Buffalo Springfield: Mr. Soul

This week we travel back to the late 60s and visit a song that was never a big hit, but that remains one of the best-known songs of one of the greatest bands of the era: Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul”.

“Mr. Soul” was written by Neil Young, a performer who’s rightly acknowledged as also being a great songwriter. Mr. Young built this song in an unusual (for rock, at least) structure—three verses of four rhyming lines each, and no chorus. Basically, the song is written more like a poem than an ordinary rock song. This means, of course, that this week we’ll be in for a real treat, a vision of perfect songsmanship. Right? Well, we shall see.

Oh, hello Mr. Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason

See, what’d i say? Pure genius! Structuring a song in the form of a conversation between the artist and someone outside of the ordinary conversation between artist and audience, pushing us headlong into a world of pure metaphor, where reasons can be exchanged like candy.

For the thought that I caught that my head is the event of the season

See, once again, pure…erm…well…i guess this would actually be best described as incomprehensibility.

Hmmm.

Let me try to parse this sentence. Maybe it means…well, no, not that. Maybe…no, that wouldn’t make sense, either. Essentially, this is not English sentence structure.

Well. Since we know Neil Young is a genius, let’s just chalk this up to bad transcription. Yeah! That explains it! Every single lyrics site out there is wrong, and if we could only decipher what Mr. Young had actually written, we’d all be sitting here stunned and slack-jawed with amazement at how amazing and beautiful this line actually was, instead of stunned and slack-jawed at how amazing and beautiful it…isn’t. Um.

In other words, move along, there’s nothing to see here.

Why in crowds just a trace of my face could seem so pleasin’
I’ll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on.

See? This is just absolutely…

Well, the best word would, i guess, be “nonsensical”.

But at least it’s actually English, so it’s got that going for it!

I was down on a frown when the messenger brought me a letter
I was raised by the praise of a fan who said I upset her

So which is it, Mr. Young? Were you down or raised? Or is it that the praise of the fan raised your spirits, after they’d been down? Probably that. Except that she also said you’d upset her, which only makes really mean people happy. So you’re a mean person, Mr. Young? Good of you to admit it, i guess.

And why would being brought a letter get you down? Most people like to get mail. Unless it’s bills.

Ooh! It makes sense now!

Mr. Young was delivered what he thought was a bill for his most recent hashish purchase, and he was sad about it, since he knew he’d either have to pay out a lot of money out or have his knuckles repossessed by the Bank of Guido. But it turned out that it wasn’t a bill, it was actually hate mail from someone who said he’d upset her, which made Mean Mr. Young smile.

Or maybe Mr. Young’s making a deeper point—that really deep stuff like good rock music can’t be tied down to ordinary, boring things like narrative structure. Yeah, man, that’s gotta be it! Genius!

Okay, i’ll let you stop rolling your eyes before moving on to the next lines.

Any girl in the world could have easily known me better
She said you're strange, but don't change, and I let her.

You let her what, Mr. Young? I mean, this being a rock song and all, normally i’d go for the unspoken sexual interpretation here, but with the line preceding it it’s just confusing. You’d let her know you better? Well, that makes sense, since you’d apparently let any girl in the world do so. But the most immediate possible antecedent is change, so maybe you let her change even though she asked you not to. I guess that’s a nice gesture on your part, so congrats on learning how not to be mean.

Or maybe this is simply semi-random words thrown together to create something incomprehensible enough that people will think it’s deep.

That gets my vote.

In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?

No, Mr. Young, the smile on your face, assuming there has been no plastic surgery and you’re not wearing any makeup, will remain made of various lipids, proteins, salts, and water—and even if you are wearing makeup or have undergone plastic surgery, you’re still in no danger of your smile turning to plaster, which is made of stuff like gypsum, calcium carbonate, sand, or cement, none of which appears in most readily available makeup or plastic surgery formulations. So no worries on that score.

But this song is from the late 60s, so i suppose certain, um, practices may reasonably have led to such paranoias. So i’m glad i could set your mind at ease, Mr. Young—it’s just a service i provide.

Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster
For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster
Is it strange I should change? I don't know, why don't you ask her?

This doesn’t even make enough sense for me to properly mock it.

You know what’s really sad about these lines? Back when i was seventeen and wrote lots of really, really bad poetry, most of it came out sounding like this.

And the scary thing is that there are people out there who have killed many, many electrons in an attempt to explain what, exactly, this song means. What do i think? I think there’s a much simpler explanation.

p.s. Jim Messina’s career was launched by being in Buffalo Springfield. I wonder if our old friend Susan will drop by again?

Atlantic Starr: Always

This week we visit 1987, and we discuss the slow-dance song of that year: Atlantic Starr’s “Always”.

“Always” was an extremely popular song, hitting #1 on the Billboard charts. As a “first dance” type of piece (it even peaked on the charts just in time for June weddings!), i must say it was vastly superior to certain other options, but it suffered from a number of issues. Perhaps the greatest of these was that it is so sappily sweet that it’s dangerous for diabetics to be in the room when it comes on the radio.

You doubt me? Just look at the first verse:

Girl you are, to me, all that a woman should be
And I dedicate my life to you always
A love like yours is grand
You must have been sent from up above
And I know you'll stay this way, for always

Awww, isn’t that just so cute?

And, if you didn’t know, this song is a duet, just to up the cuteness quotient. What a wuvvable wittle song about such wuvvable wittle wuvvers!

And speaking of cute, if you look at the video, you’ll see that the male singer was trying his best to look exactly like Rick James for the occasion. David Lewis in the house, representin’ the Jheri Curl!

And we both know, that our love will grow
And forever it will be you and me

Up to this point, we have a fairly ordinary, even innocuous, love song. However, things start to take a strange turn soon.

Ooh, you’re like the sun
Chasing all the rain away

You know why it chases the rain away? Because it’s a gigantic nuclear furnace, so hot that it exists as plasma, too hot to even be in the form of gas. It’s one thing to say that your lover is hot, quite another to say that your lover casts out so much heat and radiation that he or she would destroy all life on the planet if millions of miles of distance and a layer of ozone didn’t stand between us and the object of your affections.

More seriously, the sun doesn’t even chase the rain away, the wind does. And yes, little meteorological gaffes like this really do bug me that much.

When you come around you bring brighter days
You’re the perfect one
For me and you forever we’ll be
And I will love you so for always

I’ve got nothin’ on this one, except to note my heroic attempts to stifle my gag reflex, again.

Came with me my sweet
Let’s go make a family
And they will bring us joy, for always

This one, on the other hand, i’ve got comments.

The let’s go make a family line is, to my mind, one of the squickiest lines in any song, ever. Now, i will readily admit that nothing here rises to Benny Mardones-level ickiness, but it’s still pretty wrong.

I mean, this just isn’t the sort of thing that i can imagine going over well. Let’s translate this into the way the song up to this point would go in a non-rhyming situation:

“Hey, baby, i love you, and i’ll love you for always.”

“I love you, too, baby, and i’ll love you for always.”

“So, my sweet, come with me and let’s go make a family.”

SLAP!

Really—is there any reasonable way to read this verse that doesn’t come across as a cheap, blatant proposition? Specifically, as some guy trying to use empty promises of commitment to work his way into a woman’s pants? No, no there isn’t.

Oh, boy, I love you so
I can't find enough ways to let you know
But you can be sure I’m yours, for always

But then we get the woman’s response, and she doesn’t really seem bothered by it. Why? Well, i have my suspicions—i think she’s actually a succubus sent by Lilith to harvest the guy’s soul. Therefore, his idea of retreating to an, um, more private place simply serves her own demonic ends.

Then we get the chorus with the accompanying destruction of all life on earth. Twice.

I’ll skip it to spare you having to read the horror again.

I will love you so, for always
I will love you so, for always
I will love you so, for always
I will love you so, for always

Irony department: Barbara Weathers, the female half of this duet, left Atlantic Starr for a solo career shortly after this song’s release. For always, eh?

Bryan Adams: Summer of ’69

Today’s installment on Lyrics, Weakly is yet another overplayed song from the 80s (though this time it’s from 1985)—the Bryan Adams song “Summer of ’69”.

There’s been an interesting bit of controversy over this song, with Bryan Adams claiming that the song has nothing to do with the year 1969, and that it has everything to do with certain, um, physical activities. Jim Vallance, who co-wrote the song with Mr. Adams, says that that’s complete rubbish, and that the song is most definitely about the summer of that year.

My guess? It really is about the summer of 1969, but then Mr. Adams realized people had been doing the math (see my comments on the very first verse of the song), and so he decided to do some revisionist history.

Either way, though, it’s still a silly song.

I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played ’til my fingers bled
It was summer of ’69

Yep, 1969—those halcyon days of the late 60s, when everything seemed possible, before the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, before the musical horrors of the 70s. Yes, the summer of ’69, back when Bryan Adams was a young, vibrant…erm…nine years old.

Now, this verse doesn’t press the bounds of reality all that far—one of my daughters started guitar lessons shortly before her seventh birthday, for example—but you really should keep this in mind for the rest of the song. Bryan Adams is singing this song about the summer he was nine years old.

Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit, Jody got married
I shoulda known we’d never get far

Apparently Mr. Adams’s friends from grade four were pretty precocious in many ways, what with being in a band and getting married so young and all. Or maybe he’s boasting that his friends were older than him, and he should have been viewed as a prodigy along the lines of Stevie Winwood writing and singing with the Spencer Davis Group.

Either way, though, it was apparently good times, as we learn in the next stanza.

Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

Can this verse be any more depressing? For someone born in 1959 to say that the summer of 1969 held the best days of his life, well, that’s just wrong. I mean, you didn’t even have a good few months when you were in your mid-twenties or something?

Ain’t no use in complainin’
When you got a job to do
Spent my evenin’s down at the drive in
And that’s when I met you

Complaining about one’s job is a time-honored benefit of being employed—yeah, you’ve got income coming in, and that’s good, but you could be paid more and valued as more than just another drain on the corporation’s coffers.

And complaining on the job serves a useful purpose—it’s a stress reliever. So get down off that moral high horse, Mr. Adams, and mingle with the rest of us sometime.

Standin’ on your mama’s porch
You told me that you’d wait forever
Oh and when you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never

I don’t get this scene. Mr. Adams is standing on a porch with someone, and she grasps his hand, at which point it became now or never. Okay, fine—but now or never for what? I don’t know, and we never get told. Now or never for a relationship with the hand-holder, maybe? Entirely possible, but if you’re only to the hand-holding stage it doesn’t seem like you’d really be to the go-no go point yet, you know?

Those were the best days of my life
Oh, yeah, back in the summer of ‘69

More with the depressing reminder that time and youth are fleeting.

Man we were killin’ time
We were young and restless
We needed to unwind

So you’re young and restless, which generally means that you’re doing something (or at least planning to), and you’re killing time, which generally means you’re not doing anything (nor are you planning to).

This does not compute. It is a paradox. Would it be too much to ask logical consistency of your music, Mr. Bryan Adams?

Wait—sorry, i just realized i asked that question of someone who released, at age 36, an album titled 18 Til I Die.

I guess nothin’ can last forever, forever, no

The dark undercurrents of this song are only getting stronger…

And now the times are changin’

According to Bob Dylan, the times they were a-changin’ all the way back in 1964, even before the summer of ’69. Does that mean there is no change, since change is merely a constant?

Sorry, i’ve been talking with too many philosophy majors lately, apparently.

Look at everything that’s come and gone
Sometimes when I play that old six-string
I think about ya wonder what went wrong

My guess? You played that old six-string too much and ignored her needs. But then again, i’m not a licensed therapist, so you should take my analysis with a grain of salt.

Standin’ on your mama’s porch
You told me that it’d last forever
Oh the way you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life

Okay, i may be completely out of my depth here, what with not having even been alive in 1969, much less a world-weary musically and romantically precocious nine-year-old, but i don’t think holding hands really carried that much weight in the late 60s. Or maybe it’s all in the way she held your hand—except i’m having trouble figuring out how exactly one would go about holding hands in such an intensely meaningful way.

Ah, the secrets Bryan Adams keeps!

Oh, yeah, back in the summer of '69
It was the summer of ’69
Me and my baby in ’69
It was the summer, summer, summer of ’69, yeah

You know, all in all, Bryan Adams has a lot going for him—he’s been one of the most consistent hitmakers in music over the course of decades, he’s rightfully famous for his portrait photography, he does really amazing philanthropic work, and he seems such an all-around good guy that it seems a little petty to criticize him for a bit of poor songwriting. And yeah, it is petty—but come on, this song merits it.

