Come on Eileen
In 1997 Save Ferris released their hit single "Come on Eileen." Let's take a close reading.
Is that a monster! No, it's an wacky asian guy who you know is going to be a good time. I like this band already! What a guy. Let's be friends. These are plucky amateurs just like you and me. It's just like when your cousin's mate played that one gig out of town that one time. Support your mates, yeah? And who is your mate? That wacky asian guy.
A woman is nurturing a young man. Just like you should nurture this band. Loading up the gear. The ac-tu-al-it-y cuts like a knife. I'm feeling this story.
Middle aged woman holds back young man. Let's pause on that a second. No, the agent is the young man. This is for young people. It's time to step out from the shadow of the people around you. Maybe express an opinion. A good opinion might be "I like this band!"
Now there's a red haired woman driving a bus. And she's singing. What? Wait, the vocals have been in for a while and they're definitely hers. Where's the wacky asian kid? who is this woman? She's no Gwen Stefani that's for sure. Oh. I see what's going on.
Here's our friend the asian kid. I guess all he does is makes that one face. And plays the bass guitar. That's your chance kid. The machine is chewing on you right now and it's going to spit you out as soon as this video's done.
The horns don't match. They're different colours. That's punk. Just the the drum kit of that guy from No Doubt.
This singing lady has a fan pointed at her face. She's supposed to be attractive. This is her big break. She's going to be a pop star, just like Gwen Stefani. She is a pop star just like Gwen Stefani! Except she isn't. She's a blank canvas waiting to be painted. She thinks that the record company are the artist come to paint her story. But they're not. Because nobody can paint that portrait but her, and the great tragedy of her life is that she doesn't even try to paint it. She thinks she's already interesting enough.
Shot of the drummer drumming like a monkey. There is a call back later on for the line "so young and clever" when the camera focuses on him again but that's all he gets. There's your career. Hope you enjoyed it.
Blah blah blah.
When they play their show there's a scene where the audience comes flooding in. At the front of the queue is a blond girl in a fine knitted blue woolen top of the type that high quality middle class girls wore in the 90s. She runs in first because she's excited and also because she's privileged and used to being at the front of the queue. And that's the target audience for this. That's who this is for.
"Hey Dad," she says when she gets home, "Hey Dad, I saw this great band today. It was really neat and I really enjoyed it." "That's great honey," says the father, "what sort of music did they play?" "Well, they had this great song called 'Come on Eileen'." The father sighs. The time has come. He knew it would. That moment when the music industry began to pillage the crown jewels of his private canon. He puts a protective hand on his daughter's shoulder and walks over to the record player. From the cabinet he takes a 7" single and puts it ritualistically on the turntable. He drops the needle, the music begins and the daughter sees in her mind's eye her ancient inheritance.
A violin is cut across by a dotted bass rhythm. Johnnie Ray is waving from the steps of an aircraft. Who on earth is Johnnie Ray? He was as forgotten in Rowland's day as Rowland is now. Rowland's Penny-Lane-esque invocation of his mother's heart throb is a perfect mirror for Save Ferris' lazy cover version of Dexy's master work. As soon as the mirroring manifests the structure of the relationship between Ray, Dexy's and Ferris collapses and for an instant there is flavour and meaning in the world. Then it is gone and we awake from the slumber of gnosis, freed from the dream of agency into a world without form or meaning. The girl is floating. She thinks she can remember her father but what is memory but lies and ego? All that exists now is Rowland's transcendent act of art. This achievement is sufficient to justify a hundred lifetimes. A pure point of light in a dark night's sky.
The girl in the blue wool top floats down towards the industrial housing of a former age. A gang is assembling at the street corner. This is the meaning of society, the manifestation of culture. What does it mean to stand with such powerfully identified people against this dominating backdrop? There is no answer, only change. Come on Eileen. The superposition of possibilities. The possibility of grace. Come on. Will you or won't you? The listener doesn't want to know. They want to feel what it is to stand on the precipice of choice. This man, this leader, this iconoclast, this bastard. Is he worth the cost? The doors he will close and the doors he will open. A giant bird weighs fate. Two girls pass with a baby in a pram. They are the target for sexual intent. This must be Eileen. The burden of her decision sits heavily on the listener. To step from the realm of the ordinary into the other of Kevin's gang. To run away with the circus. To travel with Gypsies. To pass over into the faerie kingdom. Can you trust him? He is far too young and clever. And yet Eileen is already garbed in Kevin's uniform. Here she is in dungarees, one foot over the magical threshold but refusing to enter. Eileen is the superposition of choice. Eileen is the possibility of grace. Eileen is the distilled central atom of narrative personified.
