Bang Bang, Europe's Going to Weep...

[rebness]

In a previous entry, I threatened to keeeeel and maim pandorasblog for skitting my current band obsession, Franz Ferdinand. Lookee, missus, I wished to point out, they're all cool and British and make jaunty rock and have smart lyrics and... and then I stopped myself, because the main reason I like them? Well, apart from Matinee, because dude. What a song-- Well. Ahem. Harrumph. It's because of their oh-my-gosh referencing of history.

Some little history nerd in me comes to life when a song, or a band, reference historical events or people-- doubly so if they can fit literature into the lyrics.

Hence, my favourite Kate Bush song? Wuthering Heights. My favourite Manics song? If You Tolerate This... My favourite bands, past and present? The Doors, The Boo Radleys, Franz Ferdinand, Savage Garden.

I don't know. Lyrics matter so much to me. A witty or knowing song just kills me. (Sorry for the turn of speech-- am currently re-reading Salinger.)

Which gets me thinking... I bet I would like, even love songs and bands whom I would normally like to set on fire if they would just add some substance or referencing to their lyrics rather than "til the end of time, babe," or whatever.

Take whimsical boyband Westlife for example, in their matching white suits. Let's pretend they're wearing them as an ode to...I dunno... Marcus Aurelius' purity of mind. Then have them spin off tiresome sugary ballad Mandy with re-vamped lyrics:

Oh, Caesar
You came and you saw and you conquered
Then got all stabbed...

See? I could deal with that. And Britney? Let's do away with her neo-trash look and soppier ballads and replace them with an ode to Louis XVIII during the 1830 revolution:

Oops, I did it again
I messed up the throne
And they’re baying for my blood
I’m not that decadent!

Oh, yes. I could dig that. And imagine the video! >:)

Comments

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

Does that Kate Bush song go, "Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I'm calling... I've come home now..."? Because that's just hilarious.

I think attempts to be topical with vapid cultural references in equally vapid songs would just be even more annoying, so I don't think you're onto anything. :p That being said, the character Uriah Heep was mentioned in mediaeval lit the other day, don't ask me why as it had nothing to do with what we were discussing, and this 30-year-old guy goes, "Uriah Heep?! That was band in the 80s! I had no idea it was a Dickens character."

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Wuthering Heights does indeed go like that. It's really cool when you watch the video and she's all over the place, a-twirling and a-screeching in her white dress and the mist machines...

The worst thing is that the first thing I think of when you mention Uriah Heap is indeed that band...lol.

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

Liz and I laugh about that song a lot. And sing it, although I've never actually heard it. Her high school English teacher played it for the class when they did the novel. I wish I did the novel in high school, then I might have actually finished it.

I think of Jasper Fforde and Thursday Next, because he was Uriah Hope before there was an accident with the mispeling vyrus...

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Bah. Mr. Fforde is making me feel very ill-read. >:

I can't believe you haven't heard the song properly! You have to... it's very melodramatic and literary. >:-D

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

It sounds silly. :p

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Precisely!

Look at this:

Out on the wily, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot; too greedy

How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you
Loved you too

Etc. Such fitting lyrics! Such perfect summing up of the intensity and obsession and their relationship.

Sung in such a screechy tone!

And that dress!

The mist!

It's an education.

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

One I'm sure I can live without.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

*Shakes fist*

I can always slip in a copy of Babycakes before I wrap this funky box up, you know. >:

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

I've never heard it, so maybe you should. And then you should come online.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

*Strokes chin*

YES. Franz Ferdinand, Wuthering Heights, Babycakes... it will be one of the more eclectic CDs you'll ever own, anyway.

Okay. Onlineage... be right there. :p

[peregrinuscanus.livejournal.com]

Oh, Franz Ferdinand, yes! and Wuthering Heights too! I think I'm of a similar mind. Those first few lines of Matinee (and the image of Alex K in a school blazer, and the whole thing looking exactly like my school era) *are* just killing.

I can cope with light fluffy lyrics too but my favourite writers are those who fit the bill as serious poets - Leonard Cohen/Nick Cave, as when Lenny references Constantine Cavafy's poem 'The god abandons Antony' in Alexandra Leaving.

*And* you're reading Salinger?! I did my dissertation on pilgrimage in the Glass family. Just the name is making me nostalgic for Buddy and Seymour and Franny/Zooey.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

I so have to download Alexandra Leaving now.

I read Catcher in the Rye some years ago... I just felt like re-reading it. I love Salinger. I adore the stories of the Glass family! Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters is one of my favourite short stories-- however, I love A Good Day for Bananafish above all. That entire collection of stories is amazing;(have you read For Esme, With Love and Squalor?)

[peregrinuscanus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I love For Esme: With Love and Squalor, and of that book A Perfect Day for Bananafish is my favourite too. I had a perfect Seymour crush when I was in my mid-to-late teens. I kind of equate him with Larry in Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, and it was on Seymour in particular that I focused when writing my dissertation - that he teaches the others 'the way of a pilgrim' and Franny might get screwed up because she's got it wrong in her head, as Zooey says, but they can find the right path again by following Seymour's wisdom.

Somewhere in a file I also have a copy of Hapworth 16, 1924 (photocopied out of the 1964 New Yorker) which is a short story about Buddy writing home from summer camp when he and Seymour are about 8-10 yrs old. You can find it here

Hapworth 16, 1924

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell! Thank you!

(comes over all fangirlish and excited.)

Oh boy! :-D

[jaffacakequeen.livejournal.com]

dont dis Kate Bush! it is a very emotive song, in fact all of her songs are. consider this was the 1970's and she was 16 it is very impressive. I am very protective of kate bush and will gladly punch anyway who laughs at her! her dancing in reflective of Cathy on the moors and freedom.

In fact i recommend anyone to listen to her records, especially Breathing and Army Dreamers which are very poignant at war time.

there is no other artist EVER that comes close to her lyrics and it makes me angry when people laugh at her. :-(

i am just a bit defensive LMAO!

[rebness.livejournal.com]

:-p

I'd laugh at her, but then you'd bash me over the head.

[peregrinuscanus.livejournal.com]

I agree - the whole of The Kick Inside album too is one of the soundtracks of my life.

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

To me or Becky? I don't know why you all think my musical tastes are so lacking, and don't say Hanson, because you *know* I like a lot of other stuff. :p

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

Suuuuuure.

[jaffacakequeen.livejournal.com]

Careful Becky, Ronan Keating and U2 is on the way :-p

[rebness.livejournal.com]

RONAN KEATING?

ARRRGH! Put a gun to my head and paint the walls with my brains! :-o

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Babycakes, you just don't know good music. (repeat x 700 times, with pathetic dancy beat in the background. Repeat on MTV, The Box, Smash Hits, Q and Magic. Get to Number one and replace DJ Otzi as having the most awful song ever at number one.)