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.)

Band Aid: Do They Know It’s Christmas?

So here at Lyrics, Weakly headquarters there hasn’t been muchany blogging going on for quite a while.

Yeah. Well, we’ve been…busy? Had to rake the leaves falling from the birch tree in the front yard, you know. (Sidebar: Who came up with the idea that birch trees are good landscaping elements? And are they still around, so that we can round them up and do mean things to them?) So, of course, new posts haven’t gone up.

But it’s December, and you know what that means: Endless Christmas songs on the radio! And, of course, most of those songs are really just not that good.

There are two types of not really good Christmas songs, though. First, there are the badly done versions of Christmas songs that have been around for a while, clearly just done to get some royalty payments when the annual Christmas song gorgefest comes around. (Yes, Barbara Streisand may be a singing genius, but her rendition of “Jingle Bells”? Please, no.) The second category is where today’s entry falls: Original compositions about Christmas that really, really, really don’t work.

And with that, i present for you Band Aid’s syrupy 1984 masterwork, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

Now, before i go any further, i want to say that when Bob Geldof and Midge Ure wrote this song (people usually forget Mr. Ure’s contribution to the song, since Mr. Geldof is rather more famous, so i figure i might as well do the same from this point on, ’cause it’s easier to write about one person than a group), the sentiment was precisely spot-on. I mean, for those of us who were around then, the mid-80s Ethiopian famine was heartrending—all these people dying and we couldn’t do anything. Well, most of us, at least—some people had the means to put plans into operation, and Mister Geldof was one of those. He got a bunch of really, really famous mostly-British rock stars together to have them record the song, and the rest is history.

So Mr. Geldof wrote a song for charity, and it was successful—and i’ve seen various numbers for how much it raised for famine relief floating around the interwebs, but $14 million seems to be the most widely cited figure. So good for him and everyone else associated with the song.

Anyway, the song starts with dome foreboding minor-key tonality, very doomy, which is kind of cool for a Christmas song. Fitting for one that has to address human suffering and all.

But the lyrics! Ah, the lyrics…

It’s Christmas time
There’s no need to be afraid

Well, that’s a relief. I mean, given the fact that 68% of the population suffers from a phobia of Christmas…Oh, wait, you mean they don’t? Oh, well, then, i suppose it really is true that there’s no need to be afraid.

For the record, i did find one site that lists “xristougennaphobia” as the fear of Christmas, but i think it says something about how made upwidespread that is that it only shows up on that one page in a Google search. (Well, two, once this page gets indexed by Google’s all-knowing database.)

I also found a lot of listings for “christougenniatiko dentrophobia”, which was defined as the fear of Christmas trees.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.

(Best discussion of the effects of christougenniatiko dentrophobia, by the way, from a page that seems to be serious, giving advice to aspiring fiction writers: “A person with this phobia would most likely not grow Christmas trees for a living. Since all live Christmas trees are a type of pine tree, is a person with this phobia afraid of pine trees year-round? Or just at Christmas time? Could they be afraid of them because of bugs they could bring in the house? Or maybe it is the possibility of the tree catching fire that scares them. Are they also afraid of artificial Christmas trees? And does the tree have to be decorated for them to fear it?”)

At Christmas time
We let in light and we banish shade

I would just like to say, as a resident of Alaska, that this is not possible, at least in the northern latitudes (and the British Isles aren’t in the far north, but even London, near the south end of the islands, is up there with Calgary, of all places). If you open the curtains at Christmas time in the northern hemisphere, you get…dark, at least for most of the day. The opposite of light. In order to provide light, you have to flip a switch or light a candle or something in your house.

I mean, c’mon, people, this is basic kid-level earth science!

And in our world of plenty
We can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world
At Christmas time

Okay, this is a softball, but one i have to take: Those are some really long arms!

These lines, though, are delivered by Boy George, and they’re worth a listen to remind us of how just absolutely amazing his voice was before he went all VH1 Behind the Music on us.

(Admit it—you were totally expecting that last link to be this one, weren’t you?)

Anyway, at this point the music changes and we get an uptempo rhythm (largely courtesy of Phil Collins, taking a break from ruining the band Genesis) sounding much like…well, actually, sounding like every single other uptempo synthpop song released in the mid-80s, and the lyrics continue.

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones

So we’re supposed to pray for The Others? Why? According to the Wikipedia page for the movie, it’s done quite well for itself without any prayers on our part.

(Yeah, yeah, i know. After reading that, though, you may be happy to learn that there are plays on words out there that are even worse.)

At Christmas time, it’s hard

I single out this line just because i can’t make any sense of it. The lack of punctuation between lines in the source i was able to find doesn’t make it easier, but all i can figure is that it’s supposed to follow from the preceding lines, so that it reads But say a prayer, pray for the other ones—at Christmas time, it’s hard, and that doesn’t make any sense, really. Maybe it’s supposed to go with what follows? Well, that’s worse: At Christmas time, it’s hard, but when you’re having fun there’s a world outside your window, and it’s a world of dreaded fear.

So all i can figure is that At Christmas time, it’s hard is supposed to be a standalone sentence, not syntactically connected to the phrases either preceding or following it. Unless this is a something about the widely-held but false belief that Christmastime is associated with mental illness, it seems just a throwaway attempt to get from George Michael to Simon Le Bon.

Anyway—sorry about the grammatical aside. I’m a linguist by profession, though, so i can’t really help it.

But when you’re having fun
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dreaded fear

Okay, so here’s where we start to go properly off the rails.

They’re trying to say that right outside your window, while you’re having fun at Christmas, people are starving in Ethiopia—essentially, it’s guilt trip time! Now, of course, Ethiopia isn’t literally right outside the windows of this song’s target market, but that’s okay—i’ll happily let them be figurative here.

But dreaded fear? I mean, could this be a little bit clumsier? After all, what other kinds of fear are there? Welcomed fear? Appealing fear? Pleasing fear?

Sometimes you just want to shake your head, you know? I mean, Mr. Geldof, you’re the guy who wrote “I Don’t Like Mondays”, which is full of amazingly turned lines about a horrific event, so we know you’ve got the ability. But dreaded fear? Srsly?

Anyway, enough rant. Back to…

Where the only water flowing
Is a bitter sting of tears

Now i realize that we didn’t Wikipedia to answer all our questions back in 1984, but this. I mean, Mr. Geldof, couldn’t you at least be bothered to look at an atlas? The Blue Nile, for heaven’s sake, originates in Ethiopia!

And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom

Actually, no.

Ethiopia (and Eritrea, which has since become independent but was part of Ethiopia at the time) are both majority-Christian nations, and they have a number of churches that, presumably, could ring bells on Christmas—and even though i’m not actually there to confirm this, i’m pretty sure that they’d choose bells that sound at least minimally joyous on what is, after all, one of their big celebration days.

And then, finally, we get to Bono shouting out…

Well, tonight thank God, it’s them
Instead of you

Let’s take a step back for a moment and consider.

There are a lot of people out there who hate this song. A lot. And, in my review preparing for this entry, this line was mentioned by approximately every single one of them. (In fact, if you simply google this line you get several of them fairly high in the results. Of course, you also get a few defenses of the line, but at least a couple of them also claim that Wham!’s “Last Christmas” is a great Christmas song, so they can of course be dismissed as simply ludicrous.)

I mean, it’s arguably the most clearly sung line in the whole song, and it’s sung with a fervor that nothing else in the whole thing is. Further, it’s even the structural fulcrum of the entire piece, with the following lines coming at a rather more frenzied pace.

And Bono—dear, dear Bono—with all he’s done to try to improve the world, gets remembered for this.

(Actually, i did run across a claim that Bono objected to it, but that Mr. Geldof insisted on it being sung as written. If this is true, then it seems that Mr. Geldof didn’t just play someone with a bit of a dictator complex.)

I like to wonder, though, what such a thanks to deity would sound like. “Dear Lord, we are thankful to thee that thou hast made those people in Ethiopia to starve, and not us.” Now, i don’t precisely no what the response of deity to such a prayer might be, but i do know what it’d be if i were the one so addressed.

And then we get a lesson in climatology…

And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time

And you know why? Because, a couple of very specific locations aside, there’s nearly never snow in Africa. In fact, snow in Africa is an event worthy of international headlines.

This is simply a fact of geography and climate. I mean, just look at a map, for starters! The vast majority of the African continent lies in the tropics—absent really insanely high elevation, you don’t get snow.

But you want to know the best part of all this? It’s that the claim about no snow in Ethiopia actually isn’t even technically true. Yes, most of Ethiopia is completely snow-free, due to the aforementioned tropic-ness of the place. But Ethiopia also contains the Semien Mountains, where snow can accumulate in the winter. (Skiing, though, would be difficult.

The greatest gift they'll get this year is life

Um, just to be non-snarky for a moment here: Isn’t that true of all of us?

I mean, i don’t care how much you wanted that particular gift, if you’re dead it’s not going to mean as much to you.

(Clearly, the shelf life on non-snarky is short here.)

Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow

See above on the fact that there are rivers in Ethiopia. Quite a few rivers, in fact.

There’s also rain in Ethiopia. Yes, the mid-80s had record low rainfall in much of the country, but it certainly rains there.

And things also grow in Ethiopia. In fact, agricultural products make up 80%  of Ethiopian exports, according to what i could find on the web.

Yes, yes, i realize that the popular conception is that Ethiopia is a desert, but it’s not actually true. Once again, Mr. Geldof, would it have hurt so much to look in an atlas?

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

Well, since (as already mentioned) Ethiopia and Eritrea are both majority-Christian nations, i would have to say that yes, they do know it’s Christmas time, thank you very much.

But what difference would it make? I mean, are you saying they need calendars, too?

But yeah, there’s a pretty good-sized Muslim population in both countries, and so there may well be villages and towns that are entirely unaware that it’s Christmas time, because the entire population is Muslim. And you know what? Come in close, listen carefully, because this is an important secret about those villages: They don’t care!

Now, they may well care whether it’s Eid al-Adha or not, but you know what? They already know.

Here’s to you
Raise your glass for everyone
Here's to them
Underneath that burning sun

So what do we learn from these lines? That when faced with hunger in a distant land, the proper response is to get drunk and party.

Um, yeah. Well, whatever works for you, i guess.

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

Again, yes. Or no. But it doesn’t really matter, you know?

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world

In all seriousness, i didn’t know what these lines were until i wrote up this post. Nice sentiment, it’s just a pity that it had to get stuck in a song like this.

And then we get this on repeat and fade:

Let them know it’s Christmas time again
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time again
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time again
Feed the world

It can’t be just me who hears this and thinks it’s pretty much a “Neener neener neener! We know it’s Christmas time! So there!”

But in all seriousness, why should it matter to you whether they know it’s Christmas time? If what you want is to feed people, then send them a pizza, no matter the day. I mean, there’s really no connection at all, is there? (Or at least there shouldn’t be.)

So now we’ve got a logical inconsistency to go along with everything else, what with the whole Christmas-famine relief non sequitur.

Anyway, this little gem was released in 1984. In an attempt to redeem the year, here’s a better (though, admittedly, darker) song released the same year, and it even had the year in the title! Enjoy.

Gabriel and the Angels: That’s Life (That’s Tough)

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

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.

Natalie Imbruglia: Torn

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.

The Shangri-Las: Leader of the Pack

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?