Slow. The girl in the blue top is walking through the void. She is being chased by a record company executive. He is waving a wad of cash in one hand and a shinkwrapped CD in another. Her pace picks up and she takes a few lurching steps as she begins to run. There is a figure ahead in the mist. It is the asian kid. She is chasing him and sees fear in his eyes. He casts off his hat and wacky glasses and as they fall to the ground she sees a jester's robes and puppet. Turning to look at her pursuer she sees not the record company executive but Eileen herself. The blue girl is sprinting now, fleeing from the instant of choice but she already knows to much. The moment of decision is collapsing. They are all sprinting, the blue wool girl and Kevin Rowland and every musician. You look and see yourself in the crowd and I am there as well. At the back of the peloton there is Johnny Ray as terrified as the rest of them, fleeing from Mrs Rowland who is both in front and behind of Kevin himself. The whole cast of characters, each one chasing the others. The music speeds up and up and the flight grows ever more manic. A moment of pure light and then silence.
She is in the room with her father. She sobs. Her father takes her in his arms and kisses the top of her head. "It's OK," he says, "I forgive them. All of them. Each one as vulnerable as the next. Their ambition, their greed and ignorance. I forgive you, my daughter, and I forgive Dexy's for taking the bargain and creating the cosmic debt that was repaid to them in 1997. Slowly, the girl stops crying. Eventually she looks at her father, smiles, and forgives him too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCzWPBR30Nk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc-P8oDuS0Q
Thursday 10 November 2016
Tuesday 8 November 2016
Earth Wind and Fire September
Earth Wind and Fire - September
Just look into his eyes. He doesn't believe this. Every aspect of this work is choreographed and designed to actualise an end goal.
Maurice White stands on a hill and draws back the great bow of fate. He takes careful aim and the arrow flies impressively across the starry sky. A group of teenagers have pulled off the road with two trucks and a crate of beer. Maurice touches his coiffered hair and rubs slightly at his greasy forehead. His hair is receding and he's getting old. Maybe too old. Perhaps he's had his chance? He pushes the thought into the bad places of his mind. No, tonight his magic arrow will land true. He is like cupid but instead of kindling love he will kindle disco. The arrow flies high in the night sky, but what's this? A sudden gust of earth-fire-wind catches the arrow and it flies away from the intended target. The teenagers clink their bottles together and turn the radio up. They're not even aware the arrow is there. On the bolt flies, majestic and deliberate, passing not only through the sky but forward through time. And here, ten years hence, is a church hall where two of those very teenagers, now adults, are celebrating their marriage. The arrow flies cleanly in through the open window, approaching the dancing crowd. Fat old Aunt Marjory has dropped her piece of wedding cake on the floor and she bends down with the paper plate still in her hand to pick up every dirty morsel of the spilt dessert. As she bends over she offers up her enormous rump to the open window and it jiggles slightly as she scouts out the crumbs. A second rate covers band has taken to the end of the hall in an area demarcated by wires and microphones but which doesn't deserve to be called a stage. The saxophonist sighs. Another night, another dollar. The band leader strikes up the tune and the great arrow of fate strikes deeply into the flesh of fat old Aunt Majory's behind. "Oh!" she exclaims like a Carry On extra, "Oh! I say! Earth Wind and Fire!" On the hill, Maurice White is watching the scene through his interdimensional binoculars, which he quickly drops to his waist. He snarls slightly and a bead of liquid runs down his face. Is it a tear? Or is it a bead of grease? He looks at his watch. September. Maybe he has left it too late.
The late Maurice White was a true hero of music design. By sheer force of will he brought into being this and many other similar songs. These are not pieces that would have manifested without his determination and drive. Some music is more a product of a time or a place, a cirumstance or a movement. But while there certainly would have been disco without Maurice White, there would never have been this.
Shot 1. The keyboardier is wearing fancy duds and the lights in the studio are trailing for the camera. If you were seeing this live there would be drugs. You are not seeing this live so the drugs have been faked for you. Disco = drugs. That's what the young people like.
Shot 2. This bassist is pretty regal: his clothes, his twirl, his striking features. Is this some sort of afro-futurism. The otherworldly power of Disco. We could build a better world if only we inhabited the power of youth.
