Pop Song Digest

Someone asked me to write this a while back, but it seemed like it might take a little more thought than I’d normally give to the average lyrical analysis. That said, I do love Daft Punk, so it seemed as though it might be worth putting the time in. 

I’ll have to ask for a little latitude on this post, as a general rule I just stick to the song itself, but given the lack of lyrical variation, this is one of the few songs where I’ll be forced to refer to the material surrounding the song itself. In this case, I’m going to draw from the video in order to build a more complete idea of what the song represents. 

Around the world

Around the world 

Around the world

Around the world

From the outset, it’s clear that there’s one idea, one concept that resonates particularly strongly with Daft Punk. I hoped for some elaboration, but unfortunately, the song continues with another verse of:

Around the world

Around the world 

Around the world

Around the world

I considered this for a while, eventually realising that there is only one type of person this obsessed with the notion of travelling around the world… conquistadors. 

Of course, the question then becomes, in what world are we faced with the horrifying prospect of conquistadors having produced (admittedly superb) dance music in the late nineties? Fortunately, I’ve studied conquistadors in some depth, and there is one set of circumstances that could lead to this scenario. 

Around the world

Around the world

Around the world 

Around the world

If Daft Punk did indeed circumnavigate the globe in the sixteenth century, it’s entirely possible that they succumbed to that great temptation for all of the profiteering explorers of the time - treasure. 

Now, let’s move on to considerations of the music video for Around the World. Featured most prominently is a series of steps leading upwards in an elegant ziggurat. This is an architectural motif that recurs throughout aztec culture. I tried to imagine what it could possibly be that these men had done that had left them still singing about it hundreds of years later. 

The key, as it happened, was in the video itself. There, we see a number of different figures dancing across the ziggurat. These include: 

mummies - whose eternal rest we might imagine Daft Punk somehow disturbed in their quest for gold

animate skeletons - likely in reference to the fact the two have been cursed to roam the earth in a state of horrific undeath

robots - cursed to roam the earth forever in a state of persistent decay, Daft Punk has been sealed into robotic-looking exoskeletons to prevent others expressing horror at their ravaged appearances

If you were damned to roam the earth forever for having stolen aztec riches and for having disturbed the skeleton of some long dead king, what would you do? What would you sing about? Hundreds of years later, would you be able to forget the voyage that it all sprang from? Would you be able to cast your mind back across those four centuries and see the youthful exuberance in yourself as you prepared the ship, hired the crew and made sure everything was ready for you to go…

Around the world

Around the world

Around the world

Around the world

Indeed, Daft Punk wear one gold and one silver helmet, sealed forever in the very cursed treasure they sought to steal…

Alright, after a brief hiatus, we’re back with a request from the ever-charming Fishuu, who asked me to take the time to listen to Kate Perry’s Teenage Dream. Now, I figured this one would be a little straightforward. After all, I’ve been a teenager, I like to think I have a pretty good handle on what teenagers dream about… unless of course teenagers have experienced some fundamental shift in the things they dream about since I was a teenager? 

Now, I won’t bore you with the details, but I slowly came to realise that today’s teenagers, products of the Twilight generation, might experience different dreams to me. The real reveal here comes when she says:

Before you met me I was a wreck,

But things were kind of heavy, you brought me to life

I’ll be honest, there were only really two options here. The first was that she could, perhaps, be addressing a doctor who, having rescued her from some form of terrible accident, after which she had had to be recussitated…. either that or there was necromancy involved (whether vampirism or zombie/mummy is hard to tell until later). 

Let’s go all the way tonight,

No regrets, just love,

We can dance until we die,

You and I, we’ll be forever young 

Forever young, no regrets and dancing until they die? This is beginning to seem an awful lot like an Anne Rice novel (I’d say Twilight, but I haven’t yet invested the time). It continues though, with more Bella and Edward overtones added with every verse. 

