| Clutch – A Shogun Named Marcus Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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no-one ever said it was boring in jordan... the reference is (of course) not to the country but to jordan, minnesota, immortalised by big black for all the wrong reasons; but neil fallon seems to have mistakenly assumed that *atomiser* was a straightforward concept album, all set in one town... it isn't (except inasmuch as albini's stories could take place in almost any small, impoverished, come-here-to-die american backwater). the idea of boredom comes from "kerosene" on the same album, in which the narrator's mundane life is so dull that he exhorts his partner to set him on fire just to break the monotony (sounds ridiculous, but albini will again have based this on a true story - or rather a news snippet, which may well have been exaggerated). but there was never any suggestion that the inhabitants of jordan took to child abuse because they were bored. never mind neil, it still makes for a good opening line :) bebop-alu-mop yadda-yadda: clever. half gene vincent and half little richard, thus hinting at two of fallon's forebears and possible early influences. it also sums up nicely his alchemical ability to take nonsensical elements and turn them into rock poetry, a talent which is displayed wonderfully in the second verse (a lyrical obstacle course that not all singers could negotiate with any confidence). finally - even after all these years and plays i can't be certain, but i think the line is "hari kari and carbines", not "combines", although it could be either. (there is no such thing as hari kari of course... he means hara kiri, but this is a very common mistake and may even be deliberate here..?) great song! |
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| Sex Pistols – New York Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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that's an ingenious alternative interpretation, but i don't find it convincing (despite the fact that it does rather neatly fit various lines in the song). bowie is british, so why would a song about him begin with the line "an imitation from new york"? above all: when in that decade could it have been said of bowie "four years on you still look the same"?! the guy changed his persona and appearance every time he released a new record... ... your point about anadin is well made, but i think that's more likely a rare instance of lydon making a mistake (the line as it's delivered could easily have been ad-libbed in the studio rather than written out, in which case the brand name most familiar to lydon himself could have just slipped out in the heat of the moment, regardless of whether or not it made sense in context). |
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| Sex Pistols – New York Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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me too - i've always loved this song. but (for some reason) i have never actually owned a copy of this album, and it wasn't until the other night that i made an effort to track down the lyrics, and of course that then made me start thinking about them... i have read all the comments below and would like to thank wrob in particular for explaining a couple of things. having mulled it over and over ( = i have played the song again almost ten times, and have had it on continuous loop in my head for the last 36 hrs!) i want to add and/or clarify a couple of things: 1. unfortunately (@ wrob) there is nothing tongue-in-cheek about this song. lydon's contempt and vitriol is (as usual) 100% genuine 2. the target is not the dolls as such, but david johansen in particular (and even there it's not so much what DJ *was*, as what lydon felt he had allowed himself to become, by 1977) - once the latter occurred to me i went back through the song and reaIised all the second-person references are in the singular ("an imitation", "hippy tart's hero", "poor little faggot" etc). but the clincher for me is in the very clever phrase "cheese and chalk" - it seems at first as if lydon has just grabbed a readymade rhyme by turning a well-known phrase on its head, but he's done much more than that: in one image he skewers DJ's integrity as an entertainer while caricaturing his physical appearance (long and thin and pale). john was always a much better lyricist than a lot gave him credit for. i have no opinion on the new york dolls really, so don't side with one or the other, but i do know that lydon would not have turned his scorn on DJ unless he felt sure in his own mind that it was warranted. "nothing in your gut... stuck in a rut" translates/unpacks into the following: "you spent all your money on drugs and now have to toe the record company line, just do whatever they want, which is the same pathetic sideshow day after day". the *kiss* references later in the song are really vicious, turning one of DJ's most famous moments against him by implying that he's not only been bought and sold, he's allowed himself to be gift-wrapped as if for some horrible lecherous abuser. (many, many artists have felt this way after - or during - careers in the entertainment industry!) - all this may seem totally savage and unfair, but lydon lived by his own principles and was gone from the band soon enough... meanwhile, this lyric is a magnificently brutal piece of juvenalian satire and is well married to the most ambitious, least predictable songwriting on the album. (fwiw i would bet the real title was "new york doll" but that the record label talked him out of it... in the same way as "john travolta" by mr bungle is known officially as "quote unquote") a few more observations: "made in japan" was (back in the 70s) how everybody in the UK described something cheaply mass-produced. (this later, and rather more accurately, became "made in taiwan" and eventually "made in china") "coming to this" - as in, "that it should come to this" "hippy tart" will have been some poor unfortunate whom lydon encountered on his first visit to the big apple... someone who insisted that the dolls were still worth seeing cos DJ was her hero, he always messes up onstage, to show that he's not playing the game etc etc - and john is thinking "that's the best you can come up with??" - i'm just guessing here peace out x |
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