Huey Lewis & the News: The Heart of Rock & Roll

So i was thinking that i ought to post a song with really excellent lyrics, after Mariana raised the idea in response to my last post. So i got started looking for possibilities, filtering through them (do i like Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” because the lyrics are good, or because of the emotional content? is Yes’s “And You and I” too obscure? is Berlin’s “The Metro” too purposefully intense to really fit the bill? would choosing an instrumental like Herbie Hancock’s “Actual Proof” be cheating?), coming closer and closer to a decision…and then this song came on the radio, making my choice for me through its sheer awesome horribleness.

So let me take you back to the days of my youth…1983, to be exact.

1983 wasn’t really one of the greatest years on record. Not only were there semi-obscure but horrifying events like Able Archer 83, but Microsoft Word was first released. Need i say more?

Against this backdrop, the release of a ridiculous song doesn’t seem so bad—but, i must say, it certainly doesn’t help.

Anyway, for good or ill, that was the year that Huey Lewis & the News released “The Heart of Rock & Roll”, which immediately became one of the most overplayed songs of the year. Of course, a song being overplayed often results in a backlash (though not for the great ones—two of the songs from that year were Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Prince’s “1999”, which never got old), but sometimes the backlash turns out to be unwarranted—yeah, we heard too much of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and the Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another”, but we got to rediscover how good they were after they had lain fallow for a few years.

“The Heart of Rock & Roll”, though…One might think that it started to sound ridiculous because it got overplayed, but no, it started to sound ridiculous because it’s ridiculous. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look more closely, then, shall we?

New York, New York is everything they say
And no place that I’d rather be
Where else can you do a half a million things
All at a quarter to three?

Well, what about Paris? Or Chicago? Or Miami? Or London? Or Berlin? Or Frankfurt? Or Tokyo? Or Shanghai? Or…well, pretty much any big city with any sort of nightlife scene, really.

Not to slap New York down or anything—i mean, it’s bigger than me, and could probably beat me up in a fair fight—but it’s not like nothing ever happens in the wee hours of the morning anywhere else in the world.

(Also, the way the first line of this song is delivered, for a long time I thought it was New York, New York isn’t everything they say. vaguely confusing, given what follows.)

But anyway, it appears that this is going to be a song of praise to New York, and that’s fine—there’s a long history of fixating on New York in literature. So let’s hear what else Mr. Lewis has to say about New York.

When they play their music, ooh that modern music
They like it with a lot of style
But it’s still that same old back beat rhythm
That really really drives ’em wild

I like to focus on the lyrics of songs in this blog rather than the videos, mainly because there were so many mindblowingly stupid videos done in the 80s even for decent songs. But i do have to mention that if you haven’t already, you should take a moment to watch the video linked above for this song, where Mr. Lewis and his News use this moment in the song to ally themselves with New York’s punk scene. Um, no.

But you can see what they’re building here—all rock music is the same, it doesn’t matter if it’s the News singing a mash-up of doo-wop and 80s-pop or Minor Threat playing punk, it’s all exactly the same. Okay, whatever. Let’s just say that Minor Threat might not appreciate the comparison.

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beatin’
And from what I’ve seen I believe ’em
Now the old boy may be barely breathin’
But the heart of rock and roll, heart of rock and roll is still beatin’

So rock and roll is on life support? Apparently Mr. Lewis was worried about a resurgence of disco, and felt that we should be on guard against it. A reasonable stance, now that i think about it.

Also, from the true stories i probably shouldn’t admit about myself department: For many, many years i thought the third line of the chorus was actually Now the oboe may be barely breathin’. I don’t know what do with that fact, i just find it amusing.

L.A., Hollywood and the Sunset Strip
Is something everyone should see
Neon lights and the pretty, pretty girls
All dressed so scantily
When they play their music, that hard rock music
They like it with a lot of flash

Music from scantily-dressed women? I wouldn’t have guessed that Huey Lewis was a fan of Vanity 6? Well, i guess they have overproduced mindless pop in common, so it shouldn’t surprise me.

But it's still that same old back beat rhythm
That really kicks ’em in the

Oh, ho, ho! That clever and naughty but not naughty enough to get banned from the airwaves Huey Lewis! He has made us all think of buttocks by not completing the rhyme! Well, except that the uncompleted rhyme has to rhyme with flash, which means that it actually kicks them in the ash. Well, i guess you can’t have everything.

