As a genre, rock ‘n’ roll/pop has taken a beating over the year from critics who accuse it of being simplistic or moronic (though I’d rather hear ‘Be Bop A Lula’ or ‘Bang Shang A Lang’ or ‘Doo Wah Diddy Diddy’ than most operatic lieder any day – these words move my soul more than an overly-high-pitched wail about death from tuberculosis (your lungs seem TOO healthy, if you ask me, my dear…)).

To counter this, I’ve put together a list of some of my favourite complex, puzzling and occasionally impenetrably dense songs, along with some learned commentary (I’m into scholars…well, schoolboys… J ). I would like to thank Irene for contributing one choice here, though I am not certain she would care for that credit.

1. "Sally Go Round The Roses" by the Jaynettes, middle of the 1960s - Most of the song is a straightforward boy-does-girl-wrong-and-girl-feels-sad lyric, which, really, does the world need many more of? However, that chorus kicks in about how Sally should go round the roses, how the roses won’t hurt HER, how Sally shouldn’t cry (this lyric ONLY appears in the chorus – in the verses, she DOES cry), etc. What IS going on in that section, whose rhythm shifts (in the cover version I have – I have not heard the original) to a mystical, drifting and chanted ambience? Is there some spell going on? Is this (gasp!) a song about a ritual of power or revenge done in a mystical circle of roses (the symbol of romance)? Is it (say it isn’t so!) proof that magic and the occult ARE linked to rockin’? Who knows? It’s empowering, though, and, like the best pop masterpieces, irrational (the worst thing in the world is NOT seeing your baby with another girl – it can feel that way for a while, though, and rock lives in the Eternal Now…)


2. "She’s Got Medals" by David Bowie, circa 1967 – We are introduced to this girl in the local Legion Hall, and she has medals. She’s "one of the boys". Now, is this character a male-to-female transsexual…is the ‘she’ some camp reference to a rugged fag who has earned the begrudging respect of his comrades…could it be, as evidenced by historical records from the American Civil War, a woman who passed as male during combat? Again, a mystery for the ages, and, as it’s not a song the man performs anymore (though he might be more inclined to do it than "The Laughing Gnome"), not one likely to be solved…


3. "Her Story", "A Girl I Knew" and "My Family Was Gay" by Savage Rose, 1968-9 – It might be argued that this has become obscure in the mere act of using songs by a Danish band scarcely known outside that region. It could also be said that language difficulties are responsible for some of the ambiguities. The first two songs, however, are troubling mainly because they appear to feature the destruction and belittling of female characters by the culture which surrounds them, and one wishes to know whether this is physical or mental death and mutilation. Murder and rape seem to figure in the first, which definitely touches on robbery and kidnapping, and mind control and deprogramming in the second (and, for that matter, is "the girl I

   knew" in the second song a friend, or the narrator herself – if the latter, one tends to regard it as a symbolic death/destruction…). Then again, that could all be symbolic. Annisette’s less-than-subtle wail (Janis Joplin at 78 RPM is not too far from the truth) makes the lyrics (which, it should be added, would have been written by Anders Koppel, as he wrote the English ones and she the Danish ones) both larger than life and a bit hard to pick out at times – again, we are verging on (good) opera, both range-wise and small-pieces-of-life-made-grand-wise.

   As to the last selection – its deciphering depends very much on how much in parlance the word "gay" was in Denmark in the late 1960s. The family in the song is definitely queer in other senses…given the bohemian circles in which Savage Rose moved (Thomas Koppel, who wrote most of the music, was in theatre scoring), it is not entirely unlikely that the term crossed their ears. In which case, though the song is not REALLY all that ‘queer’, it certainly has to be up there with the first numbers that addressed the possibility of alternate ways of organizing relationships

   
   
4. "Birthday" by The Sugarcubes, from 1988 – Ask yourself the following questions while listening to THIS one. Why is the five-year-old girl in the song having a bath with her ONE friend next door, who has a beard? What is the ‘soap that burns in her knickers’? Why does this one friend know how many freckles she’s got (this fact is introduced before we hear of the bath)? Combined with the generally brooding, dark feel of this song, not to mention the wordless howls of chanteuse Bjork in the chorus (I still think this is her finest hour), I cannot help but think there is something very disturbing in the emotional background of this number.
5. "Past Present Future" by The Shangrilas, from 1967 - The swansong, more or less, of the group, though, technically, they continued on for another 2 years or so and put out two more singles, to little effect. The music is elegant, pinched from "The Moonlight Sonata". It breaks into grandiose waltzing orchestral movements. However, even at their most morose, Shangrilas songs had some form of ending or resolution (hint: in the world of angsty girl-group/teen pop, parents realizing they should have let their children get married instead of eloping is a resolution…witness "Give Us Your Blessing" by the same outfit…). Not THIS one. The narrator seems passive and uncaring what happens to her, preferring to drift like a zombie, except to insist that she cannot be touched – that that will NEVER happen again. Ten years before the Sex Pistols, this song more or less says there’s no future for you…it should go without saying that this, one of the most genuinely DEPRESSING records of all time, flopped…
6. "Polythene Pam", "Obladi Oblada" and "Get Back" by The Beatles, from 1968-9 – "You should see Polythene Pam – she’s so goodlooking, but she looks like a man." "Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face and in the evening she’s a singer with the band." "Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man." My, my – maybe John and Brian Epstein did have a fling on that legendary trip… (yes, I know Paul wrote the latter two - don't be so danged literal...)J

 

 

7. "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Little Richard, ca. 1955 – Leaving aside the question of HOW he managed to get "you sure like to ball" on the radio back then (okay, so not on white radio…), my personal knowledge of gay culture and some helpful hints from Queen Richard’s autobiography suggest Miss Molly probably was a little more active in the ‘balling’ than most girls. Hmmm…’Miss Ann’ also comes under scrutiny…and it is not as though the original lyrics of ‘Tutti Frutti’ weren’t, er, totally fruity…and what ARE we to make of the lyrics of "I Got It", which include "It ain’t what you eat – it’s the way how you chew it!" Uh…HUH…
8. "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, from 1974 - And so, having started by dissing hurricane-lunged opera, we plunge deep into the messy bowels of irony (and it’s all YOUR fault, Irene J ). I mean, if you examine this song logically, it makes no sense. It’s a collection of histrionic images and thefts, produced to within an inch of its life (at moments, in fact, it seems to enter another realm beyond this shallow existence…). There are lines that are too, too telling now ("Too late, everybody, I’ve got to go – got to leave you all behind and face the truth"…"I don’t want to die – sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all"…"So you think you can love me and leave me to die") – of course, that’s true of many Queen songs (I still cannot listen to "The Show Must Go On" or "Who Wants To Live Forever" – I do not have the strength…). However, it’s mostly just a camp triumph of style over substance – we couldn’t live on an entire diet of such air and whipped cream, but it’s a tasty treat while it’s there…

While I’m here, I’ll make the cultural critics happy and throw them a bone, with the twist that I stole this analysis from three teenaged girls I saw on a television program (you know, the ones who are too stupid or brainwashed to notice these things)…

(9) "Sometimes" by Britney Spears (oh, like the year matters or will be remembered in the future?) – "Sometimes I run – sometimes I hide – sometimes I’m scared of you – but all I want to do is to hold you tight…" Um – until the police get there, Britney? Would one REALLY want to be in a relationship with someone from whom one would run and hide in fear? I mean, one SHOULD run from a member of N-SYNC, which, in fact, she has had the good sense to (now, if only she could learn that it was Joan Jett who did the hit version of "I Love Rock and Roll", not Pat Benetar) – but because of his music only – at the worst, he’s likely to be after your purse (to borrow) or your makeup if he’s pursuing you…

 

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws