Anthony:
Today's game is a strange one: pick a fairly popular (and stupid)song and attach to it the most ludicrous interpretation imaginable.
My move: "Who Let The Dogs Out": I am convinced that this is an allegory about the Protestant Reformation as told from the Pope's (Leo X) viewpoint. The text of the song is Leo, in whose papacy Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church on matters of scripture and practice, speaking before an assembly of Eurpoean Catholic nobles and decrying the appearance of these dangerous and destructive new forces by crying "who let the dogs out" (ie, Luther and Calvin). Much religous ideolgical warfare of the period in fact invokes the image of the opposition as cunning, dangerous animals. Sir Thomas More, idolized in Catholic intellectual history and the play "A Man For All Seasons" once responded to Luther's challenge of Henry the 8th (back when Henry was pro-Catholic) by vituperatively claiming that all Luther was fit for was to "lick the posterior of a pissing she mule." (I'm not making that up--I've seen the full quote and its attribution.)
Next ...
Life in the Fast Lane (Eagles): Ok, it's not about drugs, it's not about California decadence: it's about the California Highway Master Plan and its systemic flaws. "He was a hard-headed man and he was brutally handsome" (ie, the geophysical challenges of CA road construction - Bay Area, Central Valley, LA, Sierra Foothills) "and she was terminally pretty" (the scenic pallet of California itself). The song progresses from the construction boom of the 50s/60s to the economic debacles of the 80s ("he was too tired to make it/she was too tired to fight about it") and addresses some of the perils of the industry: kickbacks ("Doctor says he’s coming but you gotta pay in cash"); design implementation flaws ("we've been up and down this highway haven't seen a goddamn thing"). Should be required listening at all Engineering schools but won't because short-sighted DJs keep relegating it to "Classic Rock" stations!
Your turn....
Pamela:
"Oops I Did It Again". You'll like this song much better when you realize it's only DISGUISED as a bubble-gum pop song. It's really an erudite analysis of Catherine the Great's annexation of smaller states into Russia during the late 1700's. Verse one covers the Ukraine and parts of Poland. The second verse hits the rest of Poland and wraps up with a blistering diatribe on the evils of an imperialistic system disguising itself as noblesse oblige.
In the middle of the song, Britney's voice-over is an allegory of the quashing of dissenting opinions in the Russian press, even while journalism there was ostensibly encouraged by royalty. Really, it's so easy to understand the song once you watch the video.
Anthony:
Sorry, I forgot to lay down some of the ground rules: 1) The following songs are forbidden for analyses: Hotel California (how many times can we say it's either about California or Satan?), Roundabout (because, with the exception of "Don't Kill the Whale" all Yes songs make perfect sense from the get-go), Stairway to Heaven, Smells Like Teen Spirit, American Pie and Puff the Magic Dragon (after the John Birch Society's (in)famous "pot addict" reading in the 60s, parody was left in the dust). 2) No song means what you think (see above for exceptions). If you think Prince is singing about sex in "Darlin' Nicky" you clearly aren't thinking with your advanced degree....
Sorry to be so restrictive...
Pamela:
Hmmph. The only song that ought to be forbidden but that you forgot to include is "Bohemian Rhapsody". But it's okay. I can play by the rules. I'm not hopelessly mired in the 70's power ballad era like SOME baby boomers I know ...
"All That She Wants" -- Ace of Base. The tune is your basic Fisher-Price My First Melody, but it's not so well known that the lyrics are actually stanzas from a poem being developed by Walt Whitman.
His twilight years saw a new Whitman, a mellowing creator, an everyman-philosopher turning at last away from fatalism, from exhortation, from sardonicism. He had begun the last creative voyage, to speculate about immortality, man's all-too-brief time on earth and the perspective which makes a lowly mud-born creature believe in the power of the soul, to strive for the sublime. Who could forget his most powerful stanzas: "when she woke up late in the morning/light and the day had just begun/ she opened up her eyes and thought/ o' what a morning/ it's not a day for work/ it's a day for catching tan/ just laying on the beach and having fun".
Anthony:
Excuse me, but as I recall my first entry into this series was a very current (if very stupid) hit. Power 70s ballads indeed.
OK OK OK:
"All Star" by Smashmouth: A savage indictment of capitalism, the songs exhortations are hollow mockeries of true pop cheeriness, foregrounding the alienation of labor from its means of production. The pseudo-glamour positions mocked by the band "hey now you're an all-star, get your game on, get paid" merely serve, along with the deliberately soulless and empty rhyme scheme to point out that no-one, including the band itself is either achieving fame or wealth through their work and that, in fact, their creative energies are being sapped by the very process of trying to write songs in a multinational corporate scheme. Rarely has a band "in search of a hit single" ever caught the debilitating soullessness of the goal they ostensibly care to reach....