My heart stops when you look at me,

Just one touch now baby I believe,

This is real so take a chance,

And don’t ever look back - don’t ever look back

Why would just one touch make a person believe? Usually if that person’s touch is ice cold and covered in glitter-skin. Oh, those persuasive vampires, they know how to touch a person just right. After all, they’ve had all that time to learn all the little tricks.

You think I’m pretty without make up on,

You think I’m funny when I get the punchline wrong

What type of woman is pretty without make up on? The type of woman with perfectly smooth, porcelain-white skin… or, if you subscribe to Stephanie-Meyer-inspired approaches to vampirism, skin that positively glimmers if not covered in makeup. 

Why would a person be funny even if they get the punchline wrong? Probably because the reason they got the punchline wrong was because they’re a hideous, undying beast, fast losing whatever connection it had to its own humanity. Why would this be funny? Well, if the person being addressed were also a soulless, blood-fueled predator damned to a life of eternal night, that might be pretty funny, I guess.

You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream,

The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep,

Let’s run away and don’t ever look back,

Don’t ever look back

I suppose the new teenage dream isn’t just some kind of weird, Playboy inspired fantasy. Instead, the new teenage dream is for some hideous night-creature to come for you in the night and, instead of feeding on your precious vitae, to decide that you, pimply and pubescent little prick that you are, are the kind of person that should be kept alive and perfectly preserved forever. That way, you never need to sleep; you never need to look back at the mess you were. 

It’s all shite. 

I’m not sure what the story is with Nickelback. I think my first, and until now only, encounter with them was their song for the soundtrack to Spider-man, a song whose appearance in the movie was notable only for the fact that Ben Parker (the cool Uncle Ben) leaned over and turned off the car radio as soon as it started playing.

Today’s song is Nickelback’s Photograph, with thanks to Jibba, whose song list I’ll be working from for the next week or two, I think. Jibba’s suggestions are interesting if only because his primary goal was not providing good content, but sonic torture…

Look at this photograph,

Every time I do it makes me laugh,

How did your eyes get so red,

What’s that thing on Joey’s head?

I guess the first thing to note about Photograph is that, having listened to it for the first time, it does sound an awful lot like a song written by a person who’s desperately trying to pull their life back together. The whole song has a sort of nostalgic feel to it, but garnished with optimism about the future.

This verse is curious in that it’s not, “I look at this photograph,” but, “Look at this photograph.” This isn’t a reminiscence, it’s a command; this song is addressing someone specific. How did their eyes get so red? Probably crying because an unstable person is trying to make them laugh at a photograph…

[And?] this is where I grew up,

I think the present owner fixed it up

I have a hearty respect for someone with the lyrical bravery to rhyme a word with itself, but I have to wonder why he’s examining the house he grew up in if it’s changed hands. Maybe back to take some more hilarious photographs… and make people look at them with him.

I never knew we’d ever went without[?],

The second floor is hard for sneaking out

Well, at least we’ve established that he’s entering the place illicitly, or at least, exiting by means of stealth (which seems a solid indicator). I’ll be honest though, it’s hard to understand a lot of what he says; that first line has a babbling quality to it.

[And?] this is where I went to school,

Most of the time had better things to do,

Criminal record says I’ve broke in twice,

I must have done it half a dozen times

There comes a point where you have to wonder how repentant this whole speech is. The song isn’t mournful, but the whole thing could be a lamentation for his misspent youth, a cry for forgiveness from the poor man/woman he’s hunted down to force to look at photographs.

I wonder if it’s too late,

Should I go back to try to graduate,

Life is better now than it was back then,

If I was them I wouldn’t let me in

Well, clearly he’s trying to straighten himself out now, but at the same time, it’s hard not to be aware that, if he were in the position of his old school, he wouldn’t allow himself back in. It begs questions about what he’s done, what else might be on his criminal record other than breaking into schools.

Are we supposed to read from this that he might be a danger to children? Is he showing these photographs to a child? Who can tell?

I have the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor,

It’s hard to say it, time to say it,

Goodbye, goodbye

Ah, so he’s got a rake of photographs from before, but now it’s time to say goodbye. Does he mean he’s saying goodbye to who he was back when he took those photographs, or is he saying goodbye to the person he’s asking to look at them with him?

Having disappeared the people he’s photographed before, is he about to disappear another?

Remember the old arcade?

Blew every dollar that we ever made,

The cops hated us hanging out,

They said somebody burned it down

Oh, so now “they said” that “somebody” burned it down, this place with which he was so well acquainted, whose local police hated him for loitering. I don’t know about anyone else, but when a potential kidnapper mentions arson to me, I tend to sit up and take note.

Kim’s the first girl I kissed,

I was so nervous that I nearly missed,

She’s had a couple [of?] kids since then,

[I] haven’t seen her since god knows when

Haven’t seen her because you killed her? It doesn’t take a detective. Death by arcade fire… tragic.

Look at this photograph,

Every time I do it makes me laugh,

Ever time I do it makes me…

In the reverberating silence that follows, it’s hard not to think, “kill?”

Growing up, one of the most common questions that used to be asked (immortalised by the conversation between Fathers Dougal and Damo in Father Ted) was a straightforward, “Blur or Oasis?” There was a right answer and a wrong answer to this question; it wasn’t a matter of taste, it was a simple fact. 

Of course, now that we’re all grown-up human beings, we can finally say “Blur” without incurring any of the old stigma, but the hurt runs deep. 

Having already covered Blur with last week’s Parklife post, today is an Oasis day, and while I’d considered going for Wonderwall (in an effort to mirror the two with each of their big hits), Flash has persuaded me that She’s Electric is a better choice

The song opens: 

She’s electric,

She’s from a family full of eccentrics,

She’s done things I’ve never expected,

And I need more time

Let’s just break down the analogy here a bit, the phrase “electric” is usually taken to mean “full of life” or something similar. However, in the light of the background in a “family full of eccentrics,” we might reconsider and allow the term to acquire some new meaning; she might be like lightning or a spark, random and with an edge of danger. This is borne out by her having done things he’s never expected.

Still, it’s hard not to be curious about why he ‘needs more time.’

She’s got a sister,

And God only knows how I’ve missed her,

And on the palm of her hand is a blister,

And I need more time

She has a sister, present tense, but god only knows how he has missed her, past tense. Strange stuff, might this electric individual have somehow harmed her own sister? Is the blister on her hand from where she repeatedly plunged a knife into her own sister, the wooden handle wearing away at the skin? Is Noel Galagher trying to warn us about her through the medium of song? Is this why he needs more time?

She’s got a brother,

We don’t get one with one another

Ah, the brother and he don’t get on. Could this be the truckload of eccentrics he talked about in the beginning? Could the brother be trying to protect her, perhaps by trying to have poor Noel laid to rest? Certainly, that’d be reason enough for me not to get on with someone. 

But I quite fancy her mother,

And I think that she likes me

Kindly soul that her mother is, she’s trying to protect Noel from her own children. Buying him the precious time he needs to warn us all through song. That noble woman. So brave.

She’s got a cousin,

In fact she’s got about a dozen,

She’s got one in the oven

This seems pretty cut and dry, Noel Gallagher has uncovered a fiendish plot, a combination of intra-family murder and cannibalism by his own girlfriend, covered up by a brother who has it in for him, defended only by her mother (who he fancies). 

But it’s nothing to do with me,

And I want you to know,

I’ve got my mind,

Made up now,

But I need more time

Of course it’s nothing to do with you, Noel, you can’t blame yourself. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but these things would have happened whether you were there to stop her or not; what’s important is that you’ve used your status as a musician and pop star to try, desperately, to get the word out. You’ve done your best to convince us. We can only hope that somehow, somewhere, someone heard.

It’s all encapsulated in that desperate refrain,

And I want you to say,

Do you know what I’m saying?

We know what you’re saying, Noel, perhaps for the first time, we have deciphered your message. We can only hope it’s not too late.

Today’s song is Blur’s Parklife. I’ll also be taking every effort to ensure I don’t offend any of the people I knew when I was around fourteen, this means that Monday’s song will be Oasis’ Wonderwall (or if I can find a better Oasis song, we’ll do that instead).

Parklife is a pretty straightforward song, so we’ll get straight into it:

Confidence is a preference for the (h)abitual voyeur of what is known as

Parklife

I suppose I should admit before we go any further that I live in a house in the middle of a wood inside a fairly big park that’s pretty famous for its (often male) prostitution.

As a result, when someone mentions parks and professions that require confidence, it strikes me that they would well be talking about being a pimp. This could be a song presented from the point of view of a pimp, a pimp whose various prostitutes market themselves in a local park. As someone who keeps an eye on these prostitutes, he is a “habitual voyeur” of their “parklife.” Confidence is, I would imagine, an advantage for for pimps. Helps keep things ticking over as you’d like them.

And morning soup can be avoided if you take a route straight through what is known as

Parklife

This one is a little questionable, but we might simply posit that the idea of sitting down to a hot meal first thing in the morning (and all the bumbling spousal interaction accompanying it) is part of the long list of things easily avoided if you instead frequent these greenbelt hussies.

John’s [Joe’s?] got brewer’s droop, he gets intimidated by the pigeons, they love a bit of it,

Parklife

Here we are given the first impression of the physicality, if not the outright threats, of our narrating pimp. We might imagine these ‘pigeons’ to be brooding, strutting individuals, chests puffed out and ready to peck away at anyone who’s trouble. Moreover, poor John/Joe has “brewer’s droop,” which I’ve since discovered is “alcohol related impotence.” Bad for business, to say the least.

Who’s that gutlord marching? You should cut down on the porklife mate,

Get some exercise

As the purveyor of a variety of exercises, this seems a solid business tactic. Were my finances dependent on the successes of a rake of parkland doxies, I’d most definitely appeal to people’s health (particularly if they were suffering from Brewer’s Droop). He’s a cagey businessman, this mack of ours.

I get up when I want except on Wednesdays when I’m rudely awakened by the dutstman,

Parklife

It seems our bawd is a man of leisure, though given the nature of his work he’s probably better off sleeping late and working into the night. Who could blame him for being distressed at the one day each week that breaks his schedule?

I feed the pigeons, sometimes feed the sparrows too, it gives me a sense of enormous well being.

So, it seems the hefties are complimented by “sparrows;” small and flighty creatures, perhaps the homeless children he pays to keep an eye out for the law. Were I a pander, that’d probably be the sort of thing that gave me an enormous sense of well being too.

All the people,

So many people,

They all go hand in hand,

Hand in hand through their,

Parklife

All of these people are united by one thing, their physicality as they move through their ‘parklife.’ Hand in hand, he says.

I’m sure.

Afterword:

There are so many words for “pimp.” Open thesaurus and set phasers to “Frenchsouteneur.”

Before I start this one, I should probably admit that I’ve never actually heard a Fall Out Boy song before. They’re one of those bands that passed me by when I was in a weird classic rock stage of my musical development, so there’s nothing here to build on, this is my first listen.

The song opens with a lot of whispering, a false start and some very simian screeching. I’d guess from the sound and pitch something about the size of (or smaller than) a chimpanzee, but that guess isn’t based on any expertise/experience.

I’m gonna make it bend and break.

It sent you to me without wings,

Given the fact that the only contextualisation we have so far is that simian screeching, it seems as though the only way to interpret this is that he’s looking to “bend” this poor primate to his will; he’s going to “break” it either in body or spirit. I’m not entirely sure how one does that to an ape/monkey, but we’ll see how things progress.

And I want these words to make things right,

But it’s the wrongs that make the words come to life

Ah, so he knows that what he’s doing is wrong, which confirms some suspicions; we can no longer rest safe in the assurance that this man is some kind of primate trainer. Instead, we must assume that he is somehow mistreating them, those poor animals.

From the fact that it is the “wrongs that make the words come to life” we might also assume that the speaker cannot write songs without doing whatever it is he does to these animals. Are we to assume that his lyrical prowess (on which I won’t comment) is fuelled by some dark and arcane art, accessible only through the torture of monkeys? This might explain what happened to the vowels from the title, perhaps a dark magician stole them, and only the murder of additional apes can supply them?

“Who does he think he is?”

If that’s the worst you’ve got you better (you can?) put your fingers back to the keys

Here, the question/accusation is introduced by another speaker, one we can interpret as being most likely a zoo keeper or some other type of animal-handler, shocked to find the speaker in the act of stealing/abusing/murdering an animal. He is sent on his way by our mysterious sorcerer/witch/songwriter.

Still, it’s clear that he doesn’t seem to be enjoying the act itself:

I’m looking forward to the future,

But my eyesight is going (getting?) bad,

And this crystal ball,

Is always cloudy except for,

except for,

When you look into the past.

How sad it must be, to have these strange and mysterious powers conferred upon you by the act of murdering and/or abusing animals. This is a man who can see into the future, but is haunted by the deaths of so many chimps/bonobos/macaques/whatever else. So inevitably, he falls back to his old habit…

One night yeah, and one more time,

Thanks for the memories,

Thanks for the memories,

Even though they weren’t so great

Here we can only assume he means, “Thanks for the memories” of both the past (those not great memories of so many monkey dying) and the future (probably also not great, considering how this Fall Out Boy album sounds). 

Bonus Interpretation:

I’d have thought “Fallout Boy” would make more sense… somehow, I can’t interpret “Fall Out Boy” as anything other than the name a flasher gives to his penis.

Update: 

Antoine (who you can find on Twitter as @Jordantoine) has offered the alternative interpretation that the song is actually meant to be read as “Thanks for the Mammaries.” 

It actually makes a lot more sense without chimp-murder if you think about it that way.

My vague recollection of James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful is bound up with a great many unfathomables. To whom is the song addressed? Why is he singing like that? Why would anyone with so fine an accent as a Welsh accent not leverage it to make their singing seem more appealing?

The song opens with a few lines about how wonderful the narrator’s life is, before taking a sharp turn for the creepy. Now, I don’t mean to make this at all like The Proclaimers incident, but bear with me:

My life is brilliant,

My life is brilliant,

My love is pure,

I saw an angel, of that I’m sure.

Now, for the moment, I had been pretty convinced that James Blunt had just been having a religious experience. Anyone can have a religious experience, no real problems there. My granny admits that she sees and speaks to people she knows are dead with far more frequency than James Blunt… but then he gets to the point,

She smiled at me on the subway,

She was with another man,

But I won’t lose no sleep on that,

‘Cause I’ve got a plan.

“Ah,” I thought, “He’s got a plan! He’s going to win the girl of his dreams from the clutches of this villainous cad she’s dating! A noble goal!”

Still, I might have been a little too swift with my judgement. After all, this man is clearly at least a little strange… what if he intends to kill her current boyfriend? That would certainly accomplish his goals. The good news is that I was wrong, the bad news is:

You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful,

You’re beautiful, it’s true,

I saw your face, in a crowded place,

And I don’t know what to do,

Because I’ll never be with you

Oh really, James? You can’t have her? I think that you know all too well what to do. You’ve already admitted that you’ve got a plan…

She could see from my face I was,

Fucking high, fucking high,

And I don’t think that I’ll see her again

We see already that he’s out of his mind with what I can only imagine is the bloodlust of a premeditated murder, James Blunt is about to kill the woman with whom he’s becomes so enamoured. Now, I’m not saying that the man is a cold-blooded killer, all I’m saying is that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that James Blunt had been hiding the corpses of once-beautiful women somewhere in Wales.

It wouldn’t be quite so bad, if he weren’t so sentimental about the act of killing,

But we shared a moment that will last until the end…

Oh, he may not be able to have her, but he’s shared a moment that will last until “the end.” The end, we can only presume, of her life.

Of course, I wouldn’t be entirely convinced myself unless he went on to say something really creepy that completely gave the game away, but I can’t imagine a killer of James Blunt’s calibre to give himself away with something like that.

