize that the phrase “champagne supernova” actually is that bizarre, and so it had to be repeated in order to let everyone know that yes, they just paid good money for something that makes no sense in an attempt to pretend to be deep.

’Cos people believe that they’re
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die

As opposed to all the billions of people who live and don’t die? Like, this is supposed to make us feel like you’re special?

The world’s still spinning round
We don’t know why?
Why? Why? Why? Why?

First of all, We don’t know why is not a question, even though it’s marked as a question in every internet source for the lyrics for this song i could find. I don’t know if this is Mr. Gallagher’s fault or that of his transcribers, but either way it’s just not right.

Second, if you couldn’t think of four syllables to fill that last line, you could have just remained silent.

Finally, the world continues to spin around due to the initial angular momentum of the cloud of interstellar debris coupled with the possible effects of collisions between the Earth and other comparatively large objects during its history. Couple that with the fact that the effects of friction on the Earth aren’t large enough to counter all that initial and added energy, and you have an easy answer to every “Why?” you could ever throw at us.

And speaking of “Why?”, why has it become my lot to teach songwriters the basics of astrophysics? ’Cause if someone as unqualified in that field as me is able to do that, it makes me kind of worried about what other ignorances they’re bringing to the table.

How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

Right here, dude. We’re still right here, finding it halfway amazing that you can ramble like this for nearly eight minutes.

Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Mr. Gallagher, i already told you that we’re aware of how stoned you’ve been, and so you can assume we don’t have to be told about this yet again.

Oh, wait—maybe you’re just unaware that you’ve already told us. Ah, then, it’s entirely understandable—annoying, but understandable.

And then we get the verses about champagne supernovae and the world spinning around repeated, which i’ll leave out, since even if Mr. Gallagher doesn’t remember singing them, we remember hearing them.

All too well.

How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

For those of you keeping count, this is repetition number six. Six! I mean, come on—if you haven’t gotten an answer yet, it’s just not going to happen. Give it up already!

We were getting high

Yes, we were aware of that—no need to mention it again.

We were getting high

Or maybe you should have googled for some advice before sitting down to write this.

We were getting high

Never mind. It’s obvious that you’re out to win this argument.

You know, George Martin—yes, that George Martin, the “fifth Beatle” George Martin—actually once called Mr. Gallagher “the finest songwriter of this generation”.

Yeah, i rather boggled at that one, too.

Anyway, We were getting high repeats gobs and bunches more times, but i’m done with it—listening to this is starting to give me the munchies.

Train: Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)

2010-08-20T19:33:00.024-08:00

Welcome once again to Lyrics, Weakly, now once again running weekly, and in glorious Technicolor to thrill you like never before!

So this week our song is Train’s “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)”, a top-ten song from 2001 and 2002. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia (now with more truthiness!), this song spent more time in the top 100 before hitting the top ten than any other song in history—nearly an entire year.

And yes, i believe it, ’cause i remember hearing it over and over and over (and over again) on the radio back then during its whole long climb and slow—ever so agonizingly slow!—fall back down the charts. I’d actually managed to pretty much forget it before i heard it playing on a local classic rock(!) station this past week, and the the memories came flooding back. And since most of those memories revolved around it being a pretty stupid song, i figured it belonged here. So, onward!

Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey

See, we’ve got our first problem already.

To begin with, Jupiter’s one of the gas giants. As a result, any drops of Jupiter in her hair would be composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, and so even before her arrival in the Earth’s atmosphere those gases would dissipate, leaving her without any remaining drops of Jupiter in her hair. Basically, the gentlemen of Train are starting us off with an astronomical impossibility. This does not bode well.

She acts like summer and walks like rain

Well, i lived in Florida for several years, and so i can say that an association between summer and rain isn’t really terribly unexpected. But i suppose that there’s a place for glaring obviousness in music, so i’ll let this slide.

Reminds me that there’s a time to change, hey

This line was presumably taken to heart by one of Train’s founding members, Rob Hotchkiss, who left the band for a solo career shortly after the release of this song.

Since the return from her stay on the moon

Wait a minute, good sirs—just three lines earlier you were telling me that she had Jupiter in her hair, and now you’re saying she stayed on the moon for a while? I’m thinking y’all are either making this stuff up, or else you have friends with really enormous travel budgets.

On the whole, though, i’m doubting your veracity.

She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey

I suspect that this line was supposed to sound deep or something, but since spring in the United States is generally considered to shift into summer on 21 June, this is simply more obviousness.

But tell me, did you sail across the sun?
Did you make it to the Milky Way

Um, yes, she did. The Earth, after all, is part of the Milky Way galaxy.

To see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated?
Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star?
One without a permanent scar

They didn’t just do that, did they? Yes, they did—they just rhymed star with scar, a perfectly good rhyme except that to get there they had to say something that makes no sense at all.

Also, by definition, shooting stars occur within the Earth’s atmosphere. I’m beginning to think that the woman that the members of Train are singing about never even got into orbit, let alone reached Jupiter.

(Also, does it weird anyone else out that NASA’s website for kids is called “StarChild”? ’Cause i’ve seen 2001, and the Star Child is nothing but creepy.)

And then you missed me
While you were looking for yourself out there?

That’s quite understandable—anytime you’re packing for a long trip, you always forget one important thing. She apparently forgot to pack her mirror. No problem, there’s mirrors she can use all over the place.

Now that she’s back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo

Here is an example of tae bo. Here is an example of Mozart. I would almost be willing to pay money to someone who’d be willing to find a way to remix them together properly.

Reminds me that there’s room to grow, hey
Now that she's back in the atmosphere
I’m afraid that she might think of me as
Plain ol’ Jane

Actually, i wouldn’t worry about her thinking your name is Jane—the voice of the lead singer is pretty clearly masculine.

If you were Justin Bieber, though, i could see this being a potential issue.

told a story about a man
Who was too afraid to fly so he never did land

Really, the only explanation for this line is that it was trying to sound deep, but it actually ended up being simple nonsense.

But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?

I’ve been through multiple hurricanes. The wind doesn’t so much sweep you off your feet as blow very heavy things at you—and then they knock you off your feet, and possibly kill you.

Well, unless you’re wearing very low-friction shoes. Then, i suppose, the wind could send you sliding, which could be a decent stand-in for being swept off your feet.

Did you finally get the chance
To dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way?

More misunderstanding of the relationship between the Earth and its galaxy.

I’m beginning to suspect that the good men of Train didn’t pay very much attention in their science classes.

And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?

Well, if she was looking for a daytime temperature hot enough to melt lead and an atmosphere made up primarily of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid then yes, she most likely did find what she was looking for.

And then you missed me
While you were looking for yourself out there
Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken

No deep-fried chicken? But the Colonel’s everywhere, i thought!

Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you’re wrong?
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance

Don’t have any freeze-dried romance in stock, sorry. Would freeze-dried ice cream do?

Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?

I’m thinking that this is part of the lamest possible twenty-first century update to the old “Coffee, tea, or me?” line: “Soy latte, masala chai, or me?”

And then we get a couple more repeats of the choruses. This is running long enough as it is, so i’ll skip them, leading to where things change up a little.

And did you fall for a shooting star?
Fall for a shooting star?
And now you’re lonely looking for yourself out there

Once again, if only she’d brought a mirror. Ah, well, the best-laid plans and all that, eh?

When you fall behind on deadlines…

2010-08-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

I hate the beginning of school. Please tune back in next week, once my syllabi are written.

Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg: California Gurls

2010-08-06T18:16:00.042-08:00

Welcome once again to Lyrics, Weakly, where we remain dedicated to the proposition that it is, in fact, the singer and not the song that makes the music move along. You doubt that? Then consider that the song “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (with stunt vocals by Snoop Dogg) was the #1 song in the United States—and much of the rest of the world, so it’s not like taste elsewhere is any better—for several weeks earlier this summer.

I mean, really, with lyrics like this, you really think it would have been taken seriously if it weren’t for the star power of Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg getting people to think they liked it? I mean, really, take a look at the lyrics, and then try to convince me we have poetry to rival Longfellow and Coleridge and Dylan Thomas (or even Bob Dylan) here.

→Greetings loved ones
→Let’s take a journey

First of all, Snoop Dogg doesn’t have all that many lines in this song, so i’ll be marking his lines with an arrow (→), to contrast them with Katy Perry’s unmarked lines.

Second, when Mr. Dogg asks me to take a journey, i can only assume he means a journey that would result in all of us being, ahem, at an excessive altitude.

I know a place where the grass is really greener
Warm, wet, and wild
There must be something in the water

Okay, i get the grass being greener—that’s fine. And Ms Perry’s completely within her rights to have whatever opinions about landscaping she wants to, but i don’t want my lawn to be warm, wet, and wild unless there’s just been a summertime rainstorm. Otherwise, i’m pretty sure she’s right and there is something in the water—unfortunately, Ms Perry, you’ll just need to be more careful about where you put the pool next time.

Sippin’ gin and juice (gin and juice)
Laying underneath the palm trees (undone)
The boys break their necks
Try’na to creep a little sneak peek (at us)

Great, just great—i come here thinking i’m going to be listening to a mindless little song about summer and all, and i end up being faced with the horrible, horrible image of guys with broken necks. Wow, way to harsh my mellow, dudes.

You could travel the world
But nothing comes close
To the golden coast

True fact: If you search Google for “golden coast”, the first results are for locations in Australia and Africa. If nothing else, then, it appears that this song may be useful as a way to alert the educational establishment in the United States of the desperate need to improve the state of geography instruction, particularly international geography.

Once you party with us
You’ll be falling in love
oh-oh-oh-oh

Well, i suppose “love” is one way of phrasing it, so yes, i guess you’re right.

California girls, we’re unforgettable

Very seriously, this is true. Listen to any top-40 station these days, and you’ll hear this song so often that it will sear itself permanently into your brain.

I would submit, however, that this is not the Good Thing that Ms Perry is presenting it as.

Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top

This isn’t titillating, it’s simply boring—the whole Daisy Dukes+bikini top thing has been done to death. You want to get someone’s attention these days, you need a bit more originality—maybe pair your Daisy Dukes with a turtleneck or something.

Sun kissed skin so hot
We’ll melt your popsicle

This line, believe it or not, led to a very proud parenting moment for me: My 11- and 9-year-old daughters, upon listening to the lyrics to this song, had the same reaction as i did, and the 11-year-old told me i should discuss this song on this blog simply because it has this one amazingly stupid line.

My reaction? Well, it’s simple, really: Given the temperature of skin, at least of the skin of living human beings, when compared to the melting point of popsicles, anybody’s skin will melt your popsicle. So, essentially, Ms Perry is saying that California gurls are alive. Wow, that’s exciting. No, really—better than Cats, even.

Well, either that or there’s some sort of sexual reference going on here, which (given that we are talking Katy Perry and Snoop “Doggystyle” Dogg himself) wouldn’t surprise me at all. However, the only thing i can come up with is that the popsicle is a phallic reference, and the message is that mere viewing of the sun-kissed skin of the California gurls out there will result in the popsicle, um, losing its popsicle-like shape. Doesn’t really seem like a very positive portrayal of the view on the west coast, does it?

Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh (or perhaps uh-oh), indeed.

California girls, we’re undeniable
Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock

So since i’m not hip and with it enough to know what it means to have things “on lock”, I took a stroll over to Urban Dictionary, where i discovered that it means to have things under control, but in a very intense way—in particular, it means (as the most clinical of the definitions phrases it) to be under strict, severe obligations or rules.

So basically, we have just learned that California gurls are all nuns. I’m a little confused now.

West Coast, represent
Now put your hands up
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

I’m always curious what happens when performers get famous enough to do a national tour and they deliver a line like this in, say, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I mean, Philadelphians have been known to boo and throw snowballs at Santa Claus, so i might actually pay to go to a Katy Perry concert just to see what they came up with in response to this verse.

If it was early in the night, i’m guessing that East Coast would represent by putting their fingers (well, actually, just one, relatively long finger) up. If it was later in the night, after the beer started flowing, though, it could get interesting…

Sex on the beach

This may be getting a bit too personal here, but i would like to publicly say that this is not an experience i care to ever have. I mean, sand is uncomfortable enough when it somehow gets stuck in your armpit or the crook of your elbow—i don’t wish to ever have sand reach other, more sensitive parts of my anatomy.

And now, as an apology for that image, here’s something completely unrelated for you to waste a couple minutes with.

We don’t mind sand in our stilettos

More discomfort.

Though i would like to watch Ms Perry walk across the beach in stilettos. Just imagine it: Step-sink, step-sink, step-sink… It might even make up for having to watch the video for this song as i was writing this post.

We freak in our jeep,
Snopp Doggy Dogg on the stereo

This seems to be Ms Perry’s way of warning us that Snoop Dogg is about to speak. A bit overly subtle, but at least it does give you a chance to change the station if you haven’t already, so we should all thank her for her thoughtfulness.

You could travel the world (you could travel the world)
But nothing comes close
To the golden coast

Well, except for the water. I mean, that’s kind of the definition of “coast”, you know?

Once you party with us (once you party with us)
You’ll be falling in love
Oh-oh-oh-oh

And then we get a couple repetitions of the chorus, where we are reminded, in case we were not already aware, that human skin will melt popsicles. Since you are, i assume, already aware of that fact, i will skip them for you.

→Tone, tan, fit and ready
→Turn it up cause it’s gettin’ heavy
→Wild, wild west coast
→These are the girls I love the most
→I mean the ones, I mean like, she’s the one
→Kiss her, touch her, squeeze her buns (uhhh)

Apparently i erred earlier, and i should have put the link to the McDonald’s Rap here.

→The girl’s a freak, she drive a jeep
→in Laguna beach

So she’s a yuppie driving an SUV. Wow. Such an exciting freak she must be. Maybe she actually even (dare i say this on a blog without a warning page?) plays golf!

→I’m okay, I won’t play

Oh, apparently not. Sorry.

→I love the bay, just like I love LA

So does Randy Newman. I can’t figure out if that comparison helps or hurts your cause, but either way it certainly makes things a bit weirder.

→Venice beach and Palm Springs
→Summer time is everything

Well, everything except winter, spring, and fall, at least.

→Home boys, hanging out (all that ass hanging out)
→Bikinis, zucchini, martinis, no weenies

Okay, this may be very second-grade of me to point out, but Mr. Dogg just told us all that his homeboys have no weenies. I hadn’t even suspected this.

→Just the kingy and the queenie
→Katy, my lady (yeah?)
→Hey looky here baby (uh huh)
→I'm all up on you
→Cause you representing California (oh-oh-oh yeah)

Actually, in the interest of accuracy, i have looked at the official website of the House of Representatives, and i find Ms Perry’s name nowhere on the list of representatives from California. Maybe this song was written during a previous sitting of Congress, and she was serving there back then? ’Cause i didn’t have time to research all the previous California congressional delegations, so i can’t be sure.

Either way, we get two more repetitions of the chorus, where we get told yet again that California gurls are actually warm-blooded, resulting in them having skin so hot [they]’ll melt your popsicle.

Well, upon thinking about this further, i guess it’s good to know they’re not lizards or anything like that, so maybe i shouldn’t be so hard on that line.

→California girls, man
→I wish they all could be
→California girls (California)
→I really wish you all could be
→California girls (California, yeah)

And we close with Snoop Dogg giving a shout-out to his progenitors in rap, those unknown pioneers of hip-hop, the, um, Beach Boys.

Wow. Now that’s a juxtaposition to make your head explode, that is.

We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.

2010-07-30T17:10:00.005-08:00

Lyrics, Weakly has been preempted this week by an injury to the host followed by a round of dizzying muscle relaxants. (At least our host can legitimately claim it was a sports injury, adding a bit of much-needed dignity to the whole situation.) Please do join us again next week for our regularly scheduled installment of our show.

Whitesnake: Here I Go Again

2010-07-23T18:32:00.068-08:00

This week on Lyrics, Weakly we visit 1987 to take on “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake, the #1 song in the United States for one week in October of that year.

I don’t generally comment on the videos of songs when i link to them, by the way, but is anyone else bothered by the way the video fades out before the inevitable fiery crash that would follow the final scene? I mean, if you’re gonna make a video about distracted driving, you might as well end with a useful lesson for all the kids out there watching. And what’s with the way David Coverdale shakes the microphone while he’s singing? C’mon, dude, loosen your grip a little—your hand’ll last longer.

Anyway, there’s not much to say about this song except to admit, to my shame, that i actually bought the Whitesnake album on cassette back in the summer of 1987 so that i could listen to this song whenever i wanted to. So on the one hand, this means that i was a few months ahead of the rest of the country in really liking a hit single—but on the other hand, it means that i actually paid good money for an album by Whitesnake.

I apologize to all of you.

And with that out of the way, it’s time to get to the lyrics.

I don’t know where I’m goin’

Keep this line in mind. This, the opening line of the song, the line that sets the mood and underlies the narrative of everything else that follows…It also makes everything that follows make absolutely no sense at all.

But I sure know where I’ve been

Here Misters Coverdale and Marsden kindly inform us that they are not victims of amnesia. This is puzzling, however, given the memory loss that they offer evidence of later in the song.

Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday

I have learned some things writing this blog. One of them is that the promises encoded in songs are doomed to betray you, whether it’s a promise of constancy in love or a promise of logical coherence.

I find it strange that a few months’ worth of blog-writing taught me not to believe such promises, but years’ worth of songwriting didn’t teach Misters Coverdale and Marsden the same lesson.

Or perhaps they’re just aware that, as hard rock/heavy metal types, they have a certain stereotype to uphold.

An’ I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time
But here I go again, here I go again

I am reminded of one of the versions of Abbott & Costello’s classic “Who’s on First?” routine, where Abbott says “So do you grasp it now?” and Costello replies “I keep grasping it, but then it keeps slipping out of my hand!”

The same thing is happening as i try to parse this couplet. I think it’s the word but, actually—that implies that something is happening that contravenes what comes immediately prior in the discourse. However, i don’t see what getting started on going again does to contravene not wasting time. Well, unless what he’s starting to do is waste time, but he keeps talking about going down a road, which implies movement.

The lesson from this: Sometimes it’s possible to overanalyze 80s hair metal. I know, shocking.

Tho’ I keep searching for an answer

I find it interesting that every instance of the lyrics to this song i could find transcribed the first word of this line as tho’, even though tho’ sounds exactly the same as if it were though. So why leave out the last three letters? It seems Misters Coverdale and Marsden couldn’t take the extra second or two to write those letters down—apparently they really were serious about not wasting no more time.

I never seem to find what I’m looking for

This is a problem we all face now and again. Sorry, you’re just not that special.

Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on
’Cos I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams

That's not really an uncommon sort of dream, you know. So sorry, but once again, this doesn’t prove you’re all that special.

Here I go again on my own

And as you’ll all recall from the opening lines of the song, Misters Coverdale and Marsden do not have amnesia, but they don’t know where they’re going.

Which leads me to wonder…

Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known

…how in the world this works.

I mean, if it’s a road they already know, and they have functioning memory, then how is it that they don’t know where they’re going?

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone

This song, the version of it i’m discussing here, was actually a self-cover—Whitesnake had recorded it in 1982. The music was quite different in the original, but the lyrics were the same—except for this line. In the 1982 version, this line went Like a hobo I was born to walk alone. Interesting change. I wonder why they changed it? Well, according to lots and lots of sites across the interwebs—though most seem to base it on Wikipedia’s claim, which itself seems to base its claim on a line on David Coverdale’s IMDb(!) site—Mister Coverdale changed it because he thought people would think he was singing Like a homo I was born to walk alone.

What? Really? He thought people might watch him and his bandmates all dressed in spandex while singing and dancing onstage, and start thinking about alternative sexualities? Well, no never mind, I guess it does make sense.

An’ I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time
Just another heart in need of rescue
Waiting on love’s sweet charity

No real snark about this, i just wanted to say that “Love’s Sweet Charity” would be an excellent name for a Kansas City-style barbecue sauce that was sold as a charity fundraiser. Do feel free to use the idea if you like, no need for attribution—but bonus points if you sneak a white snake into the label design.

An’ I’m gonna hold on for the rest of my days

Annoying 70s meme alert!

And then we get several repetitions of the annoying chorus as the song (like pretty much every 80s hit) goes out with a repeat and fade, so it’s probably best to stop here—but first, another annoying 70s meme to complete your day!

Sonny & Cher: I Got You Babe

2010-07-16T17:31:00.057-08:00

Sonny & Cher: I Got You Babe

Here at Lyrics, Weakly headquarters, my method of choosing a song to discuss generally follows the following schema:

Are there any outstanding requests?

If yes: Pick one of them, discuss it.
If no: Proceed to the next step.

Listen to the radio for a couple days. With all the dumb songs out there, something’ll come up by Tuesday.

This past week, though, has been pretty crazy, and i haven’t gotten as much oldies/classic rock/today’s top hits/mix of the 70s, 80s, and whatever radio station listening in as i usually do. As a result, i arrived at a point where i needed to write up a song, but i didn’t have a song to write about.

And then deep memory rescued me.

True story from my twisted life: Somewhere in my parents’ house is an old VHS tape that contains video footage of one of my sisters and me singing along with Sonny & Cher’s 1965 chart-topper, “I Got You Babe”. The best part? I sang along with Cher, and she sang along with Sonny, not ’cause we were being silly (though we certainly were), but because Cher sounds so much more guy-like than Sonny in this song.

Anyway, it’s time to move on to the lyrics. This is a duet, which means i probably ought to show who sang what. So i’ll be italicizing the words Cher sang (like i do with most song lyrics on this blog), underlining Sonny’s lines, and marking the lines they sang together with both underlining and italics.

They say we’re young and we don’t know
We won’t find out until we grow

If you look through the lyrics of this entire song, you’ll find no real hint about what it is they say that Sonny and Cher allegedly don’t know. Quite seriously, i’m curious. Maybe they don’t know the rules to Parcheesi? ’Cause i could totally help them out on that one.

Also, at the time this song was released Sonny was 30 years old, Cher was 19. Yeah, Cher, you might have been young and not known whatever it was, but Sonny clearly was at least old enough to know how to stay this side of legal.

And finally, i find it telling that Cher doesn’t specify exactly what sort of growing was to be involved in letting them find out what they didn’t know. Given these before and after album covers, i’m suspecting it had to do with some sort of plastic surgery.

Well I don't know if all that’s true
’Cause you got me, and baby I got you

Well, Sonny, of course you don’t know if it’s all true—it’s a statement that can’t be evaluated for truth. Maybe if we knew what they say you don’t know, well, then you could tell if it was true or not. As it stands, though, it’s not possible to say one way or the other because you don’t have the information you need.

This lesson in hermeneutics brought to you be the letter B, the number 2, and Donald Rumsfeld.

Babe
I got you babe
I got you babe

True fact (at least according to Wikipedia, so you know it must be true): Sonny Bono wrote this song to capitalize on the popularity of the term ‘babe’. Were he alive today, i’m thinking he’d’ve written a much more aggressive version of the song, titled “I Pwned You Babe”.

They say our love won’t pay the rent

There are, however, some people who actually do pay their rent that way. Apparently they, whoever they might be, are simply underinformed and are passing their lack of knowledge on to the two of you.

Before it’s earned, our money’s all been spent
I guess that's so, we don’t have a pot
But at least I’m sure of all the things we got

Oddly, even though they didn’t have a pot, they very clearly did have pot, judging by the way Cher’s playing with her hair in every single mid-60s video of them singing this song i’ve ever seen. Amazing the difference a single determiner makes!

Babe
I got you babe
I got you babe

Yes, we know—you already told us, remember?

I got flowers in the spring

Unlike everyone else, right?

I got you to wear my ring

’Nother deep memory: Back in the early 80s, when i was of an age that Mad magazine was the height of middle-class subversiveness, they ran an article with reasons we should love various celebrities. One of the entries was for Cher, and i remember two of them. One of them was “She’s really attractive, if you get turned on looking at a pencil”, but that’s not important right now. The one that’s important for the last line of the song was “We should all be grateful to her for keeping Sonny Bono off welfare all those years”. Apparently men actually do come out financially better in marriage than women!

And when I’m sad, you’re a clown
And if I get scared, you’re always around

I would just like to say that i would not find having a clown around comforting. That is all.

Don't let them say your hair’s too long
’Cause I don't care, with you I can’t go wrong

This is a nice sentiment and all, but it really is a whiplash-inducing non sequitur.

Then put your little hand in mine
There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb

Every time i hear this line i get an image of Sonny and Cher, hand in hand and dressed in beaded-fringe hippie garb, walking up K2 until they succumb to hypoxia. A bit morbid, i’ll admit, but you have to remember that this is the duo that did not only this song, but also “Baby Don’t Go”, after all.

I got you to hold my hand
I got you to understand
I got you to walk with me
I got you to talk with me
I got you to kiss goodnight
I got you to hold me tight
I got you, I won’t let go
I got you to love me so

You know, i had some stuff to talk about here, but i just don’t have the energy. I mean, all this lovable-and-cute-beyond-imagining schmoopyness is threatening to throw me into sugar shock, and i’m not even diabetic.

I got you babe

Yes, i know—remember, i already said there was no need for you to mention it anymore.

I got you babe

Stop, please. Pretty please?

I got you babe

You’re just doing this to annoy me now, aren’t you?

I got you babe

Yes, yes you are.

I got you babe

That’s okay, i know of something even more annoying than this song! (Only just marginally, though.) So there!

Night Ranger: Sister Christian

2010-07-09T19:05:00.047-08:00

Okay, easy pickings this week: Night Ranger’s 1984 hit “Sister Christian”. But before i get to the lyrics, a personal memory about Night Ranger:

I went to high school during the mid-80s, so i was unable to escape being surrounded by the sound of Night Ranger during that time. I never really liked their stuff—my tastes tended more toward the new-wave and synthpop side of things—but i was, at least, able to recognize that they played with some decent skill. Clearly, though, there were some serious fans in my high school, including one who made a sculpture in honor of the band.

No, really—one afternoon, an after-school group i was in ended early, and so instead of just sitting outside waiting for my ride i wandered around the halls of the school. My wanderings led me down halls i rarely traveled, past the metal shop room, where i saw, proudly displayed, a sculpture made of wire loops. (It’s a frighteningly common sculpture method, as my wanderings around Etsy have informed me, along with accompanying video documentation, believe it or not.) The sculpture showed a guitar player not of normal human proportions in what appeared to be the midst of the ecstasies of a killer guitar solo—and there was a shiny bit of metal at the bottom with the title neatly engraved: Night Ranger.

Yes, it was such a horrifying sight that it burned itself into my brain twenty-five or so years ago, and now i share it with you. And speaking of sharing, let’s get to the lyrics, in which Night Ranger’s drummer (and lead singer on this track, which he wrote), Kelly Keagy, shares a bit more than we care to know about his family’s dysfunctional dynamics.

Sister Christian

See, we’ve got a problem right there—“Christian” is a male name and “sister”, whether marking a sibling or a nun, is a female title. Heavy cognitive mismatch, you see.

Actually, i was curious enough about this mismatch that i actually ventured onto the sort of web site where people sit around and muse on the meanings of song lyrics, and i came across this little gem of an exchange:

dementia: it’s about the dude who wrote it’s little sister.. they misinterpreted the lyrics. it’s supposed to be “sister Christy”…

crazycrane02: Lovely Shiksa your right, it was about his sister and it was about Kelly Kagen’s sistrer Christy. but the other guy (lead singe4r) thought her name was Christian, or at least thats what she thought he Kagen was saying. So he changed it. lol i just watched VH1 Classic’s Now Power Ballads an hour ago and this song was on. i love this song

So let’s see…The guy that wrote this song is Kelly Keagy. So Christy is apparently Mr. Keagy’s little sister. Mr. Keagy was also the lead singer (or, possibly, the “lead singe4r”) on this song. So, according to these people, Mr. Keagy misheard the name of his own sister, and thus got her name wrong for the song.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Of course, you really have to wonder about somebody who chooses the name “crazycrane02” to go by. I mean, nothing against crazy cranes, but if you’ve got your heart set on “crazycrane” as a screen name and you find out it’s already taken, you can do better than to announce to the world that you’re the second person to come up with the idea, really you can.

Anyway—enough digression. Back to the song.

Oh the time has come
And you know that you’re the only one
To say okay

The only one? Okay, i’m calling Mr. Keagy out on his lie right here.

Also, it’s almost not worth noting that, in all seriousness, this bit makes absolutely no sense, even in the context of this song (such as it is).

Where you going
What you looking for

If i were her, i’d be looking for a brother who could write coherent lyrics about me—but who knows what her preferences are?

You know those boys
Don’t want to play no more with you
It’s true

I just want y’all to remember this bit, ’cause it ends up making the rest of this song make absolutely no sense, even for a Night Ranger song.

You’re motoring

Can i just say how much i love how overwrought Mr. Keagy and his backing vocal bandmates sound when delivering any line in this song that contains the verb “motoring”? Quite honestly, i feel like it encapsulates everything that’s right and wrong about 80s music—the grandiose self-importance, the lyrical nonsense, the power chords, just everything.

What’s your price for flight

Well, it really depends on where she’s flying from, doesn’t it? If she’s flying from Denver it’ll be a lot cheaper than if she’s flying from Cincinnati.

True fact: Night Ranger was based in San Francisco (thus making them the spiritual heirs of the Jefferson Airplane, apparently), which is the second-most expensive major airport in the United States to fly from. This means that her price for flight is going to be pretty high, unless she bothers to search for flights from Oakland as well. Fortunately, most travel websites let you search fares from nearby airports, too, so that won’t be too difficult for her.

In finding Mister Right
You’ll be alright tonight

But, Mr. Keagy, if you’re correct that those boys don’t want to play no more with your sister, then she’s probably not going to be alright with finding Mister Right—it sounds like it would be kind of a fruitless endeavor for her, since hanging out with a bunch of Misters would, in most cases, be a prerequisite for finding out which one is Mister Right.

Well, unless Mr. Keagy is saying he’s working out an arranged match for her. That’s always a possibility, i suppose.

Babe you know
You’re growing up so fast
And mama’s worrying
That you won’t last
To say let’s play

You know, up until the last line of this verse it sounds like an ordinary sort of family worrying about their little girl growing up—the mother and older brother are feeling a bit protective as their daughter/sister is moving toward becoming sexually active a bit earlier than she should, in their opinion.

And then the last line turns really dysfunctionally creepy—it’s not that she won’t last in the sense of not having sex for a while longer, it’s that she won’t last long enough to say “let’s play”. And since “play” really, really sounds like a euphemism for sex here, that means that this girl’s mother and brother are worried about her because they want to make absolutely sure she’s…Ummm…Dudes, this is really kind of sick—i mean, this is coming from her mother and her brother, you know? And her brother just implied that he’s working on an arranged match for her.

Oh, dear.

(Later edit: Or that they’re afraid that she’ll die first. Either way, somewhat icky.)

Happy place! Happy place! Happy place!

[brief pause]

Okay, i’ve applied liberal amounts of brain bleach. (I would suggest you do the same.) I’m better now, or at least as better as one can be while pondering Night Ranger.

Sister Christian
There’s so much in life
Don’t you give it up
Before your time is due

So you’re advising her not to sleep with anyone before you set her up with the guy you’ve chosen for her to sleep with? You know, this is the kind of thing Jerry Springer made a career out of.

Wait a minute—back to my happy place.

[cleansing breath]

Much better.

It’s true
It’s true yeah

As a professional linguist, i must ask: What exactly is the it that these lines are referring to? It couldn’t be the time from the preceding line, not the it from a couple lines earlier. It appears that we’ve got a basic case of pronoun trouble going on here.

Motoring
What’s your price for flight
You’ve got him in your sight
And driving thru the night

And now Mr. Keagy is making it sound like his sister has some free will in the matter. It’d almost be cute, watching him play with her emotions like that, if it weren’t so demented.

Once again: Happy Place! Happy Place! Happy place!

Anyway, we then get a bunch of repetition of the chorus, which is followed by a repeat of the first verse, and i’ll spare y’all going through that again.

I really have to say that when i started this post i didn’t realize that it was going to turn quite out so dark—i mean, i’d always felt like it was a manipulative song, but i hadn’t really thought about how thoroughly twisted it was. So to make up for the horror of having to sit through a Night Ranger song, let alone one as sick as this one, i close by offering you a moment of sheer old-school internet meme diversion.

Roxette: The Look

2010-07-02T17:26:00.109-08:00

As regular readers know, i’ve piled up a lot of requests for songs to discuss, and so i’ve been going through them the past few weeks. Well, a few weeks ago, Karate Mom (an actual reader of this blog who i’ve never met in real life! insert swooning over the miracle of technology and such rot here) made a request: the Swedish duo Roxette’s 1989 multinational (including the US) chart-topper “The Look”.

(By the way, i would like to make it clear that i very emphatically do not want to know anything about the specific fetishes the director of that video is into. Having watched it, i already know too much, thank you very much.)

Now, i have to admit that i’d never actually paid attention to the lyrics of this song before the request came in—it was just a fun little 80s-pop bit of background music you still hear on the radio every once in a while.

And then i listened to songwriter Per Gessle’s lyrics.

And then…Wow.

1-2-3-4

I’m so glad Mr. Gessle has decided to add to the store of educational music that’s already out there.

Walking like a man

Like this?

Or maybe this.

Either way, this this appears to be a good thing.

Hitting like a hammer
She’s a juvenile scam, never was a quitter

What is it with rock songs and young girls? At least this one appears to be both masculine and violent, so maybe at least we’ll get a Michael Bay movie out of this.

Tasty like a raindrop,

The raindrops have flavor in Sweden? The whole acid rain thing must be simply out of control up there!

She’s got the look

Apparently, she’s got this one.

Heavenly bound cos heaven’s got a number

Heaven’s got a number? I didn’t even know it had an area code!

Of course, if she’s heavenly bound, one might expect that that means she’s dead or dying, meaning this upbeat little song has suddenly taken a dark turn. Oh, those wacky Swedes!

When she’s spinning me around, kissing is a colour

Perhaps frighteningly, Google gives 372,000 hits for a search on “synesthesia kissing”.

Her loving is a wild dog, she’s got the look

Safety tip! If someone comes up to you and says “My loving is a wild dog”, smile, nod, and edge away slowly until you’re out of their peripheral vision—and then run like mad.

No, no need to thanks me—it’s a service i’m happy to provide.

She’s got the look (she’s got the look)
She’s got the look (she’s got the look)
What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue

Suffocation can, or so i’ve heard.

(More death. Noontime darkness really gets to you after a while, apparently.)

When everything I’ll ever do I’ll do for you

This may be the first coherent complete sentence in this entire song. Of course, it’s also the first time any part of the song has been in the second person (i.e., ‘you’) rather than the first or third person, so the reason it’s a coherent sentence is obvious—it got borrowed from another song.

And I go la la la la la
She’s got the look

Has anyone out there ever actually gone “la la la la la”? I mean since you were, like, eleven? ’Cause i’m pretty sure i haven’t.

Of course, i’ve never actually had any reason to tell anyone that she is in possession of the look, either, so maybe my experiences are simply more limited than Mr. Gessle’s.

Fire in the ice,

Which gives water—and now we’re learning physics!

For what it’s worth, Mythbusters has concluded that you can use an ice lens to start a fire, and there’s even a site out there with fairly detailed instructions, should you decide to freeze while trying to keep warm.

Naked to the T-bone
Is a lover’s disguise, banging on the head drum

This is just wrong on so many levels.

First of all, a T-bone is either a cut of steak, the name of a Christian rapper, or a term for an often-fatal type of accident. I’m not sure you’d want to be naked with your lover for any of those, unless you have certain fairly disturbing kinks, and i don’t, so i’m going to just plug my ears and go “la la la la la” now.

And banging on the head drum? Where’d that come from?

Shaking like a mad bull, she’s got the look

Well, i’m frightened, for one.

Swaying to the band, moving like a hammer
She’s a miracle man,

First of all, she’s a man? That explains so…Well, it doesn’t really explain anything, does it?

Second of all, there’s only one person who should be allowed to go by the name “Miracle”, and it’s not her.

Loving is the ocean
Kissing is the wet sand, she’s got the look

You’ve just completely given up on making any sense by now, haven’t you, Mr. Gessle?

She’s got the look (she’s got the look)
She’s got the look (she’s got the look)
What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue

Well, colloidal silver can, according to some news reports.

And then we get repetition of the rest of the chorus, plus a recap of the first verse (remember?—that’s where we found out she’s a young masculine girl who tastes like a raindrop), followed by a repeat and fade while we get told that she possesses “The Look”. Unfortunately, it appears that she didn’t keep it hidden away, but has allowed radio stations to play it for over twenty years.

Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven

2010-06-25T17:20:00.150-08:00

Yes, you read the title correctly—this week’s installment of Lyrics, Weakly takes on a rock icon: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”.

True story: The only time i’ve ever called in to a radio station to voice my opinion about something, it was as part of a discussion on whether “Stairway to Heaven” deserves all the airplay it gets. (I was on the emphatically no side. Not that this surprises you, probably.)

I’ve wanted to do this song for a while now, but i’ve been hesitant to ever since i heard Robert Plant, co-writer of the song, on the NPR program Fresh Air, where he admitted that he actually appreciates the many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many parodies that the song has merited over the years. (The discussion of “Stairway” starts around the 14:30 point of the interview.)

However, i’ve finally decided that this song’s lyrics really do need to be discussed in this forum, mainly because so many people seem to think that this is The Single Greatest Rock And Roll Song Of All Time, or at least classic rock radio station after classic rock radio station has told me so by placing it #1 on their Memorial Day/Labor Day/whatever other long weekend “Top 100/500/1,000 Songs of All Time” lists.

Another story: Every few years, i get into listening to classic rock stations as part of my neverending hopscotch through musical genres. Well, in the early days of the world-wide web, the classic rock station i was listening to at the time (not the one i called into to protest their overplaying of “Stairway”, by the way) decided to let its listeners vote on its top-songs list—people could go to the station’s homepage during the month before a particular long weekend, send in their top-ten lists, and the station would compile those lists into a top-500 list to play over that weekend. (A listener’s #1 song would get ten points, their #2 song would get nine points, and so on to their #10 song, which would get one point—and then they’d play the songs in countdown format, with the highest point-getting songs being ranked higher.)

Anyway, part of the shtick was that they updated the list of songs every day, taking the previous day’s top-ten lists into account each time. Well, the list started out with the station staff’s lists (which gave “Stairway to Heaven” the top slot and “Hey Jude” by the Beatles the second slot), and then each day there were updated lists. It was actually kind of fun to watch, with new songs popping onto the bottom of the list each day as people nominated songs that nobody else had thought of before, and with some shuffling of the songs up higher on the list.

So about a week and a half before this top-500 countdown was supposed to begin, “Stairway to Heaven” fell out of the top slot—and over the next few days it fell down to the bottom of the top ten, and then out of the top ten completely. Interesting. And then, a couple days before the weekend countdown, the updated-daily list was taken down, with a message in its place urging people to listen to the countdown itself. Also, at the same time—and i noticed this because i found it quite striking—the station’s promotions for the countdown stopped saying that it was a countdown based on listeners’ votes. In fact, a few times during the countdown itself, we were told that the ordering of the list was based on listeners’ votes and the “judgment” of station staff.

Given that, you won’t be surprised to hear that “Hey Jude” was the #2 song, and “Stairway to Heaven” the #1 song.

Not saying that there was anything untoward going on, but it does seem a bit odd, you know? (And it’s not like it would have killed the station to place it lower—even Rolling Stone placed it at #31 in their 2004 list. Of course, they placed Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” at #1, so it’s not like their vote ought to count either.)

Anyway, this has been a long intro. On to the lyrics.

There’s a lady who’s sure
All that glitters is gold

So we start with some woman who’s inexperienced enough that she’s never seen silver. Or copper. Or quartz. Or diamonds. Or…I’ll stop there, but you get the idea—we’re starting out by straining credulity to the point of breakage. Not an auspicious beginning.

And she’s buying a stairway to heaven

There’s probably something deep to say here, but i get stuck trying to imagine what the cost of materials for such a building project would be.

When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for

Well, if what she came for was the chance to window shop without buying anything, then yes, she can easily get what she came for.

Really, the only way i can read this verse is as an attempt to sound deep by playing the counterintuitive situation card, but really not saying anything at all.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven

But the stores are closed. Too bad for her—well, unless a neighborhood general contractor is available. Then she might be able to work something out.

There’s a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
’Cause you know sometimes words have
Two meanings

No, “no parking any time” means no parking. Sorry, you’re going to get towed, and no amount of postmodernist reasoning is going to get you out of it.

In a tree by the brook
There’s a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are
Misgiven

First of all, did Mr. Plant really just rhyme two meanings with misgiven? ’Cause that’s a pretty amazingly bad rhyme.

Second, sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven? That’s not deep, that’s just bizarre and nonsensical.

And finally, does it seem to anybody else like Robert Plant simply had some random ideas for verses that sounded interesting by themselves, and then strung them together without any thought for whether they were logically coherent when put together? Yes? Good, i’m glad to know i’m not alone in that.

Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it makes me wonder

Oh, Mr. Plant, it makes me wonder, too—but not in a good way. But, of course, like you said, sometimes words have two meanings.

There’s a feeling I get
When I look to the west
And my spirit is crying
For leaving

For leaving this song, most likely.

And the feeling i get when i look to the west is generally a perception of brightness at sunset, shadow at other times of day.

In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees

So what Mr. Plant is saying is that he has a pretty good imagination, and can imagine fog in the woods, or the remnants of a forest fire.

In other news, one of the best ways to pad a song to, say, longer than seven minutes is to talk about abilities you have that are completely normal, but to present them as if it’s some sort of mystical experience.

And the voices of those
Who stand looking

Mr. Plant hears voices in his head. Ask me if i’m surprised.

(Answer: No.)

Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it really makes me wonder

Yes, Mr. Plant, we all do. Again.

And it’s whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason

I’m very happy that Mr. Plant has seen fit to give us a geography lesson: The town of Reason is located fairly near the German town of Hamelin. This is impressive knowledge on his part, since i can’t find any other mention of it anywhere on the web.

And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long

Well, even if you started right after the previous dawn, a new day will dawn if you stand for only twenty-four hours, give or take a few seconds. Whether that’s long or not depends on your point of view, i suppose.

Well, unless you’re in Barrow, Alaska. Then you’d have to stand a really long time, and you’d get pretty cold while you were doing it.

And the forests will
Echo with laughter

The laughter comes from Mr. Plant’s agent, collecting his cut of the royalty checks for every time this song is played on the radio.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, ooh, whoa, oh

Can you feel the excitement building? With an intro like that, the next verse must be amazing!

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow
Don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean
For the May queen

Or maybe it'll just be utterly opaque.

I actually heard Robert Plant claim, in an interview, that this is an environmental message—something about the need to protect and commune with nature or somesuch.

You know, if doing this blog has taught me one thing, it’s that nonsense songs that try to justify their existence by tacking on an alleged environmental message are actually simply nothing but nonsense songs.

Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change
The road you’re on

Though depending on how close the exits are, it might take you quite a while to get to the road you missed.

Of course, this song was released in 1971—with the widespread adoption of in-car GPS navigational systems, this isn’t nearly as much of an issue as it used to be.

And it makes me wonder
Aw, uh, oh
Your head is humming and it won’t go

I’d actually never really tried to parse all of the lyrics to this song before sitting down to write this up. So now my head is humming, but it’s the sort of humming that precedes passing out, so i don’t think that’s a good thing.

In case you don’t know
The piper’s calling you to join him

You know, i’m not really into wrestling, but even if i were, such an invitation would scare me.

Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow?

As a man, i feel incompletely qualified to answer this question. However, that said, the weather here at this moment is at a dead calm (despite the rain), so the answer is no.

And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?

You know, the children’s novel The Phantom Tollbooth was published in 1961, a decade before this song came out, and it has an important though relatively minor character named Reason (her sister’s name is Rhyme), and her castle in the air is reached via a windy stairway. I think Norton Juster should sue for authorship credit.

And then we have a guitar solo that lots of wannabe guitarists believe is The Greatest Guitar Solo ever, and therefore they have littered YouTube with their versions of it. Seriously, don’t click that link—it’ll just make you weep for the future of music.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul

Obviously, this scene occurs either in early morning or late evening. I vote early morning, since only a couple minutes have passed since we were told a new day will dawn. Yeah, i know, there’s no logical grounding for that conclusion, but compare the utter lack of logical grounding in this entire song, and i’m sure you’ll agree that my crime is not the greater one.

There walks a lady we all know

Oprah Winfrey?

Who shines white light and wants to show

Oprah Winfrey with a flashlight, apparently.

How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The truth will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all

This means, according to Wikipedia, that Mr. Plant believes that truth will come either from the three musketeers, or from Switzerland.

This is not what i would have guessed.

To be a rock and not to roll

True story: My freshman year of college, my roommate was from Japan. (Sort of. He was from Japan, and he claimed Japan as his home, but he’d done all of his schooling at a boarding school in Connecticut.) He had a collection of Japanese pressings of music, and one of them was the Led Zeppelin IV album on vinyl.

The best part of this album was the included lyrics sheet, which included Japanese translations of the lyrics to the songs, and alleged transcriptions of the English lyrics—and this line was rendered To be a rock, a natural.

Really, it makes just as much sense.

And she’s buying a stairway
To heaven…

Which she could afford by now if she’d been receiving the royalty checks for this song.

Anyway, that’s it for this week. Next week, back to the requests!

Erasure: Always

2010-06-11T17:54:00.048-08:00

This week Lyrics, Weakly runs the risk of offending one of its three readers.

A few months ago, Mariana posted a comment in response to my take on the Atlantic Starr song “Always”, saying she’d initially thought the post was going to be about the Erasure song of the same name. Well, it wasn’t, but it got me thinking that that song really does need to be discussed here—and now i’ve finally gotten around to it. So this week’s entry is the 1995 Erasure song “Always”.

(By the way, you really should click on that last link and watch the video—it’s visual LSD. Not saying it’s perfectly bizarre or anything, but if there’s a video that cries out for a literal treatment as badly as Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, it’s this one.)

“Always” was a top-twenty hit in 1995 (top-ten in the United Kingdom), but, to be quite honest, i missed this song back then—i was in the midst of one of my periodic classic-rock phases at the time, and so while i was vaguely aware of the whole grunge thing, i missed this little synthpop gem. (And it really is a gem. Musically, that is. Lyrically, it has its moments, many of them not quite so gemlike.) Since then, it’s gained some notice from the soundtrack of the Adult Swim game “Robot Unicorn Attack”, which can only be described as a really, really weird bit of pop culture.

So let’s go back to 1995 (or, alternatively, to the land of the robot unicorns) and let ourselves get carried away by the somehow stark yet lush synthesizer intro, as Andy Bell begins to sing…

Open your eyes
I see
Your eyes are open

So open your eyes, please—oh, wait, never mind, already done. Okay, cool.

You’re just trying to make this easy for me, aren’t you, Mr. Bell?

This is the sort of exchange that takes place every day in households across the world—you know, maybe people are getting ready for dinner, and one of them says “Could you get the butter out of the fridge for me? Oh—you already got it. Thanks”

It’s not the sort of thing that really makes sense in a song, though, you know?

Of course, it’s one thing to have odd lyrics, but it takes serious confidence to actually start your song with them. So i guess you’ve got that going for you.

Wear no disguise
For me
Come into the open

You know, if you can tell the person you’re singing to has open eyes, they’re probably already in the open.

Basically, this song seems to be all about stating the obvious.

When it’s cold (when it's cold)
Outside (outside)
Am I here in vain?

This is the beginning of the chorus, and i’m finding it impossible to parse the grammar here. I mean, it’s got to be one of the following…

When it’s cold outside. Am i here in vain?
When it’s cold outside, am i here in vain?

…but option 1 contains an incomplete sentence, and option 2 makes even less sense.

The best i can figure is that, for some reason, now that i live in Alaska something is more in vain than it was when i lived in Florida.

So basically, in the move into the chorus, we lost the whole obviousness thing. Now i’m not sure whether i like obviousness or obscurity better.

Hold on to the night
There will be no shame

First of all, you can’t hold on to the night—the night is a period of time, not a concrete object.

That aside, there will be no shame about what, exactly? Is this saying there’s no shame in a warm night? Well, sure, but there’s no shame in a cold day, either.

Really, it’s prettily sung, but it makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Always
I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony harmony oh love
Always
I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony harmony oh love
Always

This all sounds good (and, in fact, Mr. Bell apparently thought it sounded so good it needed to be repeated, as you can see), but really, you don’t want to always be with anybody—it would almost certainly lead to some very uncomfortable situations.

Melting the ice
For me
Jump into the ocean

This is actually good advice—before jumping into the ocean, it’s always a good idea to melt the ice there first. Otherwise you end up surrounded by icebergs and being really, really cold.

It’s possible to go too far, of course—if you melted all of the ice, then ocean levels would rise about 180 feet, give or take (according to some quick googling), enough to place twenty stories of the Empire State Building under water. Let’s hope Mr. Bell’s friend isn’t quite as successful as that.

Hold back the tide
I see
Your love in motion

See, here we get confusion again. Even leaving aside the fact that love is a noncorporeal entity and therefore its motion can’t be observed, this seems a bit self-contradictory. It would take a great deal of inertia to hold back the tide—a moving liquid can be pretty powerful. Therefore, in order to hold back the tide, it’d be more efficient to be very massive, and very much at rest. Here, though, the person holding back the tide is in motion.

First melting the ice caps, then changing tidal patterns in unexpected ways. I’m thinking Mr. Bell may need to rethink the physical science underlying this song a bit.

When it’s cold (when it's cold)
Outside (outside)
Am I here in vain?

Maybe Mr. Bell feels like he’s there in vain because it’s cold, meaning that the person he’s singing to was unsuccessful in melting the ice in the ocean? That makes as much sense as anything else i can come up with, really.

At least this would mean that Manhattan isn’t under water, so that’s a good thing.

And then we get repetition after repetition, which i’ll spare you, except to note that we get eight instances of this…

Always
I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony harmony oh love

…as we get to the end of the song.

I mean, it’s a nice sentiment, Mr. Bell, but would it have killed you to have written a third verse instead?

Maybe that’s the point of all the making believe in the chorus—we’re supposed to all make believe the song is longer and telling a coherent story.

And speaking of not writing things, Lyrics, Weakly will be taking a break next week, since i’ll be away visiting friends. Two weeks from now, though, i’ll be taking on what some people believe is The Greatest Song Ever Recorded. They’re wrong, of course, but it’s been too long since i had someone get properly annoyed by one of these.

Gabriel and the Angels: That’s Life (That’s Tough)

2010-06-04T16:32:00.004-08:00

This week’s installment of Lyrics, Weakly is another request, a now (mercifully) mostly forgotten top-40 song from 1962, “That’s Tough (That’s Life)” by one-hit wonder Gabriel & the Angels.

How obscure is this band? They’re so obscure that, despite having had a hit (the song under discussion here), they don’t even have a Wikipedia page, and as far as i can tell their one hit has been released on CD on all of two compilations, one of which was released only in the United Kingdom and the other went out of print really, really quickly. Just for fun, though, here’s the b-side to “That’s Tough (That’s Life)”, a fun little song called “I Don’t Wanna Twist No More”, in which the singer laments that there is no physical contact when one performs the twist. (And to think that some people thought the twist needed to be banned, when in fact it was helping enforce community moral standards.)

Anyway, there’s very little information about the band or the song anywhere. I found one claim that the band was formed by members of the Five Sharps, but if you listen to their recording of “Stormy Weather” (warning: the sound quality is poor—it’s from an old 78 rpm record), it doesn’t sound even remotely like Gabriel & the Angels. Also, i managed to find an online resumé for Richard Kellis, where he lists being the leader, arranger, and performer in Gabriel & his Angels, and there’s no mention of the Five Sharps anywhere on it, so that makes me even more skeptical of the claim. (And yes, this means that David B is willing to commit stalkery in researching these songs. That’s right—Lyrics, Weakly, going the extra mile for you!)

I also found a couple pages on the web that claim that Gabriel & the Angels are “frequently confused” with another band called Gabriel’s Angels (who also don’t have a Wikipedia page). However, I was unable to find any evidence for this confusion aside from those two pages, so maybe it’s just that the authors of those pages frequently confuse those two bands.

In other news, Gabriel & the Angels have occasionally been confused with Led Zeppelin. Well, that is, they have been at least once, in the preceding sentence.

Anyway—since i don’t have anything more of substance to say in the introduction (assuming that what you’ve just read could be called “of substance”), let’s move directly to the music. This song has an interesting but relatively straightforward structure, with a brief introduction, then three verse-then-chorus pairs followed by a bit of vamping as the song fades out at the end. There’s a bit of call and response to add some interest, with a male lead singer and female background singers (at least i think they’re female, not men singing falsetto). The background vocals are in parentheses in what follows, just to make it easier to follow.

When things go wrong this always happens to me
And I never get no answers or sympathy
They just say
(Oh oh that’s tough)

Rough, Gabriel—so allow me to be the first to offer sympathy. No answers, though, i’m afraid.

So, putting on my sympathetic hat, what sort of things happen to you?

One time in school I failed in history
Said to the teacher “Why’d this happen to me?”

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! I mean, i teach for a living (though not history), and so i know why people fail classes: Generally, it’s because they have a very low level of aptitude for the subject, or they don’t apply themselves to the class enough to merit a passing score (or, quite often, both).

Oh, wait—i’m supposed to be sympathetic. Sorry—i’ll try better next time.

It couldn’t be my fault the test was too rough

Or maybe i won’t.

Come on, Gabriel, just accept that you biffed the test and move on. Or, if you like, i could provide you with a makeup exam.

She said
(Oh oh well that’s tough)

Well, okay, i’ll give you that that’s a pretty heartless response on her part. Now, it’s completely understandable if you’ve pulled this sort of line in the past, but i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt (remember, i’m being—well, trying to be—sympathetic here) and assume that she was just being a bit overly vicious.

Ah! And so we come to the chorus.

What’s tough?

Presumably in reaction to the end of the first verse. It’s a silly question to ask—i mean, Gabriel himself is the one who outlined the situation that’s tough, so he’s the one who you’d expect to have the answer already, but fine, whatever. We’re transitioning from a verse to the chorus here, so a little bit of weirdness might be expected.

(Life)

Harsh, but a reasonable answer.

What’s life?

Wow—we’re getting pretty existential here. I wonder what sort of deep, philosophical answer the Angels are going to give in response to that question.

(A magazine)

Oh, wow.

Well, that was unexpected.

Well how much does it cost?

And i think that the part of my brain responsible for processing logical consistency in language just exploded.

Really, this is not the way a real conversation would go—not even remotely. Think about it: Someone’s feeling downhearted, and hears someone else say “That’s tough.” Then the downhearted dude, perhaps as a sarcastic retort, asks “What’s tough?” to which the answer comes “Life.” Well, yes, thinks the downhearted one, life is tough—but, perhaps after more detail, asks the question “What’s life?” which receives the answer “It’s a magazine.”

Now I ask you, what is the most reasonable response to this sort of thing? Maybe, at the mildest, asserting that it was a serious question, possibly walking away (with or without saying “Fine, if you don’t want to talk about it seriously, don’t bother”), possibly losing it and throwing a punch.

Certainly not, though, asking how much it costs.

(It costs twenty cents)

Just as an aside, consider that when Life ended publication as a monthly magazine in 2000, it cost $3.99 or $4.99, depending on whether it was a “special issue” or not. I checked, and 20¢ in 1962 was the equivalent of $1.14 in 2000, which means that the price of Life increased much faster than inflation.

Which i suppose is very true, no matter what definition of life you’re using.

But I only got a nickel (a nickel)
(Oh oh well that’s tough)

No, that’s not tough, it’s basic economics—if you don’t have the ability to pay for something, you can’t purchase it.

Of course, since we appear to be talking about a magazine here for some reason, you could always try hanging out in a doctor’s office or an auto repair establishment and see if they have one there. And even if you didn’t find a copy of Life, at the very least you’d be able to compare the editorial practices of Car & Driver and Redbook, which i’m sure would prove enlightening.

But in any event, that’s the end of the chorus, and so we move back into the meat of the song, Gabriel’s explanation of how things are so bad and why he needs more sympathy.

Then I was cheating and my girl saw me
She said that she was gonna set me free

So i’m assuming this is cheating in the romantic sense, not in the academic sense, ’cause otherwise you’d presumably be doing better in school (see verse one), at least for now.

I said “Don’t put me down now it’s you I love”
But she just said
(Oh oh well that’s tough)

This is bad? I mean, i’d have though this was a win-win. Clearly she doesn’t want to be with a cheater, and you don’t want to be with her, so you’re both happy with this, right, Gabriel?

No? Well, it takes all kinds, i suppose. Apparently you should have made your intentions toward your now-former girlfriend clearer, maybe by providing her with a tangible symbol of your commitment, or, you know, something radical like simply not cheating on her.

Oh—and i just realized i expressed no sympathy at all during that verse. Oh well, that’s tough.

And that brings us to the chorus again, which i’ll present here uninterrupted so that it can more easily completely blow your sense of logic.

What’s tough?
(Life)
What’s life?
(A magazine)
Well how much does it cost?
(It costs twenty cents)
But I only got a nickel (a nickel)
(Oh oh well that’s tough)

And now to the third verse, where we get to national politics. I suppose that if you handle this carefully enough, you could get sympathy on a national scale, so that’s not necessarily a bad move. Like i said, though, you’ve got to be careful—but i’m sure Gabriel has thought this through deeply enough that that won’t be a problem. So let’s follow along, shall we?

And then I got a call from Uncle Sam
Went into town to see the draft board man

You know, Gabriel, considering that the first (scattered!) organized protests against the Vietnam War occurred in 1963 and you’re singing this in 1962, and considering that public support for the war didn’t drop below 50% until 1968, i don’t think this was the right issue to bring up.

I thought if I told him of all my luck
But he just said

My guess? He said “Well kid, no wonder your number got drawn. Go see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

(Oh oh well that’s tough)

What’s tough?
(Life)
What’s life?
(A magazine)
Well how much does it cost?
(It costs twenty cents)
But I only got a nickel (a nickel)
(Oh oh well that’s tough)

True story: I didn’t know anything about this song while i was growing up, but on road trips every once in a while one of us kids would say that something was “tough”, and my parents would launch into this chorus, turning it into a song that never ends sort of thing—they’d get to the Oh oh well that’s tough and cycle back immediately to What’s tough, starting the whole insane cycle over again.

This experience probably explains something about my personality, but i don’t know what it is.

Anyway, then we get to the vamping, as this adventure in conversational rules fades to its end.

Is that all you’re gonna say to me?
(Well that’s tough)

Yes, Gabriel, yes it is.

Won’t anybody ever listen to me?
(Well that’s tough)

No, Gabriel, no we won’t.

You’re all against me all of you why don’t you say so now?

Okay—i’m against you, and i offer no sympathy about it.

And i have to say, after listening to you whine through this whole song, that felt nicely cathartic.

(Well that’s tough)

You know what’s really tough? Listening to this song the number of times i needed to to write up this post.

The difference is, i expect no sympathy. Pity, maybe, but certainly not sympathy.

The Outfield: Your Love

2010-05-28T17:00:00.001-08:00

This week i was going to run another request, but i’ve had a song going through my head for several days and i figured the only way to banish the demons would be to share it with you. Therefore, i present the Outfield’s 1986 top-ten hit “Your Love”, the only major hit i’m aware of that used its music video to highlight the professional and personal issues involved when a band shares its rehearsal space with an artist specializing in representational abstract art.

Fun fact! The Outfield were, according to their Wikipedia page, originally called the Baseball Boys. This is actually somewhat interesting, since they’re from London, where baseball isn’t traditionally a big deal. It is, however, not interesting enough for me to think about any further.

The song “Your Love”, despite being an absolutely horrible song, has had many opportunities to burn itself into our brains. Aside from being utterly inescapable in the mid-80s, it appeared in one of the many versions of Grand Theft Auto, and it’s currently used as an intro song whenever a number of major league ballplayers come up to bat. I’m willing to give Frank Catalanotto and Josh Willingham a pass on using this song, since they’re outfielders and this is the biggest hit by a band named after their position, but Kelly Johnson and Gordon Beckham both play infield positions, and so they have no excuse for choosing such a terrible song.

Incidentally, as i was finishing up my comments for this song’s lyrics (yes, i write the intros last), i discovered the blog Awesomely Bad Lyrics has done its own commentary on this song, including mentioning the whole baseball connection. Interesting. Anyway, it was cool finding that blog, almost like discovering a long-lost (and somewhat fouler-mouthed) older cousin that hasn’t been updated in a couple months. Worth poking around, particularly since it seems the only songs that blog has covered that i have are this one and, since it’s so horrible that it must be mocked by everyone, Starship’s “We Built This City”. (Here’s my take, here’s the take at Awesomely Bad Lyrics.) That blog has gone over a few more that need to be discussed here eventually, though—Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, Boston’s “Amanda”, Europe’s “The Final Countdown”…

But yeah, you’re right, now i’m just stalling before having to move to the horror that is “Your Love”—the song “Your Love”, that is, i’m sure your own personal love is actually a wonderful thing, a shining light of pure crystal brightening the darkness. The love of John Frederick Spinks, member of the Outfield and writer of this song? Not so much.

Josie’s on a vacation far away

Just to orient the reader, Josie appears to be Mr. Spinks’s significant other. It’s kind of hard to tell, though, ’cause this is the last we hear of her. In particular, we never hear of her coming home, at least not in this song—maybe in another one one day?

Come around and talk it over
So many things that I wanna say

In another item to orient the reader, this song is one long seduction attempt—so, as you might expect, it’s mainly one line after another. So what sort of smooth line is Mr. Spinks going to use on the object of his desire?

You know I like my girls a little bit older

Oh.

Um, okay.

I mean, points for not going the Benny Mardones route here, but i’m kind of wondering if you’re aware that stating right up front that you’re after someone older, and then strongly implying that you’re trying to seduce the woman you’re talking to precisely because she’s a bit older…Well, i’m just thinking that your odds of success have just dropped a bit.

Not to say that mom-age types aren’t desire-worthy—hey, i’m married to one myself!—but you might want to try a little more subtlety with your target demographic next time.

And speaking of subtlety…

I just wanna use your love tonight
I don’t wanna lose your love tonight

Nope, no danger of that here.

I ain’t got many friends left to talk to
No one’s around when I’m in trouble

Not trying to mess with your obviously smooth self, Mr. Spinks, but might i suggest, oh, not insulting people? And then maybe, once you get that down, you can move on to not propositioning women near the beginnings of your conversations, or at least waiting to do so until a full three or four minutes after mentioning the name of the other woman you are currently involved with. Once you get those down, you might find that you have more friends—and, in fact, not only might you find more people around when you’re in trouble, you might find yourself getting in trouble less often.

What’s that? Thanks for the advice, but no thanks? You do what works for you? No, no problem—go right ahead. Please do continue.

You know I’d do anything for you

You mean like leave Josie for her?

Stay the night but keep it undercover

Well, apparently not.

So let’s tally this up: Mr. Spinks has propositioned a woman by saying she’s old and he just to use her sexually for a night, and he wants to make sure nobody knows about the booty call.

That’s classy right there.

I just wanna use your love tonight
I don’t wanna lose your love tonight

This couplet bugs me—the second line implies what is, to my mind, a frankly unhealthy possessiveness toward the woman he’s trying to woo. I mean, fine, the first line says pretty bluntly that he’s after a one-night stand that’s all about him, but then the second line makes it sound like he’s assuming it’s a done deal.

You know what, Mr. Spinks? She’s still allowed to say no.

Tryin’ to stop my hands from shakin’

Shaking with frustration? Dude, just because you’ve always gotten everything you’ve wanted up to now in your life does not give you the right to get this angry.