But now we emerge into the part of the song that actually seriously annoys me. I mean, up to this point it’s actually a pretty unobjectionable, though not great, 80s-pop piece. Here, though, we make a sharp turn into…Well, just follow along.

D.C., San Antone and the Liberty Town
Boston and Baton Rouge
Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City,
Seattle, San Francisco, too

Really? Could the pandering for audience applause at various stops on your next tour be more obvious? (Well, yes it could, but Sir Mix-a-Lot hadn’t yet perfected the art.) So Mr. Lewis, i’m kind of ashamed on your behalf—and i don’t hold the News unaccountable here, either, since y’all should’ve staged an intervention or something. You’re supposed to be professionals, and therefore above such tricks.

Everywhere there’s music, real live music
Bands with a million styles
But it’s still that same old rock and roll music
That really, really drives ’em wild

Somewhere out there, Minor Threat is arming themselves for the necessary smackdown.

In Cleveland

Hey, didn’t some rock singer do a song about Cleveland? That must mean it’s important for rock and roll, right?

Detroit

And hey, Detroit has, like, a million people or something! If we pander to them, too, we can sell even more albums!

Heart of rock and roll

Rock and roll has heart, yes, but i’m unconvinced that Huey Lewis & the News are uniquely qualified to represent it.

On the whole, of course, this is clearly not the worst song i’ve covered on this site. Coming from the band that gave us the perfectly candy-coated doo-wop thrill that is “If This Is It”, though, this song is just sadly wasted energy.

Timbaland with Justin Timberlake: Carry Out

All two of the regular readers of Lyrics, Weakly may have noticed that i haven’t had much to say about today’s music—the most recent song i’ve offered commentary on was 1992’s “Save the Best for Last”. Well, it’s time for that to change, and so we move directly into the current top twenty, with the hit “Carry Out” by Timbaland, with supporting vocals from Justin Timberlake (and with both of them, but particularly Mr. Timberlake, looking particularly dorky in the video).

There’s really nothing much to say to lead in to the utter joy that is the stunning incoherence of this song’s lyrics, so let’s just go ahead and get started, shall we?

Eh, eh, eh

No, i’m not kidding. This really is the first line of the song. With a start like that, you just know it’s gonna be fun!

Even better, this is followed by a few lines that are Auto-Tuned into such submission that not only am i unable to figure out what nearly any of them say, i haven’t been able to find a transcription of them in any of the expected places—many sites simply skip them, while others transcribe them as the following:

(…)

No, really—i’m not kidding.

The lines i can figure out from this section, though, seem to more or less match the chorus, so i’m not going to stress too much about not knowing for sure what they say. I’ll just move on to the bits that i could figure out, given a bit of help from various online sources.

Baby, you’re lookin’ fire hot

I have to admit that this is a good line. The Auto-Tuning makes it kind of weird, but whatever—that’s the sound Timbaland was after, and even if it undercuts some of the smoothness of the seduction, it at least gets you to pay attention.

In any event, this is obviously going to be a lesson in the best pickup lines in the business. I’m sure all of us will learn something we can use from every single line of this song.

I’ll have you open all night like you’re IHOP

Or maybe not.

I mean, really? You’re comparing the woman you’re trying to get in your bed to an IHOP?!? As in International House of Pancakes? With the blue roof and everything? And you’re telling her this to her face, and expecting it to work?

Of course, you’re a successful R&B and hip-hop performer and producer, so that might mitigate the expected effects of this particular line. Just pick a woman who’s already drunk enough that she wouldn’t be able to tie her own shoes if they were slip-ons, and it might work for you anyway.

I’ll take you home baby, let you keep me company
You give me some of you, I give you some of me

This is only one of approximately 2,348 references to the act of sex in this song, but it merits highlighting because it may be the only one of them that isn’t actually insulting in some way.

Oh, and the rhyme of company with some of me would belong in the bad rhyme hall of fame, except that…

You look good baby must taste heavenly
I’m pretty sure that you got your own recipe

…the rhyme of heavenly with recipe beat it there.