Shot 5 or something. It's the first close up of Maurice White at about 0:18. Look at the intense sadness in his eyes. That hollow feeling, that emptiness and despair. He's conjoured all of this into existence to try and fix something in his soul. What is it that burns so painfully that even all of this has failed to salve it? So many people contributing so much to try and fix it. The musicians, the costume makers, the hairstylists, his make-up artist (that foundation is thick) the sound engineers, the record company and the financers, the distribution, the record plant workers, the packaging artists, the guitar and equipment manufacturers, his loyal fans, the coach driver, the taxi driver, the security guard, the catering, the camera man, and you the present audience. All of you toiling even now to fix that existential deficiency he felt. He burns with failed ambition. A dream too long in the coming. The secret knowledge that he is past it and that the golden days of youth are forever behind him. He thinks of a girl he once knew and how youthful she was. He doesn't let himself think of her how she must be now. He remembers that one night in a nightclub with the youthful girl with all the prescient power and deception of nostalgia. As he sings, he reaches out, casting his fingers towards his imaginary companion. But she's not there and a drop of fluid falls from his face. It isn't sweat and it isn't grease, it's really a droplet of his tortured soul escaping. His false smile just enough to plaster over tears. Inside he is dying of grief. Do you remember? That one night in September. That one perfect night of youth. Keep it together, Maurice, just get through the video shoot. You can cry later when no-one is here. Do it for her. Do you remember? Yes, I remember. That one perfect night when love was changing it's path. Oh God to be back in the arcadia of youth. This is my gift to the world. I have laboured long - so long - to distil the essence of the idea of youth into a saleable and packageable pop song. The work of a lifetime of sacrifice and suffering all so that I can tell you the one thing I have learnt. Every step of this process built by sweat and hard work. Everything I have, everything I am capable of giving and then some more, all to make this song perfect so that you can have a mainline to that feeling. The greatest feeling I have ever experienced. Youth. That will chase the clouds away. Come on guitarist, if you take the chorus we might just get through this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk&spfreload=1
Just look into his eyes. He doesn't believe this. Every aspect of this work is choreographed and designed to actualise an end goal.
Maurice White stands on a hill and draws back the great bow of fate. He takes careful aim and the arrow flies impressively across the starry sky. A group of teenagers have pulled off the road with two trucks and a crate of beer. Maurice touches his coiffered hair and rubs slightly at his greasy forehead. His hair is receding and he's getting old. Maybe too old. Perhaps he's had his chance? He pushes the thought into the bad places of his mind. No, tonight his magic arrow will land true. He is like cupid but instead of kindling love he will kindle disco. The arrow flies high in the night sky, but what's this? A sudden gust of earth-fire-wind catches the arrow and it flies away from the intended target. The teenagers clink their bottles together and turn the radio up. They're not even aware the arrow is there. On the bolt flies, majestic and deliberate, passing not only through the sky but forward through time. And here, ten years hence, is a church hall where two of those very teenagers, now adults, are celebrating their marriage. The arrow flies cleanly in through the open window, approaching the dancing crowd. Fat old Aunt Marjory has dropped her piece of wedding cake on the floor and she bends down with the paper plate still in her hand to pick up every dirty morsel of the spilt dessert. As she bends over she offers up her enormous rump to the open window and it jiggles slightly as she scouts out the crumbs. A second rate covers band has taken to the end of the hall in an area demarcated by wires and microphones but which doesn't deserve to be called a stage. The saxophonist sighs. Another night, another dollar. The band leader strikes up the tune and the great arrow of fate strikes deeply into the flesh of fat old Aunt Majory's behind. "Oh!" she exclaims like a Carry On extra, "Oh! I say! Earth Wind and Fire!" On the hill, Maurice White is watching the scene through his interdimensional binoculars, which he quickly drops to his waist. He snarls slightly and a bead of liquid runs down his face. Is it a tear? Or is it a bead of grease? He looks at his watch. September. Maybe he has left it too late.
The late Maurice White was a true hero of music design. By sheer force of will he brought into being this and many other similar songs. These are not pieces that would have manifested without his determination and drive. Some music is more a product of a time or a place, a cirumstance or a movement. But while there certainly would have been disco without Maurice White, there would never have been this.
Shot 1. The keyboardier is wearing fancy duds and the lights in the studio are trailing for the camera. If you were seeing this live there would be drugs. You are not seeing this live so the drugs have been faked for you. Disco = drugs. That's what the young people like.