Somethin’ in my mind’s not makin’ sense

It’s not just your mind, Mr. Spinks, trust me.

It’s been a while since we were all alone

I suspect that’s entirely purposefully done on her part. I know it would be if i were her.

(Warning: The audio on that link might not be entirely safe for work, depending on where you work.)

I can’t hide the way I’m feelin’

And here the logic, such as it is, comes crashing to a halt. I mean, didn’t you sing, just a few lines ago, that you want her to stay the night but keep it undercover? And now you can’t hide things? Dude, if you’re gonna talk about it, you’ve got to give her the green light to do the same—it’s just fair.

Of course, given the odor of combined uncontrolled desperation and barely controlled anger that you’re exuding in this song, i don’t know that she’d actually want to go bragging about her one-night stand with you to her friends. But you know, to each her own.

As you leave me please would you close the door

Oh, that’s real nice—hey, the sex was great, make sure you close the door so i don’t have to get up and do it myself.

Basically, continued classiness.

And don’t forget what I told you

Um, that she’s old, you’re after her for one night’s sex, and you don’t care about her feelings or opinions on the matter? Yeah, i don’t think you have to worry about her forgetting that—and, i suspect, she may end up making sure none of her friends forget it, either.

Good luck finding another alternative to Josie, dude.

Just ’cause you’re right, that don’t mean I’m wrong

You know, in general this is technically true—but still stupid.

In this particular case, though, if she’s saying no to your sexual advances, you’re wrong. Hope this helps clear things up. Have a nice day.

Another shoulder to cry upon

Emotional blackmail? Still stayin’ classy, i see.

I just wanna use your love tonight
I don’t wanna lose your love tonight

And then this gets repeated over and over, with some occasional vamping between lines.

My advice to Ms. Not-Josie: While Mr. Spinks is distracted from paying attention to his singing, run, don’t walk, to the nearest courthouse. You’ll thank yourself for it in the morning.

Wilson Phillips: Hold On

2010-05-21T16:18:00.082-08:00

So this week on Lyrics, Weakly we take another request, the Wilson Phillips song “Hold On”. This was the first single from their debut album, and it hit #1 on the US charts in June 1990, and was actually the #1 single for the entire year. The album as a whole was a huge success, going quintuple(!)-platinum and spawning four top-five singles, three of which hit #1.

And really, as you listen to the song, you can understand why. Wilson Phillips is made up of Carnie and Wendy Wilson, daughters of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, and Chynna Phillips, daughter of John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas. That’s a lot of harmony in their bloodlines, and as you listen to them, they certainly live up to it.

So the harmonies are sweet. The songwriting? Not so much. So cue the cheesy 80s ice piano, and…

I know this pain
Why do lock yourself up in these chains?

Dude, don’t question it. Some people are into that sort of thing—live and let live, that’s my philosophy.

No one can change your life except for you
Don’t ever let anyone step all over you

Wait, i’m confused. So you’re saying that i’m strong enough that nobody can mess with my life, and so i should keep people from stepping all over me? But if i’m really that all-powerful, and the only one who can change my own life, then, logically, i really shouldn’t care whether they’re stepping all over me—it’s not going to actually mess with me.

And besides, what if i like having people step all over me? What then? Your platitudes don’t seem so perfect then, do they?

Just open your heart and your mind
Is it really fair to feel this way inside?

Is it fair? I think it is—but maybe i’m just not understanding what you’re asking. I wonder what your basis for comparison is.

Oh, some day somebody’s gonna make you want to
Turn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let’m
Hold you down and make you cry

So you’re saying that i’m in some sort of relationship with someone (romantic, friendship, whatever), and one day they’re going to do something that’s going to make me want to leave the relationship. Yeah, stuff like that happens every day—saying it will is a pretty safe bet, actually. But in the meantime they’re holding me down and making me cry? But wouldn’t that make me want to say goodbye right now?

(Well, unless i’m into that sort of thing—see above. But if that’s the case then yes, I certainly am going to let them do that to me.)

Completely seriously, this song has pretty opaque lyrics for being such a transparent thing. I mean, if you listen to the whole thing it’s clear that this is one of those “you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and gosh-darn it, people like you” songs. No problem—there’s a place for stuff like that in this world. But then you start looking at the details of how that’s being said, and it all starts to feel a little darker.

Don’t you know?
Don’t you know things can change
Things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day

Help! I’m trapped in a fortune cookie factory!

Can you hold on for one more day?

Like i said earlier, bland happiness and then sudden darkness. I particularly like the way this line is delivered, with the can you that turns it into a question muttered more softly than the rest of the line, in an apparent subliminal attempt to undercut the confidence of the person they’re singing to.

Things’ll go your way
Hold on for one more day

Really, could y’all make up your collective minds? Are you questioning whether things are actually going to go my way, or are you expressing certainty? ’Cause i’m getting mixed messages here.

You could sustain
Or are you comfortable with the pain?

Okay, i give up. I’ve been trying to write something about this couplet for several minutes now, and i can’t come up with anything.

The main reason for my mindblock, i think, is that it makes absolutely no sense. I mean, you try it. Imagine a friend coming up to you and saying “Here’s what i think: You could sustain, or are you comfortable with the pain?” What would your reaction be? That’s right, it’d be “Huh?” You know why? Because that’s not something anyone would ever say! In fact, i suspect it’s not even a sentence that would ever occur in English—it appears to follow the grammatical structure of some other language. Mses Wilson and Phillips all grew up in Southern California, so maybe this is actually an example of the indigenous language of that region.

(Warning: Turn down the volume for the last ten seconds or so of that last link if you’re at work, or around your parents.)

You’ve got no one to blame for your unhappiness

I really hope that when pop/rock songwriters go to school, this line is used in the class on rhythm and meter as an example of what not to do.

Oh, what’s that? People don’t go to school to become pop/rock songwriters? Well, that explains lines like that one, then, doesn’t it?

No, baby, you got yourself into your own mess
Lettin’ your worries pass you by
Don't you think it’s worth your time
To change your mind?

See? Darkness again. Apparently it’s time for tough love, as we get told about all the horrible things we’ve been doing, particularly by ignoring all the things that could have been worrying us. But wait…I’m confused again.

After all, it’s not that long ago that these very singers in this very song were talking about how we’re letting ’m (seriously, i can’t tell if they’re singing ’em or him, which bothers me a little bit) hold us down and make us cry. That doesn’t sound very much like letting our worries pass us by—it sounds like an emotional crisis, something you can’t let pass you by because it’s right there, taking all your attention.

Not to mention that the entire message of this song, at least as far as i can tell, is that if you can just hold on for one more day everything’ll get better. So basically, they’re saying they’ll yell at us for doing whatever it is that we’ve been doing all this time, and then when we take their advice to just hold on for one more day—which would involve letting our worries pass us by, one would think—they get to yell at us for doing so and getting ourselves into this mess?

Sorry, but i don’t need to take this sort of thing from you.

Wait a minute…Unless the ’m who’s holding us down and making us cry is actually Wilson Phillips, and this is actually one of those cases where they’re expressing contrition and working on reconciliation, just so that they can come back and abuse us later on. Yeah, that’s right, i’m on to you! You’re not going to get away with it this time!

But then the chorus gets repeated, and we get distracted by those sweet, sweet harmonies.

I know that there is pain
But you hold on for one more day and
Break free from the chains
Yeah, I know that there is pain
But you hold on for one more day and you
Break free, break from the chains

Seriously, what is it with the chains and pain? I mean, you know, other than the obvious answer—that they keep using those words ’cause they rhyme and they couldn’t think of anything else to use.

And really, it’s a bizarre idea, anyway. I mean, think through what they’re saying logically: They’re saying that if you’re in chains, even though it’ll hurt you should stay in them for one more day, ’cause then they’ll go away. Sorry, but that’s not the way people who chain you up and torture you generally work.

But then we get the chorus again with its amazing harmonies, and we get to forget for a moment how utterly silly this whole song is.

Don’t you know things can change
Things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day,
If you hold on
Can you hold on

Really, this is an utterly innocuous feel-good song—but there’s no law against innocuous feel-good songs making sense, is there? Well, maybe there is—who knows?

Color Me Badd: I Wanna Sex You Up

2010-05-14T17:57:00.007-08:00

Over the past few weeks, i’ve gotten a few requests for songs that should be featured on Lyrics, Weakly—and so today we reach into the vault for the first of these, Color Me Badd’s 1991 hit, “I Wanna Sex You Up”.

“I Wanna Sex You Up” was a big international hit, hitting #2 in the United States (while topping the R&B and dance charts) and getting double platinum status, and hitting #1 in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. I was fortunate to be living in Austria at the time, where it missed the top ten (peaking at #11), so i avoided having it burned into my brain quite as intensely as people living in much of the rest of the world did. Therefore, for me this is just an amusing memory of the early 90s; for the rest of you, i apologize for bringing up something quite as traumatic as this is likely to be. However, in my defense, i will point out that i’m not the first to bring this song back from the dead, since (according to the song’s Wikipedia entry) it was semi-recently covered by the Acafellas on an episode of Glee, giving those of us who don’t watch that show yet another reason to be happy about our entertainment choices.

The scary thing, by the way, is that this was not Color Me Badd’s highest-charting US hit—those were the followup singles “I Adore Mi Amor” and “All 4 Love”, which both hit #1. It’s this one, though, that has created the deepest memory scars for many people.

(By the way, the #1 song in Austria while “I Wanna Sex You Up” was topping the charts elsewhere? “Joyride” by Roxette, which topped the Ö3 Austria Top 40 for ten weeks, comparatively not a bad choice by the Austrian people at all. Of course, earlier in the year—yes, this was 1991—the #1 song for six weeks was “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, which is also not a bad choice but certainly an interesting one.)

Anyway, i’ve put off getting to the lyrics themselves for long enough, so i should move on to them now. There’s no reason for you to be in quite such a hurry to reopen old memories, though, and so i’d suggest taking a moment to watch the literal version of the song’s video.

[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]

I have to admit that i’m not entirely sure if i got this line (these lines, actually, as you’ll see) correct. First of all, the ah may actually be aw—and even though those are pronounced the same by most North Americans, they’re different-sounding words for me, but i can’t tell which was intended here. Similarly, and more importantly for the meaning of the passage, i can’t tell whether the you is that or actually yeah.

You know what, though? I actually don’t care.

Also, you’ll notice that i put this line in brackets. That’s because there are four main types of lines in this song: lines sampled from other songs, lines delivered by the backup singers, a deep-voiced spoken interlude, and lines delivered by the lead singer. Just to keep things straight here, i’ll be putting the sampled lines in [square brackets], the background vocals in (parentheses), the spoken interlude in {curly brackets}, and the lines from the lead singer without any special marking at all.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]

Repetition, apparently to help people like me who aren’t entirely sure of the lyrics.

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]

Doesn’t help, though.

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]

What in the world does this have to do with the rest of the song, anyway?

[I know you not gonna sing that song!]

Were that that were true!

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]

You’re kidding, right? I mean, we’re getting into “Hanky Panky” territory here.

[I know you not gonna sing that song!]

Or maybe this is a true statement, and that song is actually a good one.

But at least this signals the end of the intro—the seduction is about to begin.

Come inside, take off your coat
I’ll make you feel at home
Now let’s pour a glass of wine
’Cause now we’re all alone

’Cause, you know, people never, ever drink wine when they’re in groups of more than two.

I’ve been waiting all night
So just let me hold you close to me
’Cause I've been dyin’ for you girl

Death? Wow—that seems a little bit extreme.

To make love to me
Girl, you make me feel real good
We can do it ’til we both wake up

Now, i’m not going to claim to be fully versed in all possible permutations of human sexual experience, but i’m having trouble imagining how this is supposed to work. After all, i’m pretty sure he just told her he wanted to have sex with her while they were both asleep. I mean, i suppose it can be romantic under certain circumstances to say that you plan to have erotic dreams about the object of your desire, and even to say that you wish the object of your desire to have erotic dreams about you, but it seems kind of out of place here.

Maybe this is actually a suggestion that they take Ambien together.

Girl, you know I’m hooked on you
And this is what I’ll do

More evidence for my Ambien theory.

[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]

Oh, please, not again.

(I wanna sex you up)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
All night

Ticking, tocking, never stopping, alling nighting sexing upping—you know, it’s kind of comforting to be faced with just an old-fashioned love song, comin’ down in three-part harmony.

[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(You make me feel real good)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
I want to

This is, seriously, the end of this line. Dude wants to.

Glad to know.

[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[I know you not gonna sing that song!]

That’s what we were hoping, at least.

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the]

Yep, this is the end of this line, too. Now, i realize that sampling technology wasn’t as advanced in 1991 as it is now, but it’s not like they were cutting tape up into scores of pieces to do this—they just had two samples (one saying To the ah tick tock you don’t stop, and one with the To the left off). You would think, then, that the producers would have been able to keep from including just the beginning of the longer sample before they managed to turn off the sampler—or at least that they would have fixed that in post-production.

Or maybe this line is actually reflecting the band’s adherence to the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, and so they had to include an imperfection to remind their viewers of the imperfection inherent in this sphere of existence, just as if this track was an ikebana flower arrangement.

Well, either that or they simply messed up. Yeah, probably that.

Let me take off all your clothes

Pretty forward of you, dude—but i guess you’ve poured enough wine into her by now that it doesn’t matter.

Disconnect the phone so nobody knows, yeah

Seriously, what’s the point? I mean, i can see disconnecting the phone so that y’all don’t get interrupted, but why would anyone know you’ve gotten her naked just because the phone’s not off? I mean, unless you’re expecting that you’d answer the phone during sex, but you’d have to have extremely poor taste to do that, right?

Let me light a candle so we can make it (better)

The word better is in the background vocals, presumably to make sure it gets your attention. Leaves me wondering: Better than what?

Makin’ love until we drown

Today’s real-world survival hint: If you are in danger of drowning due to your sexual conduct, try putting less water into the jacuzzi next time. Or maybe wear equipment more appropriate to the venue.

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Dig
Girl, you know, it feels real good
We can do it ’til we both wake up
Girl, you know I’m hooked on you
And this is what I’ll do

So once again we’ve been reminded that the gentlemen of Color Me Badd have sex while they sleep. However, the last line of this verse implies that we’re about to be told how exactly they go about doing this. I have to admit that, as ashamed as i am to say this, i’m kind of curious. So…

[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Yeah
(I wanna sex you up)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Makin’ love until we drown
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[I know you not gonna sing that song!]

And with this, we learn that Color Me Badd are collectively a big tease.

{Ah, girl, you just make me feel so good}

And here we have the deep-voiced spoken interlude.

{I just wanna, I just wanna look at you}

This is either a lie, or Color Me Badd have the most um, unique definition of “I wanna sex you up” that i’ve ever come across. Apparently it involves being (wait a moment while i scan through the lyrics to this point) naked, drunk, lit by candles, asleep, and underwater. Yeah, i guess maybe it’s that.

{Don’t say anything at all}
{Just lay back, and enjoy the ride, yeah}

You know, i’m a guy, and this just pushed the squickmeter to eleven.

Everybody out there who’s into guys, you could do the whole world a serious favor by withholding any sort of riding to a guy who refers to sex as “the ride”. Please?

All I want to do is
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
All night
[The the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(Girl, you make me feel good)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
I want to
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]

To be entirely honest, Color Me Badd is starting to sound a bit desperate here.

[I know you not gonna sing that song!]
Make sweet lovin’ all night long
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
Feels so right it can’t be wrong

Something feeling right isn’t a valid bit of evidence for it not being wrong.

My proof? It presumably felt right to record this song.

[I know you not gonna sing that song!]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Don't be shy girl, rescue me

The first Google hit for “rescue” is an a capella quartet. The second hit fits my opinion of this song much better—plenty of products to help this girl get rid of the pests in her life, or at least the pests in the same ~~room~~ body of water as her.

[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
Open up your heart, and I’ll set you free

Dude, it ain’t her heart you’re trying to open up. At least be honest with her about that!

[I know you not gonna sing that song!]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]

So not only are most of the lines in this song sampled from other sources in a desperate attempt to pad this song’s length, they repeat one of them over fifty times. You know, i’m starting to develop some opinions about y’all’s songwriting abilities—and let’s just say they’re somewhat short of positive.

Oh, I wanna touch you in all the right places, baby

This has got to be one of the worst pickup lines ever.

[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
I wanna make love to you
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Yeah
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]

Again with this line! Please, just make all the tick-tocking go away. Please?

All night, all night, yeah
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[To the ah tick tock you don’t stop]
You me
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]

Just stop, and i’ll say nice things about you.

[I know you not gonna sing that song!]

Okay, you’re right, i won’t.

But at least by this point the song is on fadeout, and even though it’s a really., really slow fadeout it means it’s almost done!

Which, in a way, is the best thing i’ve been able to say about this song in this entire post.

Make sweet lovin’ all night long
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Feels so right it can’t be wrong
[I know you not gonna sing that song!]
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
Don’t be shy girl, rescue me
[Ah tick tock you don’t stop]
(I wanna sex you up)
Open up your heart and I’ll set you free

Yep, this really is the way this song ends—with arguably the worst line found in the entire song.

But you know what? I suspect the gentlemen of Color Me Badd actually ramped up the quality of their lines for this song, and that they’re usually not even that smooth.

(p.s. The audio in that last link isn’t entirely safe for work. You’ve been warned.)

Frankie Valli: My Eyes Adored You

2010-05-07T16:59:00.032-08:00

This week Lyrics, Weakly moves into dangerous territory: criticizing an Italian-American from New Jersey.

The 1975 song “My Eyes Adored You” was actually recorded by the Four Seasons with Frankie Valli as lead singer, but their label wouldn’t release it. (Many other labels rejected the song after that, by the way. It’s somehow comforting to know that stupidity isn’t new to the music recording industry—they’ve been working on getting things wrong for a long time.) Frankie Valli bought the rights to the song, and finally got it released—but the label that released it didn’t want it released as a Four Seasons song, they wanted it released as a Frankie Valli song. As a result, it was Frankie Valli’s first solo #1 hit, even though it wasn’t actually a solo recording.

Confused? Yes? Well, welcome to logic, Recording Industry Association of America style.

Incidentally, while Frankie Valli was still working on getting himself established as a singer, he worked as a barber as his day job. I’ve got nothing to say about that, really, except that i find it both highly amusing and actually pretty cool.

Anyway—this song is actually pretty nice to listen to, if you’re in the mood for overt sappiness. (And aren’t we all, every once in a while?) Just make sure that you don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics when it comes on the radio. I mean, the weirdness starts with the very first line:

My eyes adored you

From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary:

Main Entry: adore
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈdȯr\
Inflected Form(s): adored; ador·ing
1: to worship or honor as a deity or as divine
2: to regard with loving admiration and devotion
3: to be very fond of

So Frankie Valli’s eyes either worshipped this woman, regarded her with admiration or devotion, or were very fond of her.

The odd thing is that such actions generally require a brain. The idea that Frankie Valli’s eyes might actually be independently sentient and capable of acting on their own frightens me, for some reason.

By the way, all this talk about worship and eyes is reminding me of what is easily the creepiest song the B–52’s ever recorded.

Though I never laid a hand on you my eyes adored you

I don’t get the cause and effect relationship here. That is, this is set up as something where you’d expect a cause and effect relationship (one’s eyes would normally adore someone precisely because you laid a hand on the object of the adoration), but it’s a twist where the effect occurs even without the expected cause. You know, like if someone said “Though i’ve never liked coconut, i adore piña coladas”.

Well, that’s all well and good, except that there is no such expected cause and effect relationship between laying one’s hands on someone else and adoration. Basically, Mr. Valli, you’re fulfilling metrical requirements at the expense of logical requirements.

Oh—and what exactly does Mr. Valli mean by I never laid a hand on you? ’Cause to me, that means you hit the person you’re talking to, and that’s just not cool, not to mention a very unlikely situation to have linked to adoration.

Even if you’re talking about a softer, more romantic touch (and next time you talk about sweet caresses, please choose a different turn of phrase), there’s still no cause and effect relationship, or at least not in that direction—generally, one desires to touch someone else because one adores that person, rather than adoring someone because you have touched them.

I have to admit that when i started this blog i didn’t expect that i’d be giving out relationship advice.

Like a million miles away from me you couldn’t see how I adored you

It amazes me how easily logic got thrown out the window so that the meter would work in the previous line, but then meter gets completely ignored here. Go figure.

Oh—and it isn’t really all that hard to see things that are a million miles away. I mean, the sun is over ninety million miles away, and it’s so easy to see that it can blind you.

So close, so close and yet so far

Random cliché!

Carried your books from school
Playing make-believe you’re married to me

I myself am a married man, and though i can’t presume to speak for all married men, and certainly not for married women, i don’t spend a lot of time carrying my wife’s textbooks. In fact, i didn’t do so even when she was actually recently in (grad) school.

Essentially, Mr. Valli, no matter how much you may have been into this girl, she was calmly and rationally analyzing the situation to determine whether you would be an acceptable partner in a long-term relationship. However, since you didn’t act in ways that might have matched her expectations of such behavior (might i suggest that a neck rub when she was looking tense or a friendly hug when she was feeling sad might have been a better choice than never, ever touching her in any way at all), she never reciprocated your desire. Sorry it didn’t work out for you, better luck in the future.

You were fifth grade, I was sixth

Two things:

First, a quick memo to Benny Mardones: If you’re gonna go after minors, it’s better to be eleven than to be thirty-three (or more). Just sayin’.