So pick it up, pick it up, yeah I like you
I just can’t get enough I gotta drive through

I know this is a sexual reference, but for the life of me i can’t figure out what it means. I mean, drive through? If Timbaland came up to me and said “Dude, i’m gonna have sex right through you”, i would fear for my physical safety and edge carefully away. But apparently the object of his desire doesn’t, ’cause he just keeps singing to her.

Cause it’s me, you, you, me, me, you, all night
Have it your way, foreplay before I feed your appetite

All the food imagery might be making you hungry, it might be making you queasy. All i know is, if you’re anything like me, it sure ain’t making you horny.

Nothing personal, Timba, but this really isn’t the smoothest set of lines i’ve ever heard.

Let me get my ticket baby let me get in line

At least it’s a nicely subtle way of saying he’s cool with sloppy seconds.

Which i suppose is yet another food reference.

I can tell the way you like it baby supersized
Hold on, you got yours, let me get mine
I ain’t leavin’ till they turn over the closed sign

The whole supersized thing has progressed to the point of cliché, but that’s alright, i’ll let it pass, ’cause i’m a bit surprised by what we find in the next line—we heard Timba say that the object of his affections has a supersized it, just like Mr. Land himself does. Given that Timbaland is saying that he has a supersized it, and i’m pretty sure we all know what he means by that, it’s making me think that this song is actually a below-the-radar gay anthem. I mean, that’s the only logical conclusion to draw. Right?

Timbaland and Timberlake, sittin’ in a tree…

Ahem. On with the song—we’re up to the chorus now.

Check it
Take my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body till you hear me out
Turn me on my baby don’t you cut me out
Turn me on my baby don’t you cut me out
Take my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body ’til it’s lights out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out

As always, smooth.

I mean, comparing someone to a carry out? I’m just trying to imagine pulling this one off: “Hey babe, your body makes me think of a place that serves cheap, greasy food in styrofoam containers.” All i can say is that the folks at the clubs Mr. Land frequents are way different than those in any clubs i’ve ever been too.

And let me walk into your body? That’s either admitting clumsiness, or it’s just plain disturbing. I can’t get anything from that line that doesn’t result in some degree of disgust, or at least annoyance.

And Justin Timberlake is taking over the vocals here, though with the amount of Auto-Tune going into this it’s effectively impossible to tell Timberlake apart from Timbaland.

Number one, I take two number threes
That's a whole lotta you, and a side of me

What in the world is a number three? Number one and number two i know about, but i haven’t heard about number three. Well, i figure that anything i don’t understand from the hip-hop world i can find in the Urban Dictionary, I go there only to discover that number three is [insert drum roll here] masturbation.

So Mr. Timberlake is telling us that the first thing he does is masturbate. Twice. And this is supposed to be seductive.

I guess it’s just me, but i don’t get the allure.

Now is it full of myself to want you full of me?

But i’ve gotta give credit where it’s due—this is actually a pretty clever line.

And if there’s room for dessert, then I want a piece
Baby, get my order right no errors
Ima touch you in all the right areas
I could feed you, you could feed me
Girl, deliver that to me, come see me

Wait—did he just rhyme errors and areas? Yes? Wow. This is getting into America territory here.

And is it just me, or does the whole get my order right no errors thing sound a little threatening to you? At least he plans to make physical contact with her in all the correct places as a reward for getting his order for a Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity right. Fair trade, i suppose.

Cause it’s me, you, you, me, me, you all night
Have it your way, foreplay, before I feed your appetite
Do you like it well done ’cause I do it well
Cause I’m well seasoned if you couldn’t tell
Now, let me walk into your body till you hear me out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out

The do you like it well done line seems a reasonable enough way to pick up your local IHOP waitress, but then Justin has to ruin his groove by calling himself well seasoned. Since i didn’t know what that means, i again turned to my good friend the Urban Dictionary to find out that he’s describing himself as a…Oh. Let’s just say it isn’t likely to turn her on.

Especially since we then have to listen to the chorus a couple more times, where Misters Timbaland and Timberlake threaten to walk into her body. Again.

But in an attempt to recover from that faux pas, they try to distract her by asking questions.

What’s your name? What’s your number?
I’m glad I came, can you take my order?
What’s your name? Girl what’s your number?
I’m glad I came, can you take my order?

You know, you’ve already propositioned her repeatedly—it may be a little late for questions like these.