Shot 2. This bassist is pretty regal: his clothes, his twirl, his striking features. Is this some sort of afro-futurism. The otherworldly power of Disco. We could build a better world if only we inhabited the power of youth.
Shot 5 or something. It's the first close up of Maurice White at about 0:18. Look at the intense sadness in his eyes. That hollow feeling, that emptiness and despair. He's conjoured all of this into existence to try and fix something in his soul. What is it that burns so painfully that even all of this has failed to salve it? So many people contributing so much to try and fix it. The musicians, the costume makers, the hairstylists, his make-up artist (that foundation is thick) the sound engineers, the record company and the financers, the distribution, the record plant workers, the packaging artists, the guitar and equipment manufacturers, his loyal fans, the coach driver, the taxi driver, the security guard, the catering, the camera man, and you the present audience. All of you toiling even now to fix that existential deficiency he felt. He burns with failed ambition. A dream too long in the coming. The secret knowledge that he is past it and that the golden days of youth are forever behind him. He thinks of a girl he once knew and how youthful she was. He doesn't let himself think of her how she must be now. He remembers that one night in a nightclub with the youthful girl with all the prescient power and deception of nostalgia. As he sings, he reaches out, casting his fingers towards his imaginary companion. But she's not there and a drop of fluid falls from his face. It isn't sweat and it isn't grease, it's really a droplet of his tortured soul escaping. His false smile just enough to plaster over tears. Inside he is dying of grief. Do you remember? That one night in September. That one perfect night of youth. Keep it together, Maurice, just get through the video shoot. You can cry later when no-one is here. Do it for her. Do you remember? Yes, I remember. That one perfect night when love was changing it's path. Oh God to be back in the arcadia of youth. This is my gift to the world. I have laboured long - so long - to distil the essence of the idea of youth into a saleable and packageable pop song. The work of a lifetime of sacrifice and suffering all so that I can tell you the one thing I have learnt. Every step of this process built by sweat and hard work. Everything I have, everything I am capable of giving and then some more, all to make this song perfect so that you can have a mainline to that feeling. The greatest feeling I have ever experienced. Youth. That will chase the clouds away. Come on guitarist, if you take the chorus we might just get through this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk&spfreload=1
The B-52s Love Shack
The B52s Love Shack
What I'm really interested in here is the characters. That guy, the main one, the patriarch of the B52s. The slutty one. The not-slutty one. The others. Fascinating.
The first vocalist is the main guy with the grating voice. He's written the song I would reckon. I dunno. Maybe he did, I mean I've done no research. But he's explicitly in charge. There's three lead singers here and he's got a terrible voice so there must be some reason he's around. He's annoying like Q from Star Trek or that wacky gay guy with no filter at a party. A party probably not dissimilar to the one at the Love Shack. Interesting. Would the band be better if he was in a back room position? Yes. But he is the band? So what do you like want? This is his gig, right, and he's going to sing whatever he wants.
Who's this guy with the sunflowers reflected in his glasses? Oh, that's just an extra? Like the goat? Well alright.
What's up with that goat. Why do we only see the rear half of the goat in profile? Is it a really ugly goat? Or is it something more sinister? This is clearly a symbolic invitation to promiscuity. There is no other reason to perfom one's love in a shack off the Atlanta highway other than to hide the sin of lust.
Now it's the non-slutty one's turn to shout. She's dressed in bright colours and is sat whimsically high in the car so she's fun. OK, Ms. Non-Slutty One, this is the big hook at the start of the song so make it count. We need you to shout "Love Shack", do you think you can do that? You can. Excellent. Roll film. No, that's not the one. Let's do it 50 more times. What's wrong, you seem to be getting bored. What's that, we're running out of road? Cut.
The other woman takes the spotlight. Casual listeners probably don't even notice there's two female vocalists on this song. That's why you need me. There's two female vocalists on this song. This character is the only one to get a costume change in the video so we know it's all about her. The camera cuts to the other one who is acting singing back-up at this point. These two are dynamite on a night out. One of them leers and teases at anyone who comes her way while the other one stands with the handbags trapped between the knowledge that their friendship is the deepest she will ever know and the crushing reality that this isn't the life she would have designed for herself. No one can get anywhere near her because of the barrier her friend has created. In part her friend has created that barrier because she feels her outgoing personality is the source of her own self-worth, but more deeply than that she is terrified of losing her one true friend. She knows that her behaviour is harming her more reserved companion and yet by holding her golden songbird in a cage she finds herself equally imprisoned. And look who's come through the door. It's Mr Know. It. All. himself, the one at the wheel, the golden boy, the man who is the B52s. Oh what a night. That's what you get at the Love Shack.