Second, is this the way they really talk in New Jersey? ’Cause for me, there’s a missing preposition (namely, ‘in’) before each of the ordinal numbers in that line. I may be wrong in this—and it’s entirely possible, since in the New York City conurbation, including at least much of North Jersey, people often wait ‘on line’ rather than ‘in line’, so there are other prepositional things going on there already—but unless advised otherwise, i’m going to attribute this to being an instance of ignoring English grammar in the slavish service of metrical faithfulness.

When we came to be walking home every day over Barnegat Bridge and Bay

Well, except, of course, when meter gets ignored.

Really, Mr. Valli, could you just make up your mind whether you want the metrical pattern of this song to be regular or not? I’m having trouble keeping track.

Anyway, Barnegat Bay is supposed to be a fairly scenic place, and so conducive to this sort of unrequited desire, i figure. Oddly, i can’t find a bridge on or near Barnegat Bay named “Barnegat Bridge”. As far as i can tell, though, this line is a tribute to a wooden bridge that was replaced with the (now structurally deficient) Thomas A. Mathis Bridge in 1950.

No snark in that last paragraph, just the results of a brief bout of geekery-inducing internet research. Sorry—i’ll try not to lapse into seriousness any more.

Til we grew into the me and you
Who went our separate ways

Obligatory Journey reference!

(Not to mention this highly amateurish but rather endearing version, and this much more professional but thoroughly hilarious one.)

Then we get the chorus again.

Headed for city lights
Climbed the ladder up to fortune and fame

See also ‘Metaphors, mixed’.

I worked my fingers to the bone
Made myself a name

I never realized how lucky i was that my parents simply gave me a name. I can’t imagine having to build my own—i mean, where would i get the materials?

Funny, I seem to find that no matter how the years unwind,
Still I reminisce about the girl I miss
And the love I left behind

You know, it really sounds like you stayed in love, and she never was in love with you. Therefore, you didn’t leave it behind, since there was nothing to leave behind—in fact, if anything, you brought it with you. As a result, Mr. Valli, i’m afraid that i’m going to have to recommend that you be placed in Remedial Logic 099.

(I’ve never actually been a student or a teacher at a college that offered Remedial Logic, but i’m thinking that it would have to be the most horribly frustrating class to teach ever. “No, Frankie, saying ‘But i’m right’ more often than the person you’re arguing with doesn’t constitute well-formed evidence for a claim…”)

And then we get the chorus again, again.

All my life I will remember how warm and tender
We were way back then, oh baby

Dude, she just wasn’t that into you. I know it’s harsh to hear it, but really, it’s time to get over it and move on.

Though I’m feeling sad regrets I know I won’t ever forget
You, my childhood friend

And then we’re given one last bizarre cause-and-effect relationship to mull over. I mean, Mr. Valli is saying he won’t ever forget some girl he knew when he was a preteen despite the fact that he’s feeling regret? Seriously, how does that connection between those things even work? I guess, hypothetically, he wouldn’t be feeling regret if he’d forgotten her, but then it’d be something like “I’m feeling no regrets though i haven’t managed to forget” or somesuch—really, the opposite of what he’s saying. I think he’s trying to say “I’m feeling sad regrets because i know i won’t ever forget”—but that doesn’t work with the meter, and as we’ve already learned, this song is all about throwing logic out the window in order to preserve the meter, except of course for when the metrical pattern gets completely ignored.

(And then, just to mess with us, Mr. Valli closes us off with one final repetition of the chorus during the fadeout, so as to remind us that his eyes have achieved sentience and are capable of emotional reactions—like you hadn’t been properly creeped out by that idea yet.)

Natalie Imbruglia: Torn

2010-04-30T18:37:00.001-08:00

If i wanted to, i could divide the songs that have been featured here on Lyrics, Weakly into a number of different categories: There are songs that could have been good, but the lyrics are so bad that it distracts from the music; there are songs that are just plain horrible, and the lyrics are badly done as part of the whole package; there are songs that you could argue i like precisely because the lyrics are so awful it makes for a so-bad-it’s good listening experience.

And then there are songs like today’s feature, Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”: Songs i like even though the lyrics are nonsensical enough that you would have thought it would result in me downgrading it.

I can’t explain why i like this song, unless it’s the result of context—it was released in 1997, which wasn’t really a good year for music. (You don’t believe me? Just consider one fact: The Spice Girls made Spice World that year. ’Nuff said.) So maybe it’s all wrapped up in the fact that this song stayed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven weeks, thereby reducing the number of times we all had to listen to “Wannabe” yet again.

But, like i said, the lyrics of the song leave a bit to be desired. Just listen:

I thought I saw a man brought to life

Methinks Ms Imbruglia spent too much time watching Frankenstein movies growing up.

He was warm
He came around
And he was dignified

Two things here.

First of all, if someone is alive, that person is generally warm, at least assuming you think 98.6 degrees fahrenheit/37 celsius counts as warm. (If that doesn’t count as warm to you, though, i suggest you urge this man to seek medical attention quickly.)

Second, of course he’s dignified, as any fan of Gene Wilder and/or Peter Boyle could have told you.

He showed me what it was to cry

Maybe it just comes of being a parent, but i strongly suspect that no human needs to be shown how to cry.

Maybe Ms Imbruglia isn’t human? One might now suspect. Just sayin’.

Well you couldn’t be that man I adored
You don’t seem to know
Or seem to care
What your heart is for

Ooh! Ooh! I know what the heart is for! Do i get extra credit for that?

I don’t know him anymore

In all seriousness, i can’t figure out this particular lyric—Ms Imbruglia switches from second person (you) to third person (he) without a bit of warning. Is she complaining about us, and then suddenly switches to complaining about some guy she knows? ’Cause that’s what it sounds like, and to be quite honest, if she wants me to lend a sympathetic ear to her man troubles, she really oughtn’t lead into it by kvetching about me to my face.

Or, of course, it could simply be that she doesn’t understand human emotions, and this is actually the way they talk about such things on her home world.

There’s nothin’ where he used to lie

Um, that’s because he used to lie there. See? It’s in the past tense, which means it was like that at some point previous to the present. Further, the construction ‘used to’ means that the past-tense state or action is completed, meaning it doesn’t exist that way any more. Therefore, since he used to lie there, he no longer lies there. Glad to have been able to clear that up for you!

(Sometimes it’s good to have a professional linguist around to help out in such cases. Just doing my civic duty, folks, nothing more.)

My conversation has run dry
That’s what's going on
Nothing’s right

Might i suggest medical help, yet again?

I’m torn

Or, perhaps, medical attention for other symptoms?

I’m all out of faith

Well, on that one at least i suspect WebMD isn’t going to be much help.

This is how I feel
I’m cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor

If lying on the floor while naked makes you cold, it might be worth standing up, or at least lying on carpet rather than tile.

No, really, no need to thank me—just happy to help.

Illusion never changed
Into something real
I’m wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn

Normally, “torn” isn’t used to describe perfect things. So, then, if the sky is torn, it wouldn’t be perfect, right? So how can the perfect sky be torn? And if the sky was torn to any significant degree, wouldn’t we lose our atmosphere, which would mean that there was no sky at all?

In other news, this sentence is completely false.

You’re a little late
I’m already torn

You know, even taking this couplet as i’m pretty sure it was actually intended, being that torn up over someone being a little late seems like it’s kind of an extreme reaction. But maybe that’s just me.

So I guess the fortune teller’s right

Just wondering what would we do without YouTube to let us know how to gain access to such useful technologies?

(Alternatively, there’s this one, but it’s not entirely safe for work.)

I should have seen just what was there and not some holy light

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

But you crawled beneath my veins
And now, I don’t care
I have no luck
I don’t miss it all that much
There’s just so many things
That I can’t touch
I’m torn

Please see my previous comments about gaining information on treating medical "issues.

There’s nothin’ where he used to lie
My inspiration has run dry
That’s what’s going on
Nothing’s right
I’m torn

More depression.

Wow—this has really turned into a downer of a song. Therefore, i will leave you with something to lighten the mood.

Tommy James and the Shondells: Hanky Panky

2010-04-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Lyrics, Weakly.

For this week’s episode, we take you back to 1966. 1966 was a pretty decent year for music, no matter what genre you prefer—for a few examples of the great things that happened that year, consider this partial list: The Beatles continued their move from just another upbeat rhythm and blues band to something original with the release of the Revolver album, arguably their best ever; Simon and Garfunkel released the Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme albums; the Beach Boys released the Pet Sounds album; Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention released the Freak Out! album; Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had four (yes, four!) albums in the Billboard top ten; the Buffalo Springfield, Cream, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were formed; the Metropolitan Opera House opened in New York City; the first Mostly Mozart Festival was held in New York City; and Charley Pride got his major label deal.

In the midst of this most excellent music year, Frank Sinatra had a few chart-toppers, including the biggest hit of the year, “Strangers in the Night”—and even someone (like myself) who’s not really into Frank Sinatra has to admit that that’s just a beautifully performed song.

And what was the song that pushed Ol’ Blue-Eyes from the top of the charts?

None other than “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells.

Yes, this was a year that gave us #1 songs like not only “Strangers in the Night” but “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” by the Righteous Brothers, “Monday Monday” by the Mamas and the Papas, “We Can Work It Out” and “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles, “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by the Supremes, “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops, “Paint It, Black” by the Rolling Stones, “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge, “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel, “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra, “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, and “Good Lovin’” by the Young Rascals.

And, um, “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells. Yes, this song hit #1. Apparently, Frank Sinatra singing love songs was too complicated, and America had to move down a couple notches on the complexity scale to this thing.

(By the way, there are a lot of links in that list of #1 songs, but they’re there to jog your memory if you don’t remember hearing any of them—and also to let you compare even the least tuneful of them, not that i’m calling out Nancy Sinatra specifically here, and hear how much better it is than Mr. James and his Shondells.)

So let’s go ahead and listen to Tommy James telling us about his baby.

My baby does the hanky panky

Yes, this is a thinly-veiled—okay, a pretty much completely non-veiled—sexual reference.

I actually tried to google “hanky panky” to see whether this was actually the name of a dance craze back in the 60s (i mean, there was one called the “frug”, so it’s entirely possible), and after excluding a whole huge bunch of search results due to this song and a brand of lingerie, i conclude that no, this isn’t even a double entendre—this is about as blatantly sexual as you’re gonna get on commercial radio in the 60s.

So, you know, props for keepin’ it real and all that.

Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky

Repeated for emphasis, apparently.

My baby does the hanky panky

Um, dude? We got it the first two times.

My baby does the hanky panky

No, make that the first three times.

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

Now you’re just gloating.

My baby does the hanky panky

No, seriously—it’s getting old now. Stop it.

Yeah, yeah, my baby does the hanky panky

Please just make it stop. Is that too much to ask?

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

Yes. Yes, it was.

My baby does the hanky panky

Mr. James, i hate you.

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

[vaguely coherent angry mumbling]

I saw her walkin’ on down the line

What’s that? New lyrics? Good—i was about to do something i was probably going to regret later.

And they’re even coherent—looks like we’re building up to a story here.

Yeah, you know I saw her for the very first time
A pretty little girl standin’ all alone

Ah! A story about young love! The beauty of that innocent first meeting and such.

“Hey pretty baby, can I take you home?”

Or maybe not.

You know, this strikes me as a bit forward for a first meeting. But then again, as we know by now, this girl does the hanky panky. Maybe offering a proposition right at the outset is Mr. James’s method of finding out whether she’ll put out right from the start—kind of a “tell me now before i spend twenty dollars on drinks” kind of thing. I suppose we ought to give Mr. James credit for being up-front with his desires.

Or maybe this is how he starts out because she’s actually a very specific sort of pretty little girl. Either way it works for him, i suppose.

I never saw her, never really saw her

And so now our two lovers head home together, and…

Huh?

The only way this makes sense is if Mr. James is blind (which he isn’t, i checked). No, wait, i take that back. It doesn’t make sense even then, after saying I saw her walking on down the line earlier.

This is making my head hurt—not a good move for a little pop song.

My baby does the hanky panky

And now my head hurts worse.

Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky

Seriously, dude, stop it. Now.

But, of course, Mr. James doesn’t stop it.

And in the interest of your continued sanity, i’ll skip the three repetitions of this line that immediately follow. For those of you keeping score at home, though, those additional three repetitions mean that Mr. James has seen fit to tell us fifteen times that the woman he propositioned is sexually active.

I’m starting to wonder about that, by the way—Mr. James is starting to sound like there’s a bit more talk than action going on in his bedroom, you know?

Anyway, now we get to more storyline.

I saw her walkin’ on down the line

Oh, cool—it looks like we’re going to get a bit more detail about how he met her. That’s good—maybe we’ll finally find out what was going on with the whole I saw her vs. I never saw her paradox.

Yeah, you know I saw her for the very first time

Oh, dear. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

A pretty little girl standin’ all alone
“Hey pretty baby, can I take you home?”
I never saw her, never really saw her

Grrr.

You mean it’s not enough to repeat the same six words over and over and over, you even have to repeat the only semblance of storyline word-for-word?

And that means…Oh, please, for the love of all that is holy, no.

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky
Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky
Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

Yes.

Nine more times, no less.

Yes, twenty-four times we had to be told that Mr. James is getting busy with his girlfriend. Dude and dudette, just get a room and leave the rest of us alone, okay?

Anyway, sorry to subject all of you to a song this repetitive. As a consolation prize for having made it through all this, i offer you this amazing video—it starts out with one of the most amazingly psychedelic lyrics i’ve ever heard from before the psychedelic rock era, and evolves into an even more psychedelic performance. Seriously, don’t give up on it after the first minute or so, and take the opportunity to learn more about the sexual fetishes that existed in 1944 than you ever thought existed—they had more going on than you ever dreamed, apparently. You’ll never think of your grandparents and great-grandparents the same way.

Ke$ha: Tik Tok

2010-04-09T20:48:00.099-08:00

So Lyrics, Weakly is going to be preempted next week by your host flying in really tiny airplanes across Alaska, so this week i’ll be taking on a song that i’ve wanted to deal with for months: the hit song “Tik Tok”, by the unpronounceably named Ke$ha.

I’ve held back on this one up to this point even though the idiocy of the lyrics strikes me anew every time i hear it come up on the radio, though. Why? Because i can’t escape the feeling that Ke$ha (sorry, can’t type that with a straight face—her name’s actually Kesha Rose Sebert) wrote lyrics that idiotic completely on purpose. But you know what? I’ve decided that idiocy is idiocy, even when it’s a front.

So let’s join our heroine (technically our antiheroine, i suppose) as she starts our story at the beginning of her busy, busy day…

Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy (Hey, what up girl?)

So you wake up in the morning feeling like an overweight black man? That makes this, I think, the only reference to hallucinogens in this entire song.

Oh, and Ms Sebert—i would have thought that someone as with it and hip and all as you profess to be would realize that, at least in the United States, calling Diddy “P Diddy” is so five years ago.

Put my glasses on, I’m out the door
I’m gonna hit this city (Let’s go)

I would recommend against hitting cities. Since they’re usually made of things like asphalt and steel and tempered glass, you’re more likely to end up with bruises on your hand than anything else.

Well, unless this city is built on rock and roll. In that case, go right ahead.

Before I leave brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack
Cause when I leave for the night, I ain’t coming back

Two completely separate but related idiocies here.

First of all: You brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels?!? Yes, i realize that whiskey has a fairly high alcohol content and so may have antimicrobial properties, but really, regular brushing with a fluoride toothpaste is your best route to dental health.

And then the next line gives the reason for this unconventional dental health regimen. So why, exactly, is Ms Sebert doing this? Because she isn’t coming back tonight.

Yeah, that works. And you know why i’m going to eat lunch around midday tomorrow? Because my coat needs cleaning.

Makes about as much sense as she did.

I’m talking pedicure on our toes, toes
Trying on all our clothes, clothes

I’m sure that all the retail clerks and pedicure practitioners (what are they actually called, anyway?) out there will be more than happy to serve your drunkard’s breath-smelling self, Ms Sebert. It just makes their day when a lush walks into their place and demands service, it really does.

Boys blowing up our phones, phones

I know what this line is supposed to mean, but i can’t get away from the literal reading.

Drop-topping, playing our favorite CDs

I think my life would be perfect and complete if one of these was a recording of Los Romeros performing Vivaldi guitar concertos.

Pulling up to the parties
Trying to get a little bit tipsy

Trying? This from a woman who brushes her teeth with Jack Daniels? All i can say is either you’re not trying hard enough, or you’ve built up a really frightening tolerance.

Don’t stop, make it pop

Notice that she never tells us what this it is that’s supposed to pop. I’m not certain, but i have my suspicions.

DJ, blow my speakers up

More explosions. All we need is a car chase, and we’ve got a summer movie.

Tonight, Ima fight
Til we see the sunlight

Drunken catfight!

Tick tock, on the clock
But the party don’t stop no
Woah-oh uh oh
Woah-oh uh oh

The party isn’t stopping even though the clock is ticking? Wow, she is a party animal. I know that any parties i go to stop instantly the moment the clock starts ticking.

In other news, i sometimes use sarcasm on this blog.

Ain’t got a care in world, but got plenty of beer
Ain’t got no money in my pocket, but I’m already here

Can somebody explain that last line to me? I mean, i’m trying to imagine a conversation in which that would be a logical thing to say. Well, unless somebody asked her how much money she has and where she is, which is just a bizarre thing to ask someone at a party, but she apparently goes to different parties than i do. And even if that’s what she was asked, the but in the middle of the line continues to make no sense.

You know, i may be on thin ice about this, but i’m starting to suspect that some of the phrases Ms Sebert uses in this song are simply to fill gaps in the meter rather than actually conveying logical meaning in any of the ways people usually use language.

And now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger
But we kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger

Really?

Mick Jagger?

Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones Mick Jagger?

I generally put links to pictures in this blog, but i think this merits an actual picture right here:

You really mean that is what a guy has to look like for you to allow him to hang out with you?

So not only are you a drunk with no sense of logic, you’re also either blind or have no taste.

I’m voting no taste, by the way.

I’m talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk
Boys trying to touch my junk, junk
Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk

Nice double standard—you’re allowed to get drunk, but this Mick Jagger-looking dude isn’t? Now you’re a jerk, too.

Now, now we goin’ til they kicked us out, out
Or the police shut us down, down
Police shut us down, down
Po-po shut us

Ima let you finish, but the Police were the best shut-down trio in the business!

DJ, you build me up, you break me down
My heart, it pounds, yeah, you got me
With my hands up you got me now
You got that sound, yeah, you got me
DJ, you build me up, you break me down
My heart, it pounds, yeah, you got me
With my hands up
Get your hands up
Put your hands up

This bridge makes no sense either. The DJ builds her up and breaks her down, all because of the sound? I mean, I get the heart pounding thing—heart palpitations are a symptom of binge drinking, after all—but the rest of it simply seems an excuse to break out the Auto-Tune while continuing to say nothing. Again.

Now, the party don’t start until I walk in

So up to this line we had her pegged as a drunken jerk with no sense of logic or taste. Let’s add arrogant to the list of character traits.

Yeah, you’re making yourself look real desirable here, Ms Sebert.

And for what it’s worth, the party was going fine before you walked in. You walking in simply brought in enough alcohol vapors that the place is explosive now.

And then we get a few more repetitions of the chorus, which i’ll skip—i think i’ve had quite enough of this encounter, and y’all probably have to.

I’ll see y’all in two weeks. Go party in the meantime, and be happy neither Ke$ha nor Mick Jagger is there.

Duran Duran: Is There Something I Should Know?

2010-04-02T17:18:00.040-08:00

You know, people really don’t give Duran Duran enough credit, i’d argue. Yeah, like many new-wave synthpop bands they were better known for their hair and clothing than their musicianship, but this was a band that could actually perform, and perform well. Unfortunately, their ability to write quality lyrics was a bit more hit-or-miss. Take, for example, their hit “Is There Something I Should Know?”, which aside from ending in a question mark and therefore providing tons of headaches for later writers (should I or should I not have placed a comma after the song name?), is wonderfully catchy but garbled enough to make no sense whatsoever.

And it’s not like this is something the song works into—it starts out pretty intensely, but really rather nonsensically.

Please please tell me now, please please tell me now
Please please tell me now, please please tell me now

You know, Duran Duran, i’d happily tell you, and i’d happily tell you now, in fact, except that you haven’t given me enough context to be able to figure out what in the world i’m supposed to tell you.

Well, unless i’m supposed to take you literally and say “Now”, in which case this is a pretty silly request.

I made a break I run out yesterday
Tried to find my mountain hideaway
Maybe next year maybe no go

So let’s parse this and see if it makes any sense.

So the Misters Duran have escaped from something. It’s gotta be something big—prison, or maybe they’re soldiers behind enemy lines?—since they’ve got to go hide out in the mountains.

But then they decide, oh, never mind, maybe next year. No biggie.

Ah. So that means that the answer to the implied question i started this section of the post with—does this makes any sense?—is no. Glad to get that figured out.

I know you’re watching me every minute of the day yeah

Paranoia’s the destroyer, dudes.

I’ve seen the signs and the looks and the pictures that give your game away yeah

First of all…No, never mind, there is no first of all. There is only vague confusion.

I guess this is the reason for the paranoia in the preceding line. After all, there are very few situations in which one would ever be associated with things like signs and glances and photographs, so obviously the person or people that the Durans are running from are not to be trusted.

