| Oingo Boingo – Insanity Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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@[BalisongAbraxas:27980] I'd actually like to suggest that this verse ("am I the virus, are you the cure?") suggest something else entirely -- it paints the speaker as an outsider but not necessarily a lunatic. Catch phrases like "morally unclean" and "Christian Nation, assimilate me" suggest to me that we're working from the point of view of a secular person and the zealotry of some of the Christian sects that have taken hold in the US (and around the world). Look at the last few lines: "I am part of a degenerate elite... the man just told me, he told me on TV." Doesn't that sound like a normal person's response to the more fire-and-brimstone televangelists? The things they call people out for are things the majority of the population does regularly -- and all of these seem to land you squarely in h-e-double hockey sticks . Tangent (but related), when I was in college, there was a wacko branch Baptist who used to show up and point out all the girls who were going to hell for wearing tank tops in phoenix in August (kiss my what?!). The speaker in the lyrics isn't crazy (whether it's Elfman or not) -- the rational speaker is responding to the outrageous zealotry of the man on TV. He also incorporates themes like disillusionment, the degradation of society (on a rational, practical level rather than on the level of fanatical Christians), and social/societal exclusion. In these situations, listening to these people, a perfectly average person can start to feel like they are a dangerous lunatic bound for hell. "Christian nation, assimilate me..." is naught more than a sarcastic plea to find a "place" to "belong" in all of this. Listen to the commentary after the lines in the chorus: "Let's imitate reality Let's strive for mediocrity Let's make believe we're all the same Let's sanitize our little brains For me, the "Now that's for me" response says it all. Everything in the responses is delivered in complete deadpan tone. It stands in contrast to the emotional/passionate expression of the main lines (almost shouted). When he says "Let's make-believe we're all the same" and responds, in deadpan "Now that's for me," I can almost visualize some clean-shaven, brylcreem '50s kid giving the plastic grin and a *big* thumbs up. Let's make believe we're all the same. (image of fifties kid here giving thumbs up) It's Eddie Haskell. He's perfect on the surface, but we all know there's a sinister monster under it all. These zealots present themselves as perfect Christians, but they cannot hold up to close scrutiny -- nobody could! The surface is the "insane" speaker, but underneath it, the key is to realize that the so-called "insane" speaker is really just about everyone... nobody can live up to these Puritanical ideals, and we're all excluded in the end, if you subscribe to a literal translation of biblical texts. *We're* the lunatics, the killers, the psychopaths -- "normal" is us: the flawed, the secular, the humans. |
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| Oingo Boingo – Insanity Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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@[BalisongAbraxas:27979] I'd actually like to suggest that this verse ("am I the virus, are you the cure?") suggest something else entirely -- it paints the speaker as an outsider but not necessarily a lunatic. Catch phrases like "morally unclean" and "Christian Nation, assimilate me" suggest to me that we're working from the point of view of a secular person and the zealotry of some of the Christian sects that have taken hold in the US (and around the world). Look at the last few lines: "I am part of a degenerate elite... the man just told me, he told me on TV." Doesn't that sound like a normal person's response to the more fire-and-brimstone televangelists? The things they call people out for are things the majority of the population does regularly -- and all of these seem to land you squarely in h-e-double hockey sticks . Tangent (but related), when I was in college, there was a wacko branch Baptist who used to show up and point out all the girls who were going to hell for wearing tank tops in phoenix in August (kiss my what?!). The speaker in the lyrics isn't crazy (whether it's Elfman or not) -- the rational speaker is responding to the outrageous zealotry of the man on TV. He also incorporates themes like disillusionment, the degradation of society (on a rational, practical level rather than on the level of fanatical Christians), and social/societal exclusion. In these situations, listening to these people, a perfectly average person can start to feel like they are a dangerous lunatic bound for hell. "Christian nation, assimilate me..." is naught more than a sarcastic plea to find a "place" to "belong" in all of this. Listen to the commentary after the lines in the chorus: "Let's imitate reality Let's strive for mediocrity Let's make believe we're all the same Let's sanitize our little brains For me, the "Now that's for me" response says it all. Everything in the responses is delivered in complete deadpan tone. It stands in contrast to the emotional/passionate expression of the main lines (almost shouted). When he says "Let's make-believe we're all the same" and responds, in deadpan "Now that's for me," I can almost visualize some clean-shaven, brylcreem '50s kid giving the plastic grin and a *big* thumbs up. Let's make believe we're all the same. (image of fifties kid here giving thumbs up) It's Eddie Haskell. He's perfect on the surface, but we all know there's a sinister monster under it all. These zealots present themselves as perfect Christians, but they cannot hold up to close scrutiny -- nobody could! The surface is the "insane" speaker, but underneath it, the key is to realize that the so-called "insane" speaker is really just about everyone... nobody can live up to these Puritanical ideals, and we're all excluded in the end, if you subscribe to a literal translation of biblical texts. *We're* the lunatics, the killers, the psychopaths -- "normal" is us: the flawed, the secular, the humans. |
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