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
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