Come over here (What's your name?)
Come closer (What's your number?)
Over here (I’m glad I came)
A little closer (Can you take my order?)

Or maybe it’s just a bit of the old Protestant work ethic—if you’re a playa, you’ve got a job to do, and the fact that you’ve only got a bunch of not-really-sexually-explicit food references to work with isn’t gonna keep you from doing your job.

’Cause that’s the only way i can get any of this to make sense to me.

And then we get the chorus several times as the song ends, reminding us all that they think of their waitress as somehow, inexplicably, similar to a carryout restaurant. I’m guessing the song stops right before the waitress at their table “accidentally” spills most of a fresh pot of coffee into their laps.

(And yes, i just discussed a song with Justin Timberlake in it without mentioning wardrobe malfunctions. Interesting, though, that he has yet another hit—i wonder how Janet Jackson’s imploded career feels about that?)

The Shangri-Las: Leader of the Pack

So over here at Lyrics, Weakly central I’ve been hanging out in the 70s for the past few weeks, but today we’re going even further back—back to 1964, when the teen tragedy subgenre of doo-wop music was at its peak, shortly to give way to Beatlemania. And what better example of teen tragedy than the Shangri-Las’ #1 hit, “Leader of the Pack”?

If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s summarized rather neatly on its Wikipedia page. The summary doesn’t do the absolute incoherence of the story justice, though—for that you have to go to the lyrics themselves. So let’s do so, where we start with some forebodingly minor piano chords, leading into a conversation, presumably at the corner ice cream shop, or wherever it is well-groomed clean-cut white kids gathered back then.

(By the way, the narrator of this story is named Betty, and one of the singers in the Shangri-Las was Betty Weiss. I have no idea if she was the lead singer on this song—and what little i’ve been able to find seems to point to it being her sister, Mary Weiss—but i’m going to call her Betty just to make things easier for myself.)

Voice 1, spoken: Is she really going out with him?
Voice 2, spoken: Well, there she is. Let's ask her.
Voice 3, spoken: Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?
Betty, spoken: Mm-hmm.

So there’s the setup, with Betty wearing Jimmy’s ring. This apparently was a big deal back in the late 50s and early 60s—it meant that you were “going steady”—and the smugness in Betty’s closed-lips affirmative is palpable.

Voice 1, spoken: Gee, it must be great riding with him.

Her friends, naturally enough, are impressed. Not only does she have a boyfriend, he has a motorized conveyance (a motorcycle, as we find out later from the sound effects) with which he can drive her places.

What more could a middle-class girl want?

Voice 2, spoken: Is he picking you up after school today?

And he appears to no longer be in school. Betty done found herself an older guy!

Betty, spoken: Unh-unh.

And with this sad little verbal shake of the head, the first cracks in Betty’s absolutely wonderful world start to show.

You’d think that the response to such an answer would be “Really? Why not?” That’s what i’d ask, anyway—it would keep the flow of the conversation going. But Betty’s friends refuse to submit to such hidebound conventions.

Voices 1, 2, and 3, spoken: By the way, where’d you meet him?

They were hoping that Betty would give a simple answer like “At that bar in Chelsea” so that they can follow up with another non sequitur along the lines of “Incidentally, what color is his hair?” Instead, the singing starts. (I’ve put background vocals, done by the remaining three members of the group, in parentheses.)

I met him at the candy store.
He turned around and smiled at me.
You get the picture? (Spoken: Yes, we see.)

At the candy store? I’m imagining the candy store in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a bunch of ten-year-olds milling around and buying Wonka Bars while some motorcycle-riding tough guy tries to pick up any high school girls who accidentally walk in. Not that that would be remotely creepy, of course.

That’s when I fell for (the leader of the pack).

A guy looks at you in a candy store, you fall for him right away? I only hope he bought you the big box of chocolates.

But despite such an auspicious beginning, things aren’t all sex and cookies for the loving couple.

My folks were always putting him down (down, down).
They said he came from the wrong side of town.
(Whatcha mean when ya say that he came from the wrong side of town?)

Apparently Betty’s friends don’t understand certain common idioms used in the English language, so to answer them: It means that Jimmy resides in a section of the town that is generally associated with a lower socioeconomic class, or possibly even a criminal element.

In other words, Betty is calling her parents classist prigs—you know, Power to the People! and Down With the Man! and all that. Oh, and the main message of this song, too, which is True Love Starts in Candy Stores!

(And i’m not even going to mention the insanity of trying to fit the question into the meter of the song.)

They told me he was bad,
But I knew he was sad.
That’s why I fell for (the leader of the pack).

Okay, i realize this is being narrated by a teenage girl who’s recently had a pretty severe shock (as we find out later in the song), but that’s no excuse for this sort of narrative idiocy. I mean, let’s break this down, shall we?

First of all, being bad and being sad are not mutually exclusive, no matter what Betty seems to think.

Second, why would being sad be so utterly attractive? Really, i just don’t get it—“Oh, you look depressed, let’s go out” just isn’t the way my brain works. Apparently, though, Betty is made of sterner stuff than i am.

And finally, this is the second time it’s happened, but what’s up with the motorcycle revving here? There are some sound effects that make sense in the context of the story later in the song, but we’ve already established that Jimmy and his motorcycle aren’t coming to pick Betty up, so why are we hearing it now?

Speaking of the motorcycle sound effect, it was put to much better use on the Detergents’ parody of this song, “Leader of the Laundromat”.

One day my dad said, “Find someone new”.
I had to tell my Jimmy we’re through.

As the father of multiple daughters, part of me thinks that i should play this song to them over and over while they’re sleeping so as to subliminally convince them that if i disapprove of one of their boyfriends all i need to do is say “Find someone new” and they’ll break it off. They’d probably actually just laugh at me, but a man can dream, can’t he?

So anyway, Betty heeds her father’s advice, and so our good doormat protagonist goes to find Jimmy and break up with him. (My guess is that she just followed the sound of the gratuitous motorcycle.)

(Whatcha mean when ya say that ya better go find somebody new?)

Okay, the background singers maybe had an excuse not understanding the idiom they questioned earlier in the song, but this one just proves they’re being difficult.

He stood there and asked me why,
But all I could do was cry.

Besides, she realized how lame it would sound to say “Because my dad told me to.”

I’m sorry I hurt you (the leader of the pack).

The next bit is all spoken, for what it’s worth.

He sort of smiled and kissed me goodbye.
The tears were beginning to show.
As he drove away on that rainy night
I begged him to go slow

Twisted Sister, of all people, had the best treatment ever of the drove away on that rainy night line—look carefully at 2:04 in the linked video for the win!

Whether he heard, I’ll never know.

This is the big foreboding line—if the minor-key piano chords hadn’t clued you in already, now you know that something very, very bad is about to happen.

(No! No! No! No! No! No! No!)
Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!

This is accompanied by the sound of a motorcycle driving away and crashing, in case you still needed the tragedy of the moment pounded into your skull.

So Betty’s standing there in the rain, and Jimmy’s now dead. Pretty rough for her—so let’s go to her reaction (which is sung—the moment that’s so dreadful that it merits speaking is past).

I felt so helpless, what could I do,
Remembering all the things we’d been through.
In school they all stop and stare.
I can’t hide the tears, but I don’t care.
I’ll never forget him (the leader of the pack).

Pretty rough for her—except, um, back at the beginning of the song, she was so blasé about everything, that it kind of undercuts the pathos of the moment for me. I mean, i’ve never had a significant other die on me, but i’m pretty sure if someone asked me “Is [name of dead person] picking you up after school today?” i’d most likely do one of two things: Say “No, [name of dead person] is dead” or, probably more likely, burst into tears. (Maybe both.) Betty is apparently much more of a tough girl than i’ll ever be—she just responded back with a simple unh-unh.

Maybe she’s just in shock in the memory of all the things they’d been through—you know, all that stuff that took up so much of her time that her friends, um, had no idea whether she was dating Jimmy at all. Yeah, all those things they’d managed to go through in two hours spread over three days or so, apparently.

And yes, i do recognize that i overanalyze song lyrics. Still, i suspect that this bit of emotional inconsistency would really bother me even if i didn’t, and i figure i can’t be alone in that—can i?

And then, in case you didn’t get that Jimmy’s dead, we get the following on a repeat and fade:

(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!
(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!
(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!

Well, at least “Leader of the Pack” doesn’t have the utter sappiness of the whole class ring idiocy in Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel”—so we might as well take the small victories, right?

America: Sandman

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