We’re subjected to another round of, “‘cause I’ll never be with you,” after the act itself, but the closing verse is illuminating,

You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful,

You’re beautiful, it’s true,

There must be an angel, with a smile on her face,

When she thought (up/of?) that I should be with you,

But it’s time to face the truth,

I will never be with you.

There’s a lot to take from that, and I’m sure any number of crime-scene investigators have found books of stuff like this in the houses of serial killers. It’s just so damning that it hardly even seems to be worth the time to break it down and analyse it.

The whole thing is exacerbated by the voice, that strange keening sound; it’s as though he’s trying to express some vast sense of loss. I’d just never taken the lime to unravel it before. It’s not even as though he knew the girl; he just saw her on the train one day and HAD to have (read: murder) her.

There must be an angel … but it’s time to face the truth. I will never be with you [because you live under my floorboards].

I’ve already phoned the police, James.

I have to admit, I hadn’t wanted to do this song. In the words of a German friend, “It’s a bit of an ear-worm.” I believe that’s a direct translation of the German for, “It is an unrelenting psychic parasite whose hold on your mind will never be relinquished.”

I’m not sure when I first heard this song, but I know that it’s embedded so deeply in my subconscious that there are still days, years later, when I’ll be washing the dishes before heading to bed and, mind wandering, think, “When I wake up…” Unbidden, the song will unfold in place of whatever plans I had considered. I’m not sure, but I think this song is the most relentless “stuck in your head” song I’ve ever encountered.

Of course, once I started listening to it properly, it occurred to me that I’d never really paid any attention to any part of it other than the chorus. The rest of the song casts things in a strange and frightening light, but we’ll start with the chorus, because that’ll at least establish the song and make you remember it as well as I do:

“And I would walk five hundred miles,

And I would walk five hundred more,

Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles,

To fall down at your door.”

Now, there are a couple of things happening here, and some of it is a little subtle. Certainly, it’s clear that this is a man of devotion, but, if you pay close attention, he doesn’t specifically say that he wants to be there for his addressee, simply that he wants to fall down at their door.

At this point, it is enough for him to keel over (possibly dead), likely as a result of not being correctly conditioned for the business of walking a thousand miles, in close proximity to someone else’s house. If the act were to kill him, we might assume that the person he’s walked to will then find themselves in some sort of legal trouble. Other lines supporting this theory include

“When I go out, I know I’m gonna be,

I’m gonna be the man, who goes out next to you.”

It’s not even thinly disguised. It might as well just say, “If I die, I’m taking you down with me.” I had wondered what could have happened to inspire such deep loathing, until I heard the words,

“When I’m working, I know I’m gonna be,

I’m gonna be the man who’s working hard for you.

And when the money comes in for the work I do,

I’ll pass almost every penny on to you.”

“When I come home, I know I’m gonna be,

I’m gonna be the man who comes back home to you.”

So, the Proclaimers elucidate a sordid world of extortion and slapdash frame-ups for pedestrian-murders, a world in which racketeers wait at home for innocent young songwriters, demanding almost all of their money. Indeed, he is never free from the oppressive weight of this shadow-figure. Even in his sleep, he is tormented:

“And when I’m dreamin’, well I know I’m gonna dream,

I’m gonna dream about the time when I’m with you.”

Moreover, the fact is that this man knows that he’ll be dreaming about him, there is a dread in that certainty - an impression of looming inevitability, a lack of freedom even in sleep. It’s telling that everything so far has been “when” and “would,” but here we have the song’s only, “if” statement:

“If I grow old, I know I’m gonna be,

I’m gonna be the man who’s growin’ old with you.”

If nothing else, it’s a song that benefits from a second listen. I hadn’t quite caught the subtext the first time, but it’s all too clear now.

Either way, I know that I would walk five hundred miles (and I would walk five hundred additional miles) just to be the man who had never heard this song in the first place.

Supplemental:

While describing this post to my brother he offered,

Man, I used to hate that song, but then when I realised it was about being gay I sort of lightened up on it. It’s sort of romantic, y’know?