Pamela:
"She Drives Me Crazy" Fine Young Cannibals. This one-hit wonder really stuck it to the world of international relations. It's an insightful and pithy commentary on Israel as it is (mis) understood in the Palestinian Territories. (The Israeli Conflict: the longest-running controversy on television. Is there an award there?) The lyrics simply speak for themselves: "Tell you what I got in mind / 'cause we're runnin' out of time/ Won't you ever set me free? / This waitin' 'round's killin' me". A more poignant testimony to the precarious life in the West Bank you'll never find. One could even draw a parallel to Arafat's living entombment in his enclave, if it hadn't happened well after FYC self-destructed.
Anthony:
"Is She Really Going With Out With Him?" Joe Jackson: Covert homoerotic paranoia. Jackson's persona in the song, rather than fixating on the woman's transgressions, is actually amazed/outraged that the male (maybe the boyfriend?) is so riddled with self-hatred and fear of transgression that he's using a beard. But he carefully sublimates his rage into a clever avoidance of the primary responsibility of the song: "is she really going out with him/is she really going to take him home tonight" clearly should read "who is this guy trying to kid"--also, his viperish interjection "they say that looks don't count for much well there goes their proof" should be a dead giveaway that the woman in the song is in for a BIG Surprise when it comes time to pay or play....
Pamela:
I don't think Jackson's paranoia was all that covert, but okay.
Beastie Boys, "Fight for your right to party". A clever metaphor for the American Revolutionary War, these lyrics were originally penned on a cocktail napkin by George Will after a few too many brandy Alexanders at the annual White House Press Club Dinner. (He later claimed he had been coming down off a 4-day C-SPAN "American Biography" trip at the time.) "You wake up late for school - man you don't wanna go / You ask you mom, "Please?" - but she still says, "No!" / You missed two classes - and no homework / But your teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk"//. We are reminded of the ultimately futile diplomatic efforts by then-ambassador Benjamin Franklin in the court of George III. "Your pop caught you smoking - and he said, "No way!" / That hypocrite - smokes two packs a day". "Pop" is of course the British monarchy, and the passage refers to the famous "Boston Tea Party", and the colonists' outrage at "taxation without representation" imposed by a despot. Thomas Paine's message was a harbinger of the fight to come: "[Monarchy is] a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.." The burning need felt by this fledgling country for a self-directed system of government led inevitably to a "fight for your right to party".
Anthony:
"I am Woman" (Helen Reddy): a crie de cour from a bulemic patient if there ever was one. "I am woman hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore" positively foregrounds the singers body anxieties and obsessiveness with matters of weight and mass. "Cause I've heard it all before/I've been down there on the floor" (throwing up, obviously) "no one's ever going to put me down again" except of course, the singer's persona herself, the half-gallon of Ben And Jerry's already near the mouth). The song traces the compulsive/obsesessive nature of such dysfunctions, veering towards rhetorical aggrandizement ("I am strong/I am invincable") and almost schizoid observations ("I am woman"). How this ditty was ever passed off as a "feminist anthem" I am at a complete loss to explain, except for perhaps the obvious callousness of a patriarchally-ominated music industry completely deaf to wymmyn's experience.
Pamela:
That was a mind-bender! I hope I don't need to point out, you're back on 70's power ballads.
"Got My Mind Set on You" George Harrison. At first, we were all disappointed that a former Beatle, who ought to have better taste than this, could write such drivel. Then we wondered if the lackadaisical effort to throw together a three-minute song might not be Harrison's cynical joke on us all -- see, Americans will buy anything if they think it'll bring them closer to a Beatle.
But given Harrison's history of interest in mysticism and magic(k), it's obvious that "Set on You" is an incantation of some kind. Why else would the lyrics be so very inane and repeat so many times that the listener is sent into a trance? The fact is, chanting the words over and over calls forth the ineffable forces of circumstance which we call magic. (Same with Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love A Rainy Night”.)
What is the specific nature of the incantation -- what is it meant to accomplish? The lyrics might provide a clue. "It's gonna take time / a whole lot of precious time / it's gonna take patience and time / mmm to do it right//" Perhaps a spell to access another dimension of time? "It's gonna take Money / a whole lot of spending money / it's gonna take plenty of money / mmm to do it right//" A spell to bring wealth and good fortune to the initiate? I think the only way we'll ever get more clues is to buy the CD. Too bad you can't listen to back-masking on a CD.
Addendum: And lest I forget the capstone: Set is the Egyptian god of chaos!
Stumble it!
I am trying to find a gag that I saw in high school: "Jack and Jill" as if it was written by Walt Whitman. I remember one of the lines: " I celebrate Jack and his locomotion blundering". Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!
Joe I.
Posted by: Joe Iriana | November 06, 2004 at 05:49 PM
If you're ever in London, don't miss "Jerry Springer, the Opera." I doubt it will ever be produced in the USA, but if ever there was an early morality play turned into an Opera via the conceit of a reality TV show, this is it.
At least you can listen to some of the music at http://www.jerryspringertheopera.com/jerry_opera.html
Posted by: savtadotty | October 01, 2005 at 11:57 AM