Here's the guitarist. He's in the band too.
Let's talk about the car that is "as big as a whale" and "seats about twenty". This is a stunning line with multiple readings but I'm going to take it at face value and pretend that he's literally proud of his car. He's proud of the line too and uses it twice. I mean fair play, it's a good line. The second time he sings it he is leering at the bassist like they're just about to begin the most exciting affair of their lives. Further evidence: he approaches her in the bath later on. She's having a bath in the Love Shack. That's the sort of place it is. I've assumed that the bassist is the latest recruit to the band and that the main guy with the grating voice has already worked his way around the rest of the band leaving no stone un-inseminated. Which casts shade on the B52's recruitment policy.
I don't think that the less outgoing female singer mimes a single line correctly in the whole song. There's an old Turkish guy dancing in the Love Shack. I think that's one of those inclusive things because there's a tall black woman too but this old Turkish guy is creeping me out. What's his angle? I know his angle. Who's the racist one now? It's me. Is the keyboard player in the band? I don't think so. The drummer has set up half out of the doorway. I don't think this establishment regularly hosts musical performances. Maybe this isn't the genuine Love Shack at all and is just some photogenic stand in used for the video?
There's this moment where there's a drop and in the gap the non-slutty one shouts something crazy. I can't work out what she's saying and as I started by doing no research I'm not going to change now. Then there's the goat's face. That's how I know it's a goat and not a dog.
It's been a long journey down the Atlanta Highway but eventually I see the faded sign. Fifteen more miles pass until finally I step into the Love Shack. It's exactly like they say, as hot as an oven and absolutely covered in glitter. My word that tin roof needs fixing. Everybody's moving, everybody's grooving and most of all they are busy shimmying. I elbow the tall black woman out of the way and step past the old Turkish guy. He leans in and whispers "actually I'm from Greenville, USA and my heritage is Jordanian". But I don't care. I've come here with one purpose. I push my way past Mr B52 and put my hand in the face of the slutty one. For a moment she looks sad but then does that crazy head shake and jiggles her chest and she's back in character. Anyway it's not them I've come for. It's the other one. I say to her: "I've come to rescue you. I know you feel trapped here in the B52s and that even at this, the apex of your success, you are so overcome with existential doubt as to be unable to even mime a single line effectively. Come with me and this horrible nightmare can be over." She looks at me as though I'm not the first person to say this to her, and then she says: "this is the perfect future of my own design. Of all possible futures this is the one I sought out. Here I am surrounded by friends and success, quite literally at the Love Shack, and you have the audacity to impose your white knight fantasy on me. I expect that you expect me to be flattered. Well, I am sorry that you fell into the honey trap of my own public image. This is exactly the obscured sexual appeal I designed my public face to communicate. It's no mere chance that I never appear in a low cut top while my colleague nearly always does. It's right there in the manifesto the record company signed. B52s. One in low cut top, one never shows skin. That's to reel a certain subsection of our audience in, a demographic that you appear to belong to. My only regret is that we put directions in the lyrics and that you've had a wasted trip all the way out here to the Love Shack." Then the music stops and she screams something incomprehensible. The words come out slightly out of time with her lips and I find that I am looking at a goat. The goat of my own sin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOryJvTAGs
What I'm really interested in here is the characters. That guy, the main one, the patriarch of the B52s. The slutty one. The not-slutty one. The others. Fascinating.
The first vocalist is the main guy with the grating voice. He's written the song I would reckon. I dunno. Maybe he did, I mean I've done no research. But he's explicitly in charge. There's three lead singers here and he's got a terrible voice so there must be some reason he's around. He's annoying like Q from Star Trek or that wacky gay guy with no filter at a party. A party probably not dissimilar to the one at the Love Shack. Interesting. Would the band be better if he was in a back room position? Yes. But he is the band? So what do you like want? This is his gig, right, and he's going to sing whatever he wants.
Who's this guy with the sunflowers reflected in his glasses? Oh, that's just an extra? Like the goat? Well alright.
What's up with that goat. Why do we only see the rear half of the goat in profile? Is it a really ugly goat? Or is it something more sinister? This is clearly a symbolic invitation to promiscuity. There is no other reason to perfom one's love in a shack off the Atlanta highway other than to hide the sin of lust.
Now it's the non-slutty one's turn to shout. She's dressed in bright colours and is sat whimsically high in the car so she's fun. OK, Ms. Non-Slutty One, this is the big hook at the start of the song so make it count. We need you to shout "Love Shack", do you think you can do that? You can. Excellent. Roll film. No, that's not the one. Let's do it 50 more times. What's wrong, you seem to be getting bored. What's that, we're running out of road? Cut.
The other woman takes the spotlight. Casual listeners probably don't even notice there's two female vocalists on this song. That's why you need me. There's two female vocalists on this song. This character is the only one to get a costume change in the video so we know it's all about her. The camera cuts to the other one who is acting singing back-up at this point. These two are dynamite on a night out. One of them leers and teases at anyone who comes her way while the other one stands with the handbags trapped between the knowledge that their friendship is the deepest she will ever know and the crushing reality that this isn't the life she would have designed for herself. No one can get anywhere near her because of the barrier her friend has created. In part her friend has created that barrier because she feels her outgoing personality is the source of her own self-worth, but more deeply than that she is terrified of losing her one true friend. She knows that her behaviour is harming her more reserved companion and yet by holding her golden songbird in a cage she finds herself equally imprisoned. And look who's come through the door. It's Mr Know. It. All. himself, the one at the wheel, the golden boy, the man who is the B52s. Oh what a night. That's what you get at the Love Shack.
Here's the guitarist. He's in the band too.
Let's talk about the car that is "as big as a whale" and "seats about twenty". This is a stunning line with multiple readings but I'm going to take it at face value and pretend that he's literally proud of his car. He's proud of the line too and uses it twice. I mean fair play, it's a good line. The second time he sings it he is leering at the bassist like they're just about to begin the most exciting affair of their lives. Further evidence: he approaches her in the bath later on. She's having a bath in the Love Shack. That's the sort of place it is. I've assumed that the bassist is the latest recruit to the band and that the main guy with the grating voice has already worked his way around the rest of the band leaving no stone un-inseminated. Which casts shade on the B52's recruitment policy.
I don't think that the less outgoing female singer mimes a single line correctly in the whole song. There's an old Turkish guy dancing in the Love Shack. I think that's one of those inclusive things because there's a tall black woman too but this old Turkish guy is creeping me out. What's his angle? I know his angle. Who's the racist one now? It's me. Is the keyboard player in the band? I don't think so. The drummer has set up half out of the doorway. I don't think this establishment regularly hosts musical performances. Maybe this isn't the genuine Love Shack at all and is just some photogenic stand in used for the video?
There's this moment where there's a drop and in the gap the non-slutty one shouts something crazy. I can't work out what she's saying and as I started by doing no research I'm not going to change now. Then there's the goat's face. That's how I know it's a goat and not a dog.
It's been a long journey down the Atlanta Highway but eventually I see the faded sign. Fifteen more miles pass until finally I step into the Love Shack. It's exactly like they say, as hot as an oven and absolutely covered in glitter. My word that tin roof needs fixing. Everybody's moving, everybody's grooving and most of all they are busy shimmying. I elbow the tall black woman out of the way and step past the old Turkish guy. He leans in and whispers "actually I'm from Greenville, USA and my heritage is Jordanian". But I don't care. I've come here with one purpose. I push my way past Mr B52 and put my hand in the face of the slutty one. For a moment she looks sad but then does that crazy head shake and jiggles her chest and she's back in character. Anyway it's not them I've come for. It's the other one. I say to her: "I've come to rescue you. I know you feel trapped here in the B52s and that even at this, the apex of your success, you are so overcome with existential doubt as to be unable to even mime a single line effectively. Come with me and this horrible nightmare can be over." She looks at me as though I'm not the first person to say this to her, and then she says: "this is the perfect future of my own design. Of all possible futures this is the one I sought out. Here I am surrounded by friends and success, quite literally at the Love Shack, and you have the audacity to impose your white knight fantasy on me. I expect that you expect me to be flattered. Well, I am sorry that you fell into the honey trap of my own public image. This is exactly the obscured sexual appeal I designed my public face to communicate. It's no mere chance that I never appear in a low cut top while my colleague nearly always does. It's right there in the manifesto the record company signed. B52s. One in low cut top, one never shows skin. That's to reel a certain subsection of our audience in, a demographic that you appear to belong to. My only regret is that we put directions in the lyrics and that you've had a wasted trip all the way out here to the Love Shack." Then the music stops and she screams something incomprehensible. The words come out slightly out of time with her lips and I find that I am looking at a goat. The goat of my own sin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOryJvTAGs
The Bangles Walk Like an Egyptian
The Bangles "Walk Like an Egyptian" is a great work of art.
The tension of the possibility of racism is energising. I don't remember this too well. Did they say anything racist in it? It turns out they didn't. Phew.
What is this anyway? Is this music or popular entertainment? It's like something from a variety show or a kids party. Or is this a truer form of what music is? Is this what all that serious learned rubbish is actually aiming at? Is this the distillation of what a musician should be trying to make? Does this have the knowing essence of performance that is necessary to make a scratch on the great edifice of the popular canon? This will be remembered long after more worthy attempts are dust in the loading tray of obsolete media readers.
It may sound like I am asking too many questions but it is in the asking that analysis gains transcendence. In the moment of superposition we achieve the virtue of gnosis but as soon as an answer coalesces it can be demonstrated to be false due to the emergent synthesis encoded within it.
"OK, we're going to do one more." This is a band who play shows live. Look, here they are playing a show live. It's just another night on their world tour. This is authentic! Your mate who goes to pop concerts because she's never been embarazada probably saw them last year. She does all the hip things. She's just like The Bangles. I want to be just like The Bangles too!
Look at these everypeople overcome with the zeitgeist of Egyptian Walking. This is big time. Wow. Get on the train, even your mum and that 80s woman in that power suit are doing it. Even the black guys are in on it, although that fireman hasn't quite got the idea but that's alright because this is inclusive. But the girls on stage don't make any mistakes. They're cool. Cooler than you with their big hair and authenticity. And look at these pop references. Diana. Gaddafi. The I Heart New York Liberty Statue. Everyone's doing it! They're so well animated it's like they're real. Is this the halcyon moment the Daily Express is trying to reconstruct? Was this the perfect moment of popular culture when we were all young and the world was understandable and although we were falling apart at the time it's long enough ago that your own attempts at mythologising your youth have completely obscured even the largest gulfs of suffering like when your boyfriend took his own life and you found the body.
Wait a minute, maybe this is racist! "All the Japanese..."? Is that OK? Yeah it is? Yeah? OK. "All the Japanese with their yellow..." Yellow what? Oh, it's "yen"? Ok. OK.
"All the crocodiles they snap their teeth on your cigarette." Because it's the 80s and we all smoke. Hey, the band are just like you! You do the same things. Your cigarette. That pesky crocodile.
"All the cops in the doughnut shop..." Rebels. These girls are rebels. They say what everyone is thinking but is too afraid to say. If only I could be them.
"OK, we're going to do one more." This is the encore! This must be their best song. The crowd has sat through a couple of hours of their other stuff and they're still interested so this band must be pretty good. Right? Right. A couple of hours dancing under those stage lights and the girls aren't even sweaty. They're like superheroes. Superheroes of music. Superheroes of Egyptian Walking.
These girls are pretty and young and in shape and they're cool and talented. This must be some kind of sexual fantasy. Oh that dirty male gaze. Well, lady, I've got a surprise for you. These aren't the girls men want, they're the girls that you think might steal your boyfriend. I mean, there's nothing wrong with them, I'm sure these are perfectly charming young women. But this presentation isn't for titilation, it's engaging you in a pack dynamic. See that crowd? 80% women. Or is that just people with big hair? Something something feminist interpretation.
Hang on, the song fades out! This isn't live at all. Oh, the artifice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tuzHUuuk
The tension of the possibility of racism is energising. I don't remember this too well. Did they say anything racist in it? It turns out they didn't. Phew.
What is this anyway? Is this music or popular entertainment? It's like something from a variety show or a kids party. Or is this a truer form of what music is? Is this what all that serious learned rubbish is actually aiming at? Is this the distillation of what a musician should be trying to make? Does this have the knowing essence of performance that is necessary to make a scratch on the great edifice of the popular canon? This will be remembered long after more worthy attempts are dust in the loading tray of obsolete media readers.
It may sound like I am asking too many questions but it is in the asking that analysis gains transcendence. In the moment of superposition we achieve the virtue of gnosis but as soon as an answer coalesces it can be demonstrated to be false due to the emergent synthesis encoded within it.
"OK, we're going to do one more." This is a band who play shows live. Look, here they are playing a show live. It's just another night on their world tour. This is authentic! Your mate who goes to pop concerts because she's never been embarazada probably saw them last year. She does all the hip things. She's just like The Bangles. I want to be just like The Bangles too!
Look at these everypeople overcome with the zeitgeist of Egyptian Walking. This is big time. Wow. Get on the train, even your mum and that 80s woman in that power suit are doing it. Even the black guys are in on it, although that fireman hasn't quite got the idea but that's alright because this is inclusive. But the girls on stage don't make any mistakes. They're cool. Cooler than you with their big hair and authenticity. And look at these pop references. Diana. Gaddafi. The I Heart New York Liberty Statue. Everyone's doing it! They're so well animated it's like they're real. Is this the halcyon moment the Daily Express is trying to reconstruct? Was this the perfect moment of popular culture when we were all young and the world was understandable and although we were falling apart at the time it's long enough ago that your own attempts at mythologising your youth have completely obscured even the largest gulfs of suffering like when your boyfriend took his own life and you found the body.
Wait a minute, maybe this is racist! "All the Japanese..."? Is that OK? Yeah it is? Yeah? OK. "All the Japanese with their yellow..." Yellow what? Oh, it's "yen"? Ok. OK.
"All the crocodiles they snap their teeth on your cigarette." Because it's the 80s and we all smoke. Hey, the band are just like you! You do the same things. Your cigarette. That pesky crocodile.
"All the cops in the doughnut shop..." Rebels. These girls are rebels. They say what everyone is thinking but is too afraid to say. If only I could be them.
"OK, we're going to do one more." This is the encore! This must be their best song. The crowd has sat through a couple of hours of their other stuff and they're still interested so this band must be pretty good. Right? Right. A couple of hours dancing under those stage lights and the girls aren't even sweaty. They're like superheroes. Superheroes of music. Superheroes of Egyptian Walking.
These girls are pretty and young and in shape and they're cool and talented. This must be some kind of sexual fantasy. Oh that dirty male gaze. Well, lady, I've got a surprise for you. These aren't the girls men want, they're the girls that you think might steal your boyfriend. I mean, there's nothing wrong with them, I'm sure these are perfectly charming young women. But this presentation isn't for titilation, it's engaging you in a pack dynamic. See that crowd? 80% women. Or is that just people with big hair? Something something feminist interpretation.
Hang on, the song fades out! This isn't live at all. Oh, the artifice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tuzHUuuk
Manifesto
Years ago I lived alone on a Scottish island. At the time I was obsessed with the song "Lucky Man" written by Jimmy Peterman on the early Steve Miller album Sailor. I didn't have much paper so when I decided to write down everything I could about the song I wrote right up to the margins in tiny full caps handwriting. I filled both sides of a sheet of A4, listing what each instrument did at each moment, laying out structure, dynamics, performance, tone, meaning and context. Then I ritually burnt the paper.
People argue badly. We have trained ourselves to look for the bad guy for the hero to defeat. We try to win instead of reach understanding. You can't win an argument because as soon as any position is stated the emergent synthesis encoded within that position begins to manifest. Everyone is always wrong and everyone is always right. The polarity of a statement is meaningless. Sure, you can harm your opponent if you want to. But in their suffering is also your own. This is an inescapable and objective consequence of theory of mind.
I want to highlight the gulf between the speaker and the listener, the gap between artist and audience, the void that separates a musician's intent from how they are percieved. I'm basically just repeating the thesis of Barthes' post-strucuralist text The Death of the Author. The true locus of writing is reading, and the true locus of music is hearing. To do this I will use the medium of old pop videos to discuss how alternate readings can deepen and humanise both the artist and the audience. Using snapshots of work ordinarily placed in alien contexts by pervasive cultural practice allows easy entry for the crowbar of analysis and the puppy dog of relatability.
Ready? Let's ritually burn canonical cultural instances as a working against the accepted structure of discourse.
I want to highlight the gulf between the speaker and the listener, the gap between artist and audience, the void that separates a musician's intent from how they are percieved. I'm basically just repeating the thesis of Barthes' post-strucuralist text The Death of the Author. The true locus of writing is reading, and the true locus of music is hearing. To do this I will use the medium of old pop videos to discuss how alternate readings can deepen and humanise both the artist and the audience. Using snapshots of work ordinarily placed in alien contexts by pervasive cultural practice allows easy entry for the crowbar of analysis and the puppy dog of relatability.
Ready? Let's ritually burn canonical cultural instances as a working against the accepted structure of discourse.
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