There’s a dream that strings the road
With broken glass for us to hold
And I cut so far before I have to say

I’ve tried to come up with something to say about this, i really have, but it’s so completely meaningless that it’s just not possible. I mean, if there were a coherent message embedded in here, even the vaguest bit of narrative coherence, well then i could say something. But if someone comes at you with completely pathological speech, there’s no sensible reaction except maybe to pat their hand and reassure them it’ll all be okay if they calm down.

Please please tell me now is there something I should know

Okay, then, i will. You should know that nobody’s going to believe your little conspiracy theories. Harsh, i know, but it’s true.

Is there something I should say that’ll make you come my way

If they’re chasing you into a mountain hideaway, it sounds like you don’t need to say anything at all—they’re going to come after you whether you say anything or not.

Do you feel the same cause you don’t let it show

No, they’re chasing you, you’re being chased. Believe me, those two roles do feel quite different.

People stare and cross the road from me
And jungle drums they all clear the way for me
Can you read my mind can you see in the snow

Mm-hmm, let’s see…Things are pretty stressful for the Durans, i see. People cross the street to avoid them, there are jungle drums beating, i don’t get why that clears their path but whatever, it does, there’s more paranoia, par for the course, expecting that your pursuers can read your mind, and then…What?!?

Where in the world does can you see in the snow come from??

I think i jut suffered a whiplash injury to the logical reasoning section of my brain. I mean, what in the world does this have to do with anything else in this song?

And fiery demons all dance when you walk through that door

Aha! Snow is a problem because of all those fiery dancing demons.

No, never mind, this still doesn’t work. Sorry.

Don’t say you’re easy on me you're about as easy as a nuclear war

According to the 1983 documentary WarGames, though, global thermonuclear war is easy—it’s tic-tac-toe that’s hard.

And then we get more neediness, with the Durans asking, nay, pleading that we tell them…well, exactly what we’re supposed to tell them i’m not sure, but it’s certainly something, right?

Please please tell me now is there something I should know
Is there something I should say that’ll make you come my way
Please please tell me now can you see what makes me blow
Can you see how much I’d die every time it passes by
Please please tell me now what it takes to make it show
Is there something I should know
Is there something I should know

Well, I guess so. Deuced if i know what it is, though.

(p.s. Is there any way to spin the can you see what makes me blow line into anything other than either a drug or sex reference? I can’t come up with any alternative, but then again, i wasn’t one of the cool kids in the early 80s, so maybe i’m just missing something obvious.)

Alanis Morissette: Ironic

2010-03-26T17:05:00.022-08:00

This week we go with the low-hanging fruit: a song that has been rightly mocked from the moment it came out for having some of the most bizarrely idiotic lyrics ever released on an unsuspecting populace, but that was also a pretty big hit.

Yes, that’s right, this week Lyrics, Weakly takes on Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”, a song about how life is, in the words of the song, a little too ironic. And how ironic, you may ask, is too ironic? Apart from this song hitting #1 on the Billboard modern rock chart, that is? Well, it earned a Grammy nomination, for one. And how is that ironic? For that, we go to the lyrics.

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day

You know, i actually have a soft spot for songs that tell stories, especially when they’re not telling thoroughly sappy, hyper-unrealistic stories. This is the sort of thing that could happen (and probably has happened) in real life—a lot of elderly people like to play the lottery, after all. I’m figuring that the guy was happy to go out that way—it’d finally worked for him, and he didn’t have to worry about any of the tax implications. (Not to mention that he was ninety-eight. If i make it to ninety-eight and no further, believe me, it’s better than i’m expecting—no complaints from me about not making it to ninety-nine!)

So hurrah! for Ms. Morissette, offering up a story that sounds sad, but is actually uplifting and happy. Given the tone of rest of the songs on the Jagged Little Pill album, this is a nice little break.

What? What’s that? That’s not how that little vignette was intended? Hmph. Guess a little more exposition would have been useful. Oh well. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks.

It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay

You want to avoid this situation? Don’t drink cheap wine outside. See how easy that was?

It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late

This doesn’t actually happen these days, you know—there’s this amazing invention called the “telephone”, which, when combined with another amazing modern invention called the “clock”, makes it so that if someone’s is going to be pardoned from death row, the person doing the pardoning can make sure it’s all done well in advance of the sentence being carried out. Amazing, the stuff they’ve come up with these days.

Maybe it’s more amazing that Ottawa was still so remote back in the 70s and 80s (while Ms. Morissette was growing up) that they apparently still used pony express and sundials then, since that’s apparently the way Ms. Morissette thinks people communicate and tell time. I’d’ve thought Canada was more technologically advanced than that, but apparently i’d’ve been wrong.

(In fairness, and in light of the way i rip into this song in coming paragraphs, i should say that if this were in fact to happen, it would be an ironic situation. But given the rest of the song, i think this is actually a case of the way even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. Or, given the video for the song, maybe it’s actually more a case of a nut finding a nut.)

And isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

To begin with, the grammar here is confusing. Isn’t it ironic? What is it, anyway? We’ve just been treated to three different items—does Ms. Morissette mean to ask if they are ironic? Not to mention that, as many, many people have pointed out, the level of irony here is actually pretty low.

(By the way, the last of those links is my favorite.)

Irony (from Wikipedia)

is a situation, literary technique, or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity, discordance, or unintended connection with truth, that goes strikingly beyond the most simple and evident meaning of words or actions…[Situations in which] a certain factual truth is highlighted by some person's complete ignorance of it, or belief in the opposite of it—however, this contrast does not occur by human design…Almost all irony involves commentary that heightens tension naturally involved in the state and fate of a person (in the present, or the past) who badly needs to know a given fact they could easily know but does not.

Well, none of the examples given actually mean the opposite of their literal meaning, and they certainly don’t involve someone who needs to know something they don’t, so that’s not what’s going on.

But wait! you say—the meaning of the word irony is changing, and now it more often means something like “incongruous”. Okay, fine. I can kind of see how the dude dying right after winning the lottery is incongruous. But an insect that’s fallen into a glass of wine? That’s not incongruous, that’s grounds for getting a new, clean glass.

Maybe the last line of that chorus is punctuated wrongly—maybe it’s supposed to be And isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think! After all, if anyone really thought about it they’d figure out that they’d just been presented with a lie, so it’s an attempt to keep people from turning off the radio in annoyance.

It worked, apparently.

It’s like rain on your wedding day
It’s a free ride when you've already paid
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take

More alleged irony—or, i should say, more alleged “irony”.

Rain on your wedding day isn’t ironic. It’s not even a problem, actually, unless you’ve planned on an outdoor ceremony—and if you planned an outdoor ceremony without a backup indoor location in case of rain, well, you deserve what you get.

And a free ride when you’ve already paid? Dude, if you’ve already paid, it’s not free. That one just makes no sense at all.

And not taking good advice is something that we all do all the time. It’s not ironic, it’s simply life. Get over it already.

And who would’ve thought it figures?

Every single time i hear this song, i’m struck by how much of a non sequitur this line is. Well, maybe not really a non sequitur, but that’s only because it’s so completely out of place, such a completely perfect and pure non sequitur, that you can’t tell enough of what it’s about to be sure it has nothing to do with what precedes it.

And then we get another story.

Mister Play-It-Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
“Well isn’t this nice?”

Huh?

You know, this almost ironic (in the incongruous sense). However, certain details in the story are bizarre enough that it doesn’t quite reach that level, stopping instead at the level of stupid.

I mean, what sort of crazy detail is it to include that he waited his whole damn life to take that flight? As someone who’s afraid to fly (but is resigned to occasional air travel being part of my job), i can’t imagine saying “One day i’ll take that flight to Des Moines.” If you’re afraid to fly, you fly because you have to, not because you want to.

Oh—and of course he waited his whole life to take it. If he died during the flight (well, i suppose technically he may have died right at the unscheduled end of the flight), then that was the end of his life. Circularity of description, however, is not ironic.

And isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

Once again, what i think is that the punctuation is wrong.

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up in your face

I think this is supposed to be deep, or at least incongruous and therefore ironic. It isn’t, though—it’s merely incomprehensible in the service of stating the obvious. After all, all that this bridge is saying is that sometimes life goes badly, sometimes it goes well. All right, then, that was exciting. What’s next?

Oh. More “irony”. I shouldn’t have asked.

A traffic jam when you’re already late

Can somebody explain the irony here to me? This is the second-biggest puzzle in the whole song for me. (The biggest? Two lines down. You can’t miss it.) I fail to see any hint of any irony-like thing anywhere near this particular situation. A traffic jam when you’d otherwise be running on time? Sure—that may even rise to the classical definition of irony, in fact. This, though? Nothing even approaching irony of any sort.

A no smoking sign on your cigarette break

Given the restrictions on smoking these days, if you’re a smoker and you’re in the habit of not scouting out ahead of time where you’re going to be able to smoke, well, then you deserve to not be able to use your preferred nicotine delivery device.

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

And here it is—the dumbest line in this entire dumb song!

I mean, first of all, what are you doing with ten thousand spoons, anyway? If you’re dealing in ten thousand spoons at a time, you’d better be a caterer—and if you’re a caterer and you’ve managed to forget a knife, you’re going to get pretty negative reviews, and rightfully so. That’s not ironic, it’s poor business practice.

Well, either that or it’s a lesson in not getting the really big boxes of plasticware from Costco. Either way, though, still not ironic.

It’s meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife

And that’s going to stop you? Wow, Ms. Morissette, you’re more mellow about relationships than some of your songs would lead us to believe.

And isn’t it ironic, don't you think?
A little too ironic, and, yeah, I really do think

Not only are these things alleged to be ironic, they’re alleged to be too ironic.

And y’know, ma’am, i’m not sure that you actually really did think. But so it goes.

My favorite part of all this, actually, is Ms. Morissette’s post hoc attempts to make the song deeper than it is.

For me the sweetest moment came in New York when a woman came up to me in a record store and said, “So all those things in the song ‘Ironic’ aren’t ironic.” And then she said, “And that’s the irony.” I said, “Yup.”

No, it only counts if you did it on purpose—and i don’t believe that you did it on purpose. Sorry, but there you have it.

Maybe the real irony is that i wasted this many electrons on this waste of a song—but at least i’m not alone in that.

(And yes, i am aware that “Hand in My Pocket”, from the same album, has received less mockery but is even stupider than this song. Maybe i’ll get to that one one day, too.)

Buffalo Springfield: Mr. Soul

2010-03-19T16:17:00.065-08:00

This week we travel back to the late 60s and visit a song that was never a big hit, but that remains one of the best-known songs of one of the greatest bands of the era: Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul”.

“Mr. Soul” was written by Neil Young, a performer who’s rightly acknowledged as also being a great songwriter. Mr. Young built this song in an unusual (for rock, at least) structure—three verses of four rhyming lines each, and no chorus. Basically, the song is written more like a poem than an ordinary rock song. This means, of course, that this week we’ll be in for a real treat, a vision of perfect songsmanship. Right? Well, we shall see.

Oh, hello Mr. Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason

See, what’d i say? Pure genius! Structuring a song in the form of a conversation between the artist and someone outside of the ordinary conversation between artist and audience, pushing us headlong into a world of pure metaphor, where reasons can be exchanged like candy.

For the thought that I caught that my head is the event of the season

See, once again, pure…erm…well…i guess this would actually be best described as incomprehensibility.

Hmmm.

Let me try to parse this sentence. Maybe it means…well, no, not that. Maybe…no, that wouldn’t make sense, either. Essentially, this is not English sentence structure.

Well. Since we know Neil Young is a genius, let’s just chalk this up to bad transcription. Yeah! That explains it! Every single lyrics site out there is wrong, and if we could only decipher what Mr. Young had actually written, we’d all be sitting here stunned and slack-jawed with amazement at how amazing and beautiful this line actually was, instead of stunned and slack-jawed at how amazing and beautiful it…isn’t. Um.

In other words, move along, there’s nothing to see here.

Why in crowds just a trace of my face could seem so pleasin’
I’ll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on.

See? This is just absolutely…

Well, the best word would, i guess, be “nonsensical”.

But at least it’s actually English, so it’s got that going for it!

I was down on a frown when the messenger brought me a letter
I was raised by the praise of a fan who said I upset her

So which is it, Mr. Young? Were you down or raised? Or is it that the praise of the fan raised your spirits, after they’d been down? Probably that. Except that she also said you’d upset her, which only makes really mean people happy. So you’re a mean person, Mr. Young? Good of you to admit it, i guess.

And why would being brought a letter get you down? Most people like to get mail. Unless it’s bills.

Ooh! It makes sense now!

Mr. Young was delivered what he thought was a bill for his most recent hashish purchase, and he was sad about it, since he knew he’d either have to pay out a lot of money out or have his knuckles repossessed by the Bank of Guido. But it turned out that it wasn’t a bill, it was actually hate mail from someone who said he’d upset her, which made Mean Mr. Young smile.

Or maybe Mr. Young’s making a deeper point—that really deep stuff like good rock music can’t be tied down to ordinary, boring things like narrative structure. Yeah, man, that’s gotta be it! Genius!

Okay, i’ll let you stop rolling your eyes before moving on to the next lines.

Any girl in the world could have easily known me better
She said you're strange, but don't change, and I let her.

You let her what, Mr. Young? I mean, this being a rock song and all, normally i’d go for the unspoken sexual interpretation here, but with the line preceding it it’s just confusing. You’d let her know you better? Well, that makes sense, since you’d apparently let any girl in the world do so. But the most immediate possible antecedent is change, so maybe you let her change even though she asked you not to. I guess that’s a nice gesture on your part, so congrats on learning how not to be mean.

Or maybe this is simply semi-random words thrown together to create something incomprehensible enough that people will think it’s deep.

That gets my vote.

In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?

No, Mr. Young, the smile on your face, assuming there has been no plastic surgery and you’re not wearing any makeup, will remain made of various lipids, proteins, salts, and water—and even if you are wearing makeup or have undergone plastic surgery, you’re still in no danger of your smile turning to plaster, which is made of stuff like gypsum, calcium carbonate, sand, or cement, none of which appears in most readily available makeup or plastic surgery formulations. So no worries on that score.

But this song is from the late 60s, so i suppose certain, um, practices may reasonably have led to such paranoias. So i’m glad i could set your mind at ease, Mr. Young—it’s just a service i provide.

Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster
For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster
Is it strange I should change? I don't know, why don't you ask her?

This doesn’t even make enough sense for me to properly mock it.

You know what’s really sad about these lines? Back when i was seventeen and wrote lots of really, really bad poetry, most of it came out sounding like this.

And the scary thing is that there are people out there who have killed many, many electrons in an attempt to explain what, exactly, this song means. What do i think? I think there’s a much simpler explanation.

p.s. Jim Messina’s career was launched by being in Buffalo Springfield. I wonder if our old friend Susan will drop by again?

Atlantic Starr: Always

2010-03-12T17:41:00.037-09:00

This week we visit 1987, and we discuss the slow-dance song of that year: Atlantic Starr’s “Always”.

“Always” was an extremely popular song, hitting #1 on the Billboard charts. As a “first dance” type of piece (it even peaked on the charts just in time for June weddings!), i must say it was vastly superior to certain other options, but it suffered from a number of issues. Perhaps the greatest of these was that it is so sappily sweet that it’s dangerous for diabetics to be in the room when it comes on the radio.

You doubt me? Just look at the first verse:

Girl you are, to me, all that a woman should be
And I dedicate my life to you always
A love like yours is grand
You must have been sent from up above
And I know you'll stay this way, for always

Awww, isn’t that just so cute?

And, if you didn’t know, this song is a duet, just to up the cuteness quotient. What a wuvvable wittle song about such wuvvable wittle wuvvers!

And speaking of cute, if you look at the video, you’ll see that the male singer was trying his best to look exactly like Rick James for the occasion. David Lewis in the house, representin’ the Jheri Curl!

And we both know, that our love will grow
And forever it will be you and me

Up to this point, we have a fairly ordinary, even innocuous, love song. However, things start to take a strange turn soon.

Ooh, you’re like the sun
Chasing all the rain away

You know why it chases the rain away? Because it’s a gigantic nuclear furnace, so hot that it exists as plasma, too hot to even be in the form of gas. It’s one thing to say that your lover is hot, quite another to say that your lover casts out so much heat and radiation that he or she would destroy all life on the planet if millions of miles of distance and a layer of ozone didn’t stand between us and the object of your affections.

More seriously, the sun doesn’t even chase the rain away, the wind does. And yes, little meteorological gaffes like this really do bug me that much.

When you come around you bring brighter days
You’re the perfect one
For me and you forever we’ll be
And I will love you so for always

I’ve got nothin’ on this one, except to note my heroic attempts to stifle my gag reflex, again.

Came with me my sweet
Let’s go make a family
And they will bring us joy, for always

This one, on the other hand, i’ve got comments.

The let’s go make a family line is, to my mind, one of the squickiest lines in any song, ever. Now, i will readily admit that nothing here rises to Benny Mardones-level ickiness, but it’s still pretty wrong.

I mean, this just isn’t the sort of thing that i can imagine going over well. Let’s translate this into the way the song up to this point would go in a non-rhyming situation:

“Hey, baby, i love you, and i’ll love you for always.”

“I love you, too, baby, and i’ll love you for always.”

“So, my sweet, come with me and let’s go make a family.”

SLAP!

Really—is there any reasonable way to read this verse that doesn’t come across as a cheap, blatant proposition? Specifically, as some guy trying to use empty promises of commitment to work his way into a woman’s pants? No, no there isn’t.

Oh, boy, I love you so
I can't find enough ways to let you know
But you can be sure I’m yours, for always

But then we get the woman’s response, and she doesn’t really seem bothered by it. Why? Well, i have my suspicions—i think she’s actually a succubus sent by Lilith to harvest the guy’s soul. Therefore, his idea of retreating to an, um, more private place simply serves her own demonic ends.

Then we get the chorus with the accompanying destruction of all life on earth. Twice.

I’ll skip it to spare you having to read the horror again.

I will love you so, for always
I will love you so, for always
I will love you so, for always
I will love you so, for always

Irony department: Barbara Weathers, the female half of this duet, left Atlantic Starr for a solo career shortly after this song’s release. For always, eh?

Bryan Adams: Summer of ’69

2010-03-05T18:07:00.081-09:00

Today’s installment on Lyrics, Weakly is yet another overplayed song from the 80s (though this time it’s from 1985)—the Bryan Adams song “Summer of ’69”.

There’s been an interesting bit of controversy over this song, with Bryan Adams claiming that the song has nothing to do with the year 1969, and that it has everything to do with certain, um, physical activities. Jim Vallance, who co-wrote the song with Mr. Adams, says that that’s complete rubbish, and that the song is most definitely about the summer of that year.

My guess? It really is about the summer of 1969, but then Mr. Adams realized people had been doing the math (see my comments on the very first verse of the song), and so he decided to do some revisionist history.

Either way, though, it’s still a silly song.

I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played ’til my fingers bled
It was summer of ’69

Yep, 1969—those halcyon days of the late 60s, when everything seemed possible, before the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, before the musical horrors of the 70s. Yes, the summer of ’69, back when Bryan Adams was a young, vibrant…erm…nine years old.

Now, this verse doesn’t press the bounds of reality all that far—one of my daughters started guitar lessons shortly before her seventh birthday, for example—but you really should keep this in mind for the rest of the song. Bryan Adams is singing this song about the summer he was nine years old.

Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit, Jody got married
I shoulda known we’d never get far

Apparently Mr. Adams’s friends from grade four were pretty precocious in many ways, what with being in a band and getting married so young and all. Or maybe he’s boasting that his friends were older than him, and he should have been viewed as a prodigy along the lines of Stevie Winwood writing and singing with the Spencer Davis Group.

Either way, though, it was apparently good times, as we learn in the next stanza.

Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

Can this verse be any more depressing? For someone born in 1959 to say that the summer of 1969 held the best days of his life, well, that’s just wrong. I mean, you didn’t even have a good few months when you were in your mid-twenties or something?

Ain’t no use in complainin’
When you got a job to do
Spent my evenin’s down at the drive in
And that’s when I met you

Complaining about one’s job is a time-honored benefit of being employed—yeah, you’ve got income coming in, and that’s good, but you could be paid more and valued as more than just another drain on the corporation’s coffers.

And complaining on the job serves a useful purpose—it’s a stress reliever. So get down off that moral high horse, Mr. Adams, and mingle with the rest of us sometime.

Standin’ on your mama’s porch
You told me that you’d wait forever
Oh and when you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never

I don’t get this scene. Mr. Adams is standing on a porch with someone, and she grasps his hand, at which point it became now or never. Okay, fine—but now or never for what? I don’t know, and we never get told. Now or never for a relationship with the hand-holder, maybe? Entirely possible, but if you’re only to the hand-holding stage it doesn’t seem like you’d really be to the go-no go point yet, you know?

Those were the best days of my life
Oh, yeah, back in the summer of ‘69

More with the depressing reminder that time and youth are fleeting.

Man we were killin’ time
We were young and restless
We needed to unwind

So you’re young and restless, which generally means that you’re doing something (or at least planning to), and you’re killing time, which generally means you’re not doing anything (nor are you planning to).

This does not compute. It is a paradox. Would it be too much to ask logical consistency of your music, Mr. Bryan Adams?

Wait—sorry, i just realized i asked that question of someone who released, at age 36, an album titled 18 Til I Die.

I guess nothin’ can last forever, forever, no

The dark undercurrents of this song are only getting stronger…

And now the times are changin’

According to Bob Dylan, the times they were a-changin’ all the way back in 1964, even before the summer of ’69. Does that mean there is no change, since change is merely a constant?

Sorry, i’ve been talking with too many philosophy majors lately, apparently.

Look at everything that’s come and gone
Sometimes when I play that old six-string
I think about ya wonder what went wrong

My guess? You played that old six-string too much and ignored her needs. But then again, i’m not a licensed therapist, so you should take my analysis with a grain of salt.

Standin’ on your mama’s porch
You told me that it’d last forever
Oh the way you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life

Okay, i may be completely out of my depth here, what with not having even been alive in 1969, much less a world-weary musically and romantically precocious nine-year-old, but i don’t think holding hands really carried that much weight in the late 60s. Or maybe it’s all in the way she held your hand—except i’m having trouble figuring out how exactly one would go about holding hands in such an intensely meaningful way.

Ah, the secrets Bryan Adams keeps!

Oh, yeah, back in the summer of '69
It was the summer of ’69
Me and my baby in ’69
It was the summer, summer, summer of ’69, yeah

You know, all in all, Bryan Adams has a lot going for him—he’s been one of the most consistent hitmakers in music over the course of decades, he’s rightfully famous for his portrait photography, he does really amazing philanthropic work, and he seems such an all-around good guy that it seems a little petty to criticize him for a bit of poor songwriting. And yeah, it is petty—but come on, this song merits it.

Huey Lewis & the News: The Heart of Rock & Roll

2010-02-26T17:25:00.159-09:00

So i was thinking that i ought to post a song with really excellent lyrics, after Mariana raised the idea in response to my last post. So i got started looking for possibilities, filtering through them (do i like Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” because the lyrics are good, or because of the emotional content? is Yes’s “And You and I” too obscure? is Berlin’s “The Metro” too purposefully intense to really fit the bill? would choosing an instrumental like Herbie Hancock’s “Actual Proof” be cheating?), coming closer and closer to a decision…and then this song came on the radio, making my choice for me through its sheer awesome horribleness.

So let me take you back to the days of my youth…1983, to be exact.

1983 wasn’t really one of the greatest years on record. Not only were there semi-obscure but horrifying events like Able Archer 83, but Microsoft Word was first released. Need i say more?

Against this backdrop, the release of a ridiculous song doesn’t seem so bad—but, i must say, it certainly doesn’t help.

Anyway, for good or ill, that was the year that Huey Lewis & the News released “The Heart of Rock & Roll”, which immediately became one of the most overplayed songs of the year. Of course, a song being overplayed often results in a backlash (though not for the great ones—two of the songs from that year were Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Prince’s “1999”, which never got old), but sometimes the backlash turns out to be unwarranted—yeah, we heard too much of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and the Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another”, but we got to rediscover how good they were after they had lain fallow for a few years.

“The Heart of Rock & Roll”, though…One might think that it started to sound ridiculous because it got overplayed, but no, it started to sound ridiculous because it’s ridiculous. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look more closely, then, shall we?

New York, New York is everything they say
And no place that I’d rather be
Where else can you do a half a million things
All at a quarter to three?

Well, what about Paris? Or Chicago? Or Miami? Or London? Or Berlin? Or Frankfurt? Or Tokyo? Or Shanghai? Or…well, pretty much any big city with any sort of nightlife scene, really.

Not to slap New York down or anything—i mean, it’s bigger than me, and could probably beat me up in a fair fight—but it’s not like nothing ever happens in the wee hours of the morning anywhere else in the world.

(Also, the way the first line of this song is delivered, for a long time I thought it was New York, New York isn’t everything they say. vaguely confusing, given what follows.)

But anyway, it appears that this is going to be a song of praise to New York, and that’s fine—there’s a long history of fixating on New York in literature. So let’s hear what else Mr. Lewis has to say about New York.

When they play their music, ooh that modern music
They like it with a lot of style
But it’s still that same old back beat rhythm
That really really drives ’em wild

I like to focus on the lyrics of songs in this blog rather than the videos, mainly because there were so many mindblowingly stupid videos done in the 80s even for decent songs. But i do have to mention that if you haven’t already, you should take a moment to watch the video linked above for this song, where Mr. Lewis and his News use this moment in the song to ally themselves with New York’s punk scene. Um, no.

But you can see what they’re building here—all rock music is the same, it doesn’t matter if it’s the News singing a mash-up of doo-wop and 80s-pop or Minor Threat playing punk, it’s all exactly the same. Okay, whatever. Let’s just say that Minor Threat might not appreciate the comparison.

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beatin’
And from what I’ve seen I believe ’em
Now the old boy may be barely breathin’
But the heart of rock and roll, heart of rock and roll is still beatin’

So rock and roll is on life support? Apparently Mr. Lewis was worried about a resurgence of disco, and felt that we should be on guard against it. A reasonable stance, now that i think about it.

Also, from the true stories i probably shouldn’t admit about myself department: For many, many years i thought the third line of the chorus was actually Now the oboe may be barely breathin’. I don’t know what do with that fact, i just find it amusing.

L.A., Hollywood and the Sunset Strip
Is something everyone should see
Neon lights and the pretty, pretty girls
All dressed so scantily
When they play their music, that hard rock music
They like it with a lot of flash

Music from scantily-dressed women? I wouldn’t have guessed that Huey Lewis was a fan of Vanity 6? Well, i guess they have overproduced mindless pop in common, so it shouldn’t surprise me.

But it's still that same old back beat rhythm
That really kicks ’em in the

Oh, ho, ho! That clever and naughty but not naughty enough to get banned from the airwaves Huey Lewis! He has made us all think of buttocks by not completing the rhyme! Well, except that the uncompleted rhyme has to rhyme with flash, which means that it actually kicks them in the ash. Well, i guess you can’t have everything.

But now we emerge into the part of the song that actually seriously annoys me. I mean, up to this point it’s actually a pretty unobjectionable, though not great, 80s-pop piece. Here, though, we make a sharp turn into…Well, just follow along.

D.C., San Antone and the Liberty Town
Boston and Baton Rouge
Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City,
Seattle, San Francisco, too

Really? Could the pandering for audience applause at various stops on your next tour be more obvious? (Well, yes it could, but Sir Mix-a-Lot hadn’t yet perfected the art.) So Mr. Lewis, i’m kind of ashamed on your behalf—and i don’t hold the News unaccountable here, either, since y’all should’ve staged an intervention or something. You’re supposed to be professionals, and therefore above such tricks.

Everywhere there’s music, real live music
Bands with a million styles
But it’s still that same old rock and roll music
That really, really drives ’em wild

Somewhere out there, Minor Threat is arming themselves for the necessary smackdown.

In Cleveland

Hey, didn’t some rock singer do a song about Cleveland? That must mean it’s important for rock and roll, right?

Detroit

And hey, Detroit has, like, a million people or something! If we pander to them, too, we can sell even more albums!

Heart of rock and roll

Rock and roll has heart, yes, but i’m unconvinced that Huey Lewis & the News are uniquely qualified to represent it.

On the whole, of course, this is clearly not the worst song i’ve covered on this site. Coming from the band that gave us the perfectly candy-coated doo-wop thrill that is “If This Is It”, though, this song is just sadly wasted energy.

Timbaland with Justin Timberlake: Carry Out

2010-02-19T17:01:00.090-09:00

All two of the regular readers of Lyrics, Weakly may have noticed that i haven’t had much to say about today’s music—the most recent song i’ve offered commentary on was 1992’s “Save the Best for Last”. Well, it’s time for that to change, and so we move directly into the current top twenty, with the hit “Carry Out” by Timbaland, with supporting vocals from Justin Timberlake (and with both of them, but particularly Mr. Timberlake, looking particularly dorky in the video).

There’s really nothing much to say to lead in to the utter joy that is the stunning incoherence of this song’s lyrics, so let’s just go ahead and get started, shall we?

Eh, eh, eh

No, i’m not kidding. This really is the first line of the song. With a start like that, you just know it’s gonna be fun!

Even better, this is followed by a few lines that are Auto-Tuned into such submission that not only am i unable to figure out what nearly any of them say, i haven’t been able to find a transcription of them in any of the expected places—many sites simply skip them, while others transcribe them as the following:

(…)

No, really—i’m not kidding.

The lines i can figure out from this section, though, seem to more or less match the chorus, so i’m not going to stress too much about not knowing for sure what they say. I’ll just move on to the bits that i could figure out, given a bit of help from various online sources.

Baby, you’re lookin’ fire hot

I have to admit that this is a good line. The Auto-Tuning makes it kind of weird, but whatever—that’s the sound Timbaland was after, and even if it undercuts some of the smoothness of the seduction, it at least gets you to pay attention.

In any event, this is obviously going to be a lesson in the best pickup lines in the business. I’m sure all of us will learn something we can use from every single line of this song.

I’ll have you open all night like you’re IHOP

Or maybe not.

I mean, really? You’re comparing the woman you’re trying to get in your bed to an IHOP?!? As in International House of Pancakes? With the blue roof and everything? And you’re telling her this to her face, and expecting it to work?

Of course, you’re a successful R&B and hip-hop performer and producer, so that might mitigate the expected effects of this particular line. Just pick a woman who’s already drunk enough that she wouldn’t be able to tie her own shoes if they were slip-ons, and it might work for you anyway.

I’ll take you home baby, let you keep me company
You give me some of you, I give you some of me

This is only one of approximately 2,348 references to the act of sex in this song, but it merits highlighting because it may be the only one of them that isn’t actually insulting in some way.

Oh, and the rhyme of company with some of me would belong in the bad rhyme hall of fame, except that…

You look good baby must taste heavenly
I’m pretty sure that you got your own recipe

…the rhyme of heavenly with recipe beat it there.

So pick it up, pick it up, yeah I like you
I just can’t get enough I gotta drive through

I know this is a sexual reference, but for the life of me i can’t figure out what it means. I mean, drive through? If Timbaland came up to me and said “Dude, i’m gonna have sex right through you”, i would fear for my physical safety and edge carefully away. But apparently the object of his desire doesn’t, ’cause he just keeps singing to her.

Cause it’s me, you, you, me, me, you, all night
Have it your way, foreplay before I feed your appetite

All the food imagery might be making you hungry, it might be making you queasy. All i know is, if you’re anything like me, it sure ain’t making you horny.

Nothing personal, Timba, but this really isn’t the smoothest set of lines i’ve ever heard.

Let me get my ticket baby let me get in line

At least it’s a nicely subtle way of saying he’s cool with sloppy seconds.

Which i suppose is yet another food reference.

I can tell the way you like it baby supersized
Hold on, you got yours, let me get mine
I ain’t leavin’ till they turn over the closed sign

The whole supersized thing has progressed to the point of cliché, but that’s alright, i’ll let it pass, ’cause i’m a bit surprised by what we find in the next line—we heard Timba say that the object of his affections has a supersized it, just like Mr. Land himself does. Given that Timbaland is saying that he has a supersized it, and i’m pretty sure we all know what he means by that, it’s making me think that this song is actually a below-the-radar gay anthem. I mean, that’s the only logical conclusion to draw. Right?

Timbaland and Timberlake, sittin’ in a tree…

Ahem. On with the song—we’re up to the chorus now.

Check it
Take my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body till you hear me out
Turn me on my baby don’t you cut me out
Turn me on my baby don’t you cut me out
Take my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body ’til it’s lights out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out

As always, smooth.

I mean, comparing someone to a carry out? I’m just trying to imagine pulling this one off: “Hey babe, your body makes me think of a place that serves cheap, greasy food in styrofoam containers.” All i can say is that the folks at the clubs Mr. Land frequents are way different than those in any clubs i’ve ever been too.

And let me walk into your body? That’s either admitting clumsiness, or it’s just plain disturbing. I can’t get anything from that line that doesn’t result in some degree of disgust, or at least annoyance.

And Justin Timberlake is taking over the vocals here, though with the amount of Auto-Tune going into this it’s effectively impossible to tell Timberlake apart from Timbaland.

Number one, I take two number threes
That's a whole lotta you, and a side of me

What in the world is a number three? Number one and number two i know about, but i haven’t heard about number three. Well, i figure that anything i don’t understand from the hip-hop world i can find in the Urban Dictionary, I go there only to discover that number three is [insert drum roll here] masturbation.

So Mr. Timberlake is telling us that the first thing he does is masturbate. Twice. And this is supposed to be seductive.

I guess it’s just me, but i don’t get the allure.

Now is it full of myself to want you full of me?

But i’ve gotta give credit where it’s due—this is actually a pretty clever line.

And if there’s room for dessert, then I want a piece
Baby, get my order right no errors
Ima touch you in all the right areas
I could feed you, you could feed me
Girl, deliver that to me, come see me

Wait—did he just rhyme errors and areas? Yes? Wow. This is getting into America territory here.

And is it just me, or does the whole get my order right no errors thing sound a little threatening to you? At least he plans to make physical contact with her in all the correct places as a reward for getting his order for a Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity right. Fair trade, i suppose.

Cause it’s me, you, you, me, me, you all night
Have it your way, foreplay, before I feed your appetite
Do you like it well done ’cause I do it well
Cause I’m well seasoned if you couldn’t tell
Now, let me walk into your body till you hear me out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out

The do you like it well done line seems a reasonable enough way to pick up your local IHOP waitress, but then Justin has to ruin his groove by calling himself well seasoned. Since i didn’t know what that means, i again turned to my good friend the Urban Dictionary to find out that he’s describing himself as a…Oh. Let’s just say it isn’t likely to turn her on.

Especially since we then have to listen to the chorus a couple more times, where Misters Timbaland and Timberlake threaten to walk into her body. Again.

But in an attempt to recover from that faux pas, they try to distract her by asking questions.

What’s your name? What’s your number?
I’m glad I came, can you take my order?
What’s your name? Girl what’s your number?
I’m glad I came, can you take my order?

You know, you’ve already propositioned her repeatedly—it may be a little late for questions like these.

Come over here (What's your name?)
Come closer (What's your number?)
Over here (I’m glad I came)
A little closer (Can you take my order?)

Or maybe it’s just a bit of the old Protestant work ethic—if you’re a playa, you’ve got a job to do, and the fact that you’ve only got a bunch of not-really-sexually-explicit food references to work with isn’t gonna keep you from doing your job.

’Cause that’s the only way i can get any of this to make sense to me.

And then we get the chorus several times as the song ends, reminding us all that they think of their waitress as somehow, inexplicably, similar to a carryout restaurant. I’m guessing the song stops right before the waitress at their table “accidentally” spills most of a fresh pot of coffee into their laps.

(And yes, i just discussed a song with Justin Timberlake in it without mentioning wardrobe malfunctions. Interesting, though, that he has yet another hit—i wonder how Janet Jackson’s imploded career feels about that?)

The Shangri-Las: Leader of the Pack

2010-02-12T18:37:00.001-09:00

So over here at Lyrics, Weakly central I’ve been hanging out in the 70s for the past few weeks, but today we’re going even further back—back to 1964, when the teen tragedy subgenre of doo-wop music was at its peak, shortly to give way to Beatlemania. And what better example of teen tragedy than the Shangri-Las’ #1 hit, “Leader of the Pack”?

If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s summarized rather neatly on its Wikipedia page. The summary doesn’t do the absolute incoherence of the story justice, though—for that you have to go to the lyrics themselves. So let’s do so, where we start with some forebodingly minor piano chords, leading into a conversation, presumably at the corner ice cream shop, or wherever it is well-groomed clean-cut white kids gathered back then.

(By the way, the narrator of this story is named Betty, and one of the singers in the Shangri-Las was Betty Weiss. I have no idea if she was the lead singer on this song—and what little i’ve been able to find seems to point to it being her sister, Mary Weiss—but i’m going to call her Betty just to make things easier for myself.)

Voice 1, spoken: Is she really going out with him?
Voice 2, spoken: Well, there she is. Let's ask her.
Voice 3, spoken: Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?
Betty, spoken: Mm-hmm.

So there’s the setup, with Betty wearing Jimmy’s ring. This apparently was a big deal back in the late 50s and early 60s—it meant that you were “going steady”—and the smugness in Betty’s closed-lips affirmative is palpable.

Voice 1, spoken: Gee, it must be great riding with him.

Her friends, naturally enough, are impressed. Not only does she have a boyfriend, he has a motorized conveyance (a motorcycle, as we find out later from the sound effects) with which he can drive her places.

What more could a middle-class girl want?

Voice 2, spoken: Is he picking you up after school today?

And he appears to no longer be in school. Betty done found herself an older guy!

Betty, spoken: Unh-unh.

And with this sad little verbal shake of the head, the first cracks in Betty’s absolutely wonderful world start to show.

You’d think that the response to such an answer would be “Really? Why not?” That’s what i’d ask, anyway—it would keep the flow of the conversation going. But Betty’s friends refuse to submit to such hidebound conventions.

Voices 1, 2, and 3, spoken: By the way, where’d you meet him?

They were hoping that Betty would give a simple answer like “At that bar in Chelsea” so that they can follow up with another non sequitur along the lines of “Incidentally, what color is his hair?” Instead, the singing starts. (I’ve put background vocals, done by the remaining three members of the group, in parentheses.)

I met him at the candy store.
He turned around and smiled at me.
You get the picture? (Spoken: Yes, we see.)

At the candy store? I’m imagining the candy store in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a bunch of ten-year-olds milling around and buying Wonka Bars while some motorcycle-riding tough guy tries to pick up any high school girls who accidentally walk in. Not that that would be remotely creepy, of course.

That’s when I fell for (the leader of the pack).

A guy looks at you in a candy store, you fall for him right away? I only hope he bought you the big box of chocolates.

But despite such an auspicious beginning, things aren’t all sex and cookies for the loving couple.

My folks were always putting him down (down, down).
They said he came from the wrong side of town.
(Whatcha mean when ya say that he came from the wrong side of town?)

Apparently Betty’s friends don’t understand certain common idioms used in the English language, so to answer them: It means that Jimmy resides in a section of the town that is generally associated with a lower socioeconomic class, or possibly even a criminal element.

In other words, Betty is calling her parents classist prigs—you know, Power to the People! and Down With the Man! and all that. Oh, and the main message of this song, too, which is True Love Starts in Candy Stores!

(And i’m not even going to mention the insanity of trying to fit the question into the meter of the song.)

They told me he was bad,
But I knew he was sad.
That’s why I fell for (the leader of the pack).

Okay, i realize this is being narrated by a teenage girl who’s recently had a pretty severe shock (as we find out later in the song), but that’s no excuse for this sort of narrative idiocy. I mean, let’s break this down, shall we?

First of all, being bad and being sad are not mutually exclusive, no matter what Betty seems to think.

Second, why would being sad be so utterly attractive? Really, i just don’t get it—“Oh, you look depressed, let’s go out” just isn’t the way my brain works. Apparently, though, Betty is made of sterner stuff than i am.

And finally, this is the second time it’s happened, but what’s up with the motorcycle revving here? There are some sound effects that make sense in the context of the story later in the song, but we’ve already established that Jimmy and his motorcycle aren’t coming to pick Betty up, so why are we hearing it now?

Speaking of the motorcycle sound effect, it was put to much better use on the Detergents’ parody of this song, “Leader of the Laundromat”.

One day my dad said, “Find someone new”.
I had to tell my Jimmy we’re through.

As the father of multiple daughters, part of me thinks that i should play this song to them over and over while they’re sleeping so as to subliminally convince them that if i disapprove of one of their boyfriends all i need to do is say “Find someone new” and they’ll break it off. They’d probably actually just laugh at me, but a man can dream, can’t he?

So anyway, Betty heeds her father’s advice, and so our good ~~doormat~~ protagonist goes to find Jimmy and break up with him. (My guess is that she just followed the sound of the gratuitous motorcycle.)

(Whatcha mean when ya say that ya better go find somebody new?)

Okay, the background singers maybe had an excuse not understanding the idiom they questioned earlier in the song, but this one just proves they’re being difficult.

He stood there and asked me why,
But all I could do was cry.

Besides, she realized how lame it would sound to say “Because my dad told me to.”

I’m sorry I hurt you (the leader of the pack).

The next bit is all spoken, for what it’s worth.

He sort of smiled and kissed me goodbye.
The tears were beginning to show.
As he drove away on that rainy night
I begged him to go slow

Twisted Sister, of all people, had the best treatment ever of the drove away on that rainy night line—look carefully at 2:04 in the linked video for the win!

Whether he heard, I’ll never know.

This is the big foreboding line—if the minor-key piano chords hadn’t clued you in already, now you know that something very, very bad is about to happen.

(No! No! No! No! No! No! No!)
Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!

This is accompanied by the sound of a motorcycle driving away and crashing, in case you still needed the tragedy of the moment pounded into your skull.

So Betty’s standing there in the rain, and Jimmy’s now dead. Pretty rough for her—so let’s go to her reaction (which is sung—the moment that’s so dreadful that it merits speaking is past).

I felt so helpless, what could I do,
Remembering all the things we’d been through.
In school they all stop and stare.
I can’t hide the tears, but I don’t care.
I’ll never forget him (the leader of the pack).

Pretty rough for her—except, um, back at the beginning of the song, she was so blasé about everything, that it kind of undercuts the pathos of the moment for me. I mean, i’ve never had a significant other die on me, but i’m pretty sure if someone asked me “Is [name of dead person] picking you up after school today?” i’d most likely do one of two things: Say “No, [name of dead person] is dead” or, probably more likely, burst into tears. (Maybe both.) Betty is apparently much more of a tough girl than i’ll ever be—she just responded back with a simple unh-unh.

Maybe she’s just in shock in the memory of all the things they’d been through—you know, all that stuff that took up so much of her time that her friends, um, had no idea whether she was dating Jimmy at all. Yeah, all those things they’d managed to go through in two hours spread over three days or so, apparently.

And yes, i do recognize that i overanalyze song lyrics. Still, i suspect that this bit of emotional inconsistency would really bother me even if i didn’t, and i figure i can’t be alone in that—can i?

And then, in case you didn’t get that Jimmy’s dead, we get the following on a repeat and fade:

(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!
(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!
(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!

Well, at least “Leader of the Pack” doesn’t have the utter sappiness of the whole class ring idiocy in Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel”—so we might as well take the small victories, right?

America: Sandman

2010-02-05T18:14:00.055-09:00

Today, Lyrics, Weakly delves into the deep cuts—we’ve got a song that was never released on its own, but it’s so…amazing that it just begs to be commented on here. (It showed up on a greatest hits album, though, and so that’s enough proof of popularity for me!) It doesn’t have much in the way of lyrics (the chorus gets repeated a lot), and therefore this will be a relatively short review, but that all makes it no less amazing.

This also marks the first time Lyrics, Weakly has returned to an artist that has been dealt with before—but let’s face it, if you go through the lyrics of the band America’s songs, it’s just a gift of amazingificness that keeps on giving for a blog like this one.

Anyway, today we have the song “Sandman”, which was the B–side (in the US—the Brits had to make do with a different song) to the huge hit “A Horse With No Name”. The A–side went to #1—i wonder how this one would have done?

Ain’t it foggy outside
All the planes have been grounded

This isn’t too bad—we’ve got a bit of a mood here with the fog and the planes, it makes me think of the end of Casablanca. Not bad at all, really.

Ain't the fire inside?

What?

Never mind, i take back everything positive i just said.

Really, under what circumstances would anyone ever utter this sentence? I mean, “Where’s the fire?” is a sensible, if slightly weird, thing to ask—but “Ain’t the fire inside?” is just weird. And what would the answer be? “No, the fire’s outside. And what was the point of this conversation again?”

Let’s all go stand around it

Usually, indoor fires aren’t the sort of thing you stand around—they usually only have one side to stand in front of. This isn’t universally true, though, so i’ll let it slide for now, even though it’s pretty clear that it was phrased this way to provide a desperation rhyme for grounded.

Funny, i’ve been there
And you’ve been here
And we ain’t had no time to drink that beer

Okay, it’s been funny, sure. But why ain’t we had time? Oh, good, you’re gonna tell us.

’Cause i understand you’ve been running from a man
That goes by the name of the sandman
He flies the sky like an eagle in the eye
Of a hurricane that’s abandoned

Okay, right.

Yeah, i admit it—the real reason i chose this song for this week’s installment was because of the horrible awesomosity of the chorus. How is it awesome? Let me count the ways:

1. The rhyme of sandman with abandoned—and the singer sings it like like these words were truly meant to rhyme. I guess this is one of those where if you act like you know what you’re doing, people won’t question you. Act like those words rhyme, people’ll just go along with it. At least they will if they’re stoned enough.

B. The narrator makes this sound like there’s a life-and-death cat-and-mouse game going on, and yet it only comes up as a reason for not sharing a beer. There’s something to be said for having your priorities straight, i suppose.

Spleen. The possibility of a Logan’s Run reference. I don’t know if running from the sandman really was a reference to that novel (the movie hadn’t been made yet when the song was released), but if it isn’t it should have been.

π/2. A hurricane that’s abandoned?!? This is as opposed to, what? A hurricane that the deedholder has kept in good repair? It’s completely and utterly nonsensical, and yet it sounds like it ought to make perfect sense. That’s either incredibly clever or incredibly stupid, and you know what? I don’t care.

Ain’t the years gone by fast
I suppose you have missed them
Oh, i almost forgot to ask
Did you hear of my enlistment?

Once again, we have a truly horrible rhyme: missed them with enlistment. (This may be an even more egregious pair that sandman and abandoned, though i admit i’m unable to decide which one’s more amazing.)

Also, much praise for the offhand “Oh, by the way, i almost forgot to tell you i joined the army” news, since that’s a completely realistic portrayal of the way people usually announce that sort of thing. Right?

And, believe it or not, that’s it—all we get after that is several more repetitions of the chorus. To be honest, this leaves me disappointed—a band as talented at coming up with horrible rhymes as America, and they stop here? They could have given us at least three more bad rhyme pairs, i’m sure.

But, because it’s so amazing, i’ll leave you with the chorus one more time, just so that you can bask in the wonderfulisticness that is America in full-on desperation for a rhyme mode:

’Cause i understand you’ve been running from a man
That goes by the name of the sandman
He flies the sky like an eagle in the eye
Of a hurricane that’s abandoned

Loggins and Messina: Your Mama Don’t Dance

2010-01-29T18:07:00.071-09:00

You know, when i started doing this blog i figured i’d be doing mainly 80s songs, ’cause i grew up in the 80s (so that’s the music i really know), and there are just so many bad 80s songs i thought i could just stay with those and never run out.

As it turns out, though, the 70s have become my go-to decade.

This week’s song is no exception: The 1973 top-ten hit (though it was a 1972 release) “Your Mama Don’t Dance” by Loggins and Messina.

Frightening fact: Kenny Loggins’s solo career has apparently dried up to the point that Loggins and Messina has been reformed. Yes, that’s right, you too can have the opportunity to pay large amounts of money to hear the original performers sing “House at Pooh Corner”. (I guess it’s not quite as frightening as the fact that Cheech and Chong are touring again, but still.)

Anyway, today’s song is the story of you, a young man—a teenager—trying to shake off all the restrictions society is trying to place on you. And why are you faced with all these restrictions? Why, because

Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll

Oh. Of course. Yeah, um, that makes perfect sense.

You’re having trouble because your mother doesn’t dance? Really? You know, i’ve been to enough family reunions, weddings, and so on to know that if there’s one thing most teenagers would agree on, it’s that they’d like for their mother to never, ever dance, at least not where anyone can see her. So how exactly is this a problem?

And the fact that your father doesn’t rock and roll? What does that even mean? Your father doesn’t play in a band? Once again, i don’t know that most teenagers really want their father to be in a band—that would be the ultimate embarrassment, i’m thinking. (Well, unless we’re talking Dweezil, Ahmet, Diva, and Moon Unit Zappa, but let’s face it, they live in an entirely different world from you and me.)

Of course, it’s entirely possible that by “rock and roll” Misters Messina and Loggins are reaching back a bit to an earlier meaning—they’re saying that your father doesn’t have sex. Well, leaving aside the fact that your father, if he is in fact your father, did have sex at least once, why would this be a problem for you personally?

I’m just not getting the basic reason for the whole complaint, and that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the song.

Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll

Just in case you forgot between the first and second lines of the song.

When evenin’ rolls around and it's time to go to town
Where do you go to rock and roll?

Well, there are probably a few dance clubs, maybe a rave or two going on in the warehouse district, parties at the houses of friends whose parents are a bit more permissive than yours…Really, my guess is that this isn’t actually a problem for you. I mean, even the kids in (random bonus Kenny Loggins music reference alert!) the movie Footloose found a place to dance once they put their minds to it—you’re giving up that easily?

The old folks say that ya gotta end your date by ten
If you’re out on a date and you bring it home late, it’s a sin

First of all, i’m a sociolinguist and dialectologist by profession, so i must mention that the rhyme of ten with sin is so wonderfully and perfectly Southern American English that i get a little geek thrill whenever i hear this couplet.

Second of all, was a ten o’clock curfew normal in the early 70s? I wasn’t yet of an age to really care about curfews, so i don’t know. Either way, i suppose that this is supposed to be evidence that your life is horrible and your parents are evil and so on. Of course, as we find out later, a ten o’clock curfew doesn’t appear to be stopping you from sowing your wild oats in all the expected places (excepting when you forget to take the beats of certain members of the police force into account, that is), so i’m not entirely sure why you should care so deeply about this.

Third of all, it? I could kind of understand someone having an issue if you’re bringing her home late, or bringing him home late, depending on your own personal preferences. But bringing it home late? I’m thinking the curfew may be the least of your issues.

There just ain’t no excuse and you know you’re gonna lose you never win

This was a semi-finalist in the balloting for the longest single-line run-on sentence ever found in a hit song.

I’ll say it again

This line frustrates me on two counts:

First, this is being sung by Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina. The song is a duet, sung in near-unison. There is no “I” here, it’s a “we”.

Second, they then proceed to not say it again. This isn’t a bad thing—the trainwreck that is the previous line should not be repeated, ever—but it does feel like a breach of promise.

But it does leave us wondering why you’re doomed to so much losing. You want to know why? Sure you do—and so here it is:

And it’s all because
Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll
Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll
When evenin’ rolls around and it's time to go to town
Where do you go to rock and roll?

Really, that’s a pretty heavy load to place on particular personal habits of your parents, particularly habits that are so, well, unimportant.

Also, the end of the chorus makes no sense here. Are Misters Messina and Loggins saying, as i parse these lines, that the reason you’re a loser is because when evening rolls around and it’s time to go to town where do you go to rock and roll? ’Cause that’s just a weird thing to claim—it’s like saying “I like ice cream because where is my hamster?”

But things are starting to look up for you, oh hormonal one, because

You’ve pulled into a drive-in and found a place to park
You hop into the back seat where ya know it’s nice and dark
You're just about to move in, you’re thinking it's a breeze

You know what’s missing here? Any reference to the it you’re dating. Either way, though, i suppose the back seat would be dark, so whatever floats your particular boat. Just don’t tell me too many details, okay?

But whatever’s actually going on here, disaster suddenly strikes!

There’s a light in your eye and then a guy says
Out of the car long hair!
Oowee, you’re coming with me, the local police

Yep, the police have come to take you in for…Well, whatever they take kids in for when they find them not yet having sex in a car. A semi-public display of almost-affection?

But yeah, who would have thought—a business establishment actually has someone providing security to enforce various rules of behavior? Shocking, i know. I wonder why this is the case?

Well, as it turns out, Misters Messina and Loggins are here to inform us.

And it’s all because

Take note of that, by the way—we’re about to be told the entire reason that you just got busted for PDA:

Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll
Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll

Yep, if only your mother actually danced, or if in fact your father rocked and rolled (maybe even if he merely rocked or rolled), you’d have a clean record and you wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life. Too bad for you.

At least you can blame it all on your parents rather than your own poor judgment, ’cause that would, you know, suck.

When evenin’ rolls around and it's time to go to town
Where do you go to rock and roll?
Where do you go to rock and roll?
Where do you go to rock and roll?

Well, now that you’re hanging out down at the county jail, i suppose you’re rocking and rolling in the prison yard. Don’t worry, i’ll send you a soap on a rope for your birthday.

Rupert Holmes: Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

2010-01-22T17:34:00.001-09:00

So today we have Rupert Holmes’s “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”, the song that officially provided the musical bridge between the 70s and the 80s by virtue of being the last #1 song of 1979 and the second #1 song of 1980. This means that both decades have something to be ashamed of, but in terms of lyrical content this song belongs firmly in the 70s—not saying that the 80s would have been any better, just that songs describing the joys of the infidelity scene got a bit more subtle as disco gave way to new wave on mainstream radio.

I have to say that i can’t slam every aspect of this song—i actually like the music behind this song. It has an interesting beat, and it could function as decent non-Muzak background music in a restaurant or something. The lyrics laid on top of that music, though…Well, let’s just say they’re questionable.

Quick thought before i get to the lyrics: I don’t know any couple who has ever thought of this as “their song”. It’s possible, i suppose (i knew a couple who very seriously considered Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” as their song, so anything could happen), but if you’re a couple like that, well, nothing personal, but i don’t want to ever meet you.

And now we might as well let Mr. Holmes tell us about his life:

I was tired of my lady, we’d been together too long,
Like a worn-out recording of a favorite song.

Wow. Just wow. I mean, can we be a little more cold here?

I’m just trying to figure out how Mr. Holmes got into this relationship in the first place. Imagine: Rupert Holmes sitting in a singles bar, shirt halfway unbuttoned to show the glories of his chest ~~hair~~ wig, attention drawn to it by the huge gold-plated zodiac sign hanging from his neck. He sees an attractive woman at the other end of the bar, and sends her a drink (my guess, given stuff we learn later in the song: a sex on the beach). She accepts, and so he walks across the bar like he was walking across a yacht, and delivers his one best, can’t-fail pickup line: “Hey, lady. You lookin’ for someone who’ll stay with you until he gets tired of you, as if you were an overplayed hit song?”

The scary thing, really, is that she said yes.

Oh—and he calls her “my lady”. Can we just all agree that that’s an annoying way to refer to the female person you’re coupled with? You would have thought that Styx would have put the knife in this one back in 1972, but nope, here it is in 1979. Another reason i’m glad i grew up in the 80s, not the 70s.

On a perhaps more serious note, it’s worth noting that the word “lady” is ambiguous here—certainly she and Mr. Holmes are a couple, but it’s unclear what sort of relationship this is. They may just be long-term lovers, they may be living together, they may be married. I suspect that they’re married, if only because it makes the rest of the song more horrific. and therefore I’m going to assume for the rest of this that the unnamed “lady” is Mrs. Holmes to the singer’s Mr. Holmes. If you’d rather think otherwise, feel free—it doesn’t lower the horror level by more than a half-notch to do so.

So while she lay there sleeping, I read the paper in bed.
And in the personal columns, there was this letter I read:

You know how, every once in a while, you’re listening to a friend tell a story, everything’s going along nicely, and then they throw in a weird little detail that makes you say “Wait—hold on a minute.”

We’ve reached such a point here.

You’re in bed with your sleeping wife, and you’re reading the personals?

I mean, okay, so i recognize that infidelity happens—not as much as a lot of people think, but not infrequently. So the fact that you’re looking for someone else isn’t as shocking as it might be, but while you’re in bed with your wife? Dude, that’s chutzpah—and i’d like to remind everybody out there the the word chutzpah isn’t as positive a quality as a lot of people think it is.

Also, exactly what section of the personals are you looking in? Given the content of the letter it’s not men seeking men, so we might expect to it to be women seeking men. I’m thinking, though, that it’s most likely the women seeking lying, cheating scumweasels section.

Anyway, let’s see what this advertisement says. I’m going to quote it in full, just so that the annoying superficiality of it won’t get lost, and then break it down piece by piece for you. So here’s the ad:

“If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain,
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain,
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape,
Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape.”

And here’s the breakdown:

“If you like piña coladas,

I will admit right here that i’m not the best choice to criticize someone’s drinking habits, not least because i choose not to drink alcohol for a number of reasons. But i do know enough to wonder why this anonymous advertiser is looking for a guy who likes to drink what can only be described as a girl drink.

and getting caught in the rain,

You don’t own an umbrella, but you pretend that’s a virtue? Cool, let’s sleep together!

If you’re not into yoga,

Given when this song was released (the late 70s), i’m willing to not criticize this one—not being into yoga would have clearly been a virtue. Unfortunately, it’s only an even-a-blind-squirrel-finds-a-nut-once-in-a-while moment.

Or maybe, it’s an even-a-clueless-personal-ad-writer-finds-a-nut-once-in-a-while moment.

if you have half a brain,

If you’re looking for someone with half a brain, why are you advertising in the personals section instead of going out and meeting people you might really have something in common with?

Oh, wait—maybe you’re actually hoping for someone with only half a brain, as opposed to having a completely functional one. In that case, carry on.

If you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape,

At least we know now it’s actually all about the time and location of sex. Glad to see what caught your attention, Rupert.

Of course, any time i hear this line about sex in the dunes, all i can think about is one word: Sand!

Sorry, not my thing.

Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape.”

For “love”, read “expensive prostitute”.

I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean.

No, Rupert, it sounds like you’re unable to sustain a relationship. It doesn’t necessarily follow that you’re mean—in fact, it might even be merciful to duck out now rather than lead her on. However, when your stated reason for this is

But me and my old lady had fallen into the same old dull routine.

then it’s clear not that you’re not being merciful, you’re just being a jerk.

So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad.
And though I'm nobody’s poet, I thought it wasn't half-bad.

Strike that—you’re just being an egotistical jerk.

“Yes, I like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain,
I’m not much into health food, I am into champagne.
I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape,
At a bar called O’Malley’s, where we’ll plan our escape.”

I would have done this point by point like the other one, but i wanted to…Well, to be honest, i didn’t because there are too many possibilities.

First of all, Mr. Holmes, maybe this isn’t a half-bad poem, but that’s because it’s not yours—it’s largely cribbed from the poem you’re replying to. I teach for a living, and you know what we call that? Plagiarism. It’s grounds for failing a course, maybe even getting kicked out of school if the offense is egregious enough. Now here, of course, the stakes aren’t that high—it’s just about cheating on your wife and moving on to some other relationship you’ll be in for just long enough to get bored with your new “love”.

Classy.

Oh—and a couple of specific items from this “not half-bad” poem. First of all, with I am into champagne as a response to the parallel line if you have half a brain, it appears that Mr. Holmes is self-aware enough to recognize that he might not fit that part of the request. I guess we ought to give him credit for that much.

Also, consider the desperation of I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon. I mean, wow. Beyond the fact that this response probably wouldn’t actually get to her that quickly (remember, kids, this is before widespread use of the internet, and sometimes it took a whole three to four days for a letter to get delivered), there’s nothing about exchanging thoughts about starting up a relationship and the issues involved. Nope, it’s more along the lines of “I match about half of the qualifications you listed, so you will therefore meet me where i say we should so that we can go somewhere and have sex together.”

Yep, this is looking healthier and healthier.

And where does Mr. Holmes want to meet this mysterious ~~hooker~~ woman? Why, at a bar called O’Malley’s, of course. Sensible, i think, since the New York City metropolitan area (where Rupert Holmes did much of his growing up, according to his Wikipedia page) can’t have more than one bar named O’Malley’s, right?

So I waited with high hopes, then she walked in the place.

I’m glad to see that this mystery woman picked the right one. Even if you want to see someone fail, it’s never fun to see someone carrying a red rose with nobody there, obviously getting stood up by someone they don’t know. That’s really just a downer for those of us with hopes of developing or continuing healthy relationships.

I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face.

Small victory for him, i suppose, that he didn’t instantly recognize the curve of her Adam’s apple.

It was my own lovely lady, and she said, “Aw, it’s you.”

Yep, folks, here it is, the Clever Ironic Twist: Mr. Holmes went out philandering, but Mrs. Holmes was out doing the same thing—and they ended up with each other.

Then we laughed for a moment,

This is as opposed to recognizing that both of them had had the right instincts earlier, and it was time to head for the exits and hire divorce lawyers.

Of course, this was the 70s, when occurrences like this were what counted as romance-with-a-capital-R. And why was it so romantic? Well, because our star-crossed lovers had finally realized that they had so much in common that they simply had to be meant for each other.

As-bloody-if.

But you know what? After thinking it through, i think i’ve come to that same conclusion, myself—and they’re welcome to have each other, too, as long as they promise not to breed. Is it a deal?

and I said, “I never knew…
That you liked piña coladas,

Let’s think for a moment about what conversations between Mr. and Mrs. Holmes must be like. I mean, imagine when they first met at the seedy singles bar you just know they met at, and Rupert was trying to impress his lovely lady by buying her drinks…

“Hey, lady. You want some wine?” “No, i don’t really like wine.” “Dang!”

“How about a martini?” “No, i don’t really like martinis.” “Dang!”

“How about a rum and Coke?” “No, i don’t really like rum and Coke.” “Dang!”

“How about a beer?” “No, i don’t really like beer.” “Dang!”

“How about a gin and tonic?” “No, i don’t really like gin and tonic.” “Dang!”

“How about a cosmopolitan?” “No, i don’t really like cosmopolitans.” “Dang!”

“How about a fuzzy navel?” “No, i don’t really like fuzzy navels.” “Dang!”

No wonder things were going badly—it never occurred to him to say “So i’ve noticed you drink like a fish. What kind of drinks do you like, exactly?”

I mean, i’m no marriage counselor, but it seems to me that such a very low level of communication is likely to result in relationship issues down the road.

and getting caught in the rain.

I can kind of understand not knowing she liked this if they lived in, say, Yuma, Arizona. Otherwise there’s really no excuse.

And the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne.

Apparently he never asked her if she liked champagne, either. Maybe they first hooked up on the night of New Year’s Day and their meetup at O’Malley’s was at noon on New Year’s Eve, so they never toasted the new year in together?

Or maybe this is just a really ill-thought-out lyric? Yeah, that.

If you like making love at midnight,

We turn once again to the Holmes household. They have the day off, and we join them in the morning…

“Hey, lady, it’s nine in the morning. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s noon. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s three in the afternoon. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s six in the evening. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s nine at night. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Well, it’s 11:50 at night and that was the Tonight Show monologue. Guess we’ll go to sleep now.” “Okay.”

Seriously, did these people ever have a real conversation?

in the dunes of the cape.
You’re the lady that I've looked for, come with me, and escape.”

And this time i promise i’ll read the user’s manual first, or whatever a guy does to know what kind of drinks you like. And maybe i’ll be a little more discreet when i decide to look for a little something on the side.

And so then we get the chorus on a repeat and fade, leaving us with the horrible, horrible realization that these two ended up together happily ever after.

Please excuse me while i go dry heave.

The end.