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:
unfortunately (@ wrob) there is nothing tongue-in-cheek about this song. lydon's contempt and vitriol is (as usual) 100% genuine
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
@cent
My extremely late reply is due to just now reading yours. Way yonder when I first heard the song I completely thought it was a put down of the city (a definitive winning of the 'Who REALLY started 'Punk'' war). Later learning it was about the Dolls/JoHansen it made more sense (plus the McLaren association).
@cent
My extremely late reply is due to just now reading yours. Way yonder when I first heard the song I completely thought it was a put down of the city (a definitive winning of the 'Who REALLY started 'Punk'' war). Later learning it was about the Dolls/JoHansen it made more sense (plus the McLaren association).
Yes, I agree, Rotten/Lydon ISN'T given the kudos he deserves as a (dare I say) poet. 'God Save The Queen' alone has some BRILLIANT lines/imagery: We're the flowers in the dustbin/We're the poison in the human-machine - absolutely peerless.
Yes, I agree, Rotten/Lydon ISN'T given the kudos he deserves as a (dare I say) poet. 'God Save The Queen' alone has some BRILLIANT lines/imagery: We're the flowers in the dustbin/We're the poison in the human-machine - absolutely peerless.
So,...
So, that is my long-time-coming response to your interesting reply. Stay safe and well
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:
unfortunately (@ wrob) there is nothing tongue-in-cheek about this song. lydon's contempt and vitriol is (as usual) 100% genuine
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)
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!)
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
@cent My extremely late reply is due to just now reading yours. Way yonder when I first heard the song I completely thought it was a put down of the city (a definitive winning of the 'Who REALLY started 'Punk'' war). Later learning it was about the Dolls/JoHansen it made more sense (plus the McLaren association).
@cent My extremely late reply is due to just now reading yours. Way yonder when I first heard the song I completely thought it was a put down of the city (a definitive winning of the 'Who REALLY started 'Punk'' war). Later learning it was about the Dolls/JoHansen it made more sense (plus the McLaren association).
Yes, I agree, Rotten/Lydon ISN'T given the kudos he deserves as a (dare I say) poet. 'God Save The Queen' alone has some BRILLIANT lines/imagery: We're the flowers in the dustbin/We're the poison in the human-machine - absolutely peerless.
Yes, I agree, Rotten/Lydon ISN'T given the kudