NewSong: The Christmas Shoes

So this makes two weeks in a row for Lyrics, Weakly, thus making it the first time we’ve lived up to the pun in our name in a long, long time.

Let the throwing of confetti commence!

And what song is so remarkably bad that it got me to actually post something so soon? None other than the 2000 hit (#1 on the US adult contemporary chart!) “The Christmas Shoes”, by the Christian rock (ahem, sorry, make that “rock”) band NewSong, in which we learn that the way they perform music is by standing around, emotionless and impassive, while one of them sings the lyrics. (For some reason, incidentally the “the” in the song’s title annoys me. Well, actually, the entire song annoys me, so maybe that isn’t unexpected.)

(I would have done “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” this week, but let’s face it, that anthem to getting your date drunk for sexual purposes has already been taken down by lots of people, even in the line by line format that I use, so much that i wasn’t going to be able to add anything new. This one, though, is widely criticized for being schmaltzy, but i haven’t seen much talking about how utterly dumb the story is.)

And yes, i realize that a lot of people hate this song, but a lot of people love it—remember, this song was a #1 hit. Ponder, o ye mighty, and despair!

Because, as the ice piano plays, we learn that…

It was almost Christmas time, there I stood in another line

And, to be honest, it’s not a bad start. The song runs just short of five minutes long, so it makes sense that Eddie Carswell and Leonard Ahlstrom, the writers of the song, would give us the setting right at the outset: It’s nearly Christmas time (so mid- to late December, i’m thinking, especially given the next line), and the narrator of the song is standing in a line at a store somewhere.

Incidentally, it’s just too weird to talk about Messrs. Carswell and Ahlstrom when talking about the narrator of this song (since he refers to himself in the singular), and so since Mr. Ahlstrom had the good sense to bail on the band right about the time this song came out, for the rest of this entry i’m going to blame Mr. Carswell for it. (Besides, according to NewSong’s Wikipedia page Mr. Carswell was one of the founding members of the band, so without him the whole thing could never have taken place at all.)

So anyway—Mr. Carswell is standing in line. Why is he standing in line?

Trying to buy that last gift or two, not really in the Christmas mood

Yeah, i know how it goes—there’s always that one person on your list who’s just impossible to shop for, and then you have to wait in line to purchase whatever you end up choosing…It can be very non-fun.

Or you could just shop on Amazon. Not only would you not have to stand in line, you would have never experienced the events of this song, leading you to never have written it—a win for you, and a win for us!

Standing right in front of me was a little boy waiting anxiously
Pacing ’round like little boys do

Huh?

I mean, yeah, some folks pace, sure. But pacing ’round like little boys do implies that little boys pacing is something that all or nearly all little boys do.

Mr. Carswell, i don’t know about you, but i was once a little boy, and i didn’t pace. I fidgeted plenty, sure, but pacing? Nope—and i haven’t seen many little boys pace, especially not when standing in line at a store to buy something.

Basically, i’m suspecting you haven’t, you know, actually observed little boys in stores. This isn’t a bad thing, of course, it just leads to a bit of mental whiplash—and that doesn’t bode well when it comes in the fourth line of a five-minute song.

And in his hands he held a pair of shoes

This, at least, makes sense. Most places, you want to buy a pair of shoes, you carry ’em to the counter. So maybe Mr. Carswell does know something about normal people and the ways they shop.

His clothes were worn and old, he was dirty from head to toe

If you had the stomach to make it through the video for this song, you will perhaps have noticed how utterly clean and all-American wholesome the boy is (along with his whole family). Guess being dirty didn’t play well in Peoria.

And when it came his time to pay
I couldn’t believe what I heard him say

I’d be pretty thunderstruck, myself, since what the kid says is the chorus to a #1 song, and yet the rhyme scheme is totally messed up—and just so that you can get the whole horror of it, i’m going to show you the whole thing before i talk about it.

Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It’s Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there’s not much time
You see she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight

Okay, let’s take this piece by piece.

First of all: Kid wants to buy shoes for his mother. Not the usual sort of gift a kid gets for a parent, but he apparently did enough research to know what her shoe size is, so it all works.

We also find out that it’s Christmas Eve, which means that Mr. Carswell was stretching things a little when he said at the beginning of the song that it was almost Christmas time—sorry, dude, you procrastinated. Fortunately, you’re not alone in that.

The kid’s in a hurry, though—apparently his father told him there’s not much time. And not much time for what? wonders the naïve bystander, blissfully unaccustomed to such glurge…Well, i’ll tell you:

It’s DEATH!!1!1!!1!11!!

Yep, that’s right, this kid has gone to the store, away from his dying mama, so that he can buy her a pair of shoes that she can die in.

And not just a pair of shoes she can die in, but a pair of shoes that’ll make her look pretty for Jesus.

Okay, see, this is wrong on too many levels to list—but here’s my initial thoughts, in no particular order:

• Wasn’t one of Jesus’s big things that we shouldn’t cling too much to the things of this world, but that we should give to others? I mean, i guess that’s what the kid’s doing in some odd way, but someone with that philosophy probably isn’t going to be impressed by a pair of shoes, you know?
• At least, though, this vignette lets us know something about Mr. Carswell’s theology, which is that you can take it with you. (Or at least that you can take your shoes with you.)
• I know, it’s probably just me, but every time i hear this i get this image of people hanging out in heaven, wearing nothing but the shoes they died in and being really catty about them. “You mean you let yourself die while wearing those old things? How gauche!”

I mean, i’ve never died, and i’ve never even gone through a long sickness where it looked like i was going to die, but my suspicion is that if i ever am that sick, caring about shoes isn’t going to be at the top of my list, and i really hope it isn’t at the top of my kids’ lists.

But apparently that just makes me an evil heartless bastard who just doesn’t get The True Meaning of Christmas℠, as we’ll discover by the end of this song.

But that’s okay, ’cause even with his misplaced priorities, at least the kid has a plan, and maybe it’s done him good coming up with this, you know, to keep his mind off of impending death and all that.

He counted pennies for what seemed like years

Wait—he’s paying in pennies?!?

Then the cashier said, “Son, there’s not enough here”
He searched his pockets frantically

And so the kid didn’t have a plan? You mean he just left his dying mother to go shopping at the mall? You mean the whole buying shoes thing was an accident? What kind of psychopath-to-be is this child, anyway?

Then he turned and he looked at me

Because looking at the person behind you in line is what you does when you don’t have enough money to buy something, thought nobody ever.

He said Mama made Christmas good at our house
Though most years she just did without

Once again, the disjunction between the content of this song and the visuals of the video would amuse, if they weren’t quite so lame.

And really, what little kid actually speaks like this? I mean, really, read it as prose: Mama made Christmas good at our house, though most years she just did without. Now imagine it coming from the lips of a ragamuffin ten-year-old boy. Can’t do it, can you? That’s because actual real human kids don’t speak this way!

True story: This song was inspired by a chain email from back in the 90s called “Golden Slippers”. Yes, this song was based on an urban legend email hoax, so you know it must be quality!

Next week, NewSong releases a song about getting drunk with strangers and waking up with a missing kidney.

(At least in the original the kids wanted to buy their mother gold-colored shoes so they’d match the gold-paved streets of heaven. In this song, it’s all about being pretty for Jesus. I don’t like either sentiment, but if forced, i’ll admit to being more impressed behind the thought of the first one.)

Tell me Sir, what am I going to do,
Somehow I’ve got to buy her these Christmas shoes

See, if i’m the guy in the song, i’m thinking scam here. This kid just told an immensely improbable story about a dying mother who he’s abandoned to die on Christmas Eve so he can buy shoes for her, and i’m supposed to believe this? I know a setup when i hear it kid, get outta here before i call for security.

So I laid the money down, I just had to help him out

But Mr. Carswell is a more trusting sort than i am, so he pays for the shoes.

I’ll never forget the look on his face when he said
Mama’s gonna look so great

Especially since she just got her New Year’s Eve dancing shoes for free, just like mama told me it’d work!

And then we get the chorus again. Instead of making you read through it here, i’ll just note that this song (which, remember, was “inspired” by a chain email) itself led to both a book and a movie. Yes, that’s right, a full-length (made-for-TV) movie.

The current version of the movie’s Wikipedia page includes a plot synopsis, which gives names to the characters: the narrator of the song is named Robert, the little kid is named Nathan, and Nathan’s mother is Maggie. So various things happen and then Robert’s mother dies, after which Robert helps Nathan buy the shoes for Maggie, and then finally Maggie dies.

The end of the synopsis reads: The scene then cuts to the cemetery where Robert is visiting his mother’s grave, 17 years later. He runs into a young man wearing the same baseball cap Nathan had been wearing. After he leaves, Robert sees that the man had been visiting Maggie’s grave, and recognizes the shoes the man had left at the grave. Robert then realizes that the young man was Nathan.

This is even more disturbing than the song, ’cause it turns out that the kid never even gave the shoes to his mother—he just bought them to buy them!

(And “wearing the same baseball cap Nathan had been wearing” seventeen years earlier? I mean, i don’t even remember what my wife was wearing as we drove off from our wedding reception a bit less than seventeen years ago, and this guy recognizes a baseball cap?? I mean, i guess that makes sense, since no two baseball caps are alike, but it still rings a bit off to me.)

And now we’re at the bridge…

I knew I’d caught a glimpse of heaven’s love
As he thanked me and ran out

See, it’s lines like this that have contributed to the world’s oversupply of treacle, and until the situation is rectified there won’t be enough demand to bring back the treacle mines that produce the stuff us gourmands know to be the best, no matter how much cheaper the artificial mass-produced stuff is.

I’m just thinking the boy was glad he wasn’t going to have to end up giving his mother the hat he’d knitted for her.

I knew that God had sent that little boy
To remind me just what Christmas is all about

That’s right. God made the kid’s mom sick, and made sure the boy was poor and dirty (for the video, read: upper-middle-class—though out of money—and freshly scrubbed) enough to tug at your heartstrings, just so that you could learn The True Meaning of Christmas℠. Sorry, Mr. Carswell, but i’m thinking you’re not really that important, you know?

And then a children’s chorus kicks in to end the song with a repeat of the chorus. Seriously, by this point it doesn’t sound cute, it sounds like the kids’ voices in The Haunting.

(And i was going to repeat the chorus here just like it's done in the song, but i can’t bring myself to do it. Instead, enjoy a Christmas song with an uplifting message the way it should be done. See you next week.)

Spice Girls: Wannabe

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.

Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven

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!

Timbaland with Justin Timberlake: Carry Out

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?)

America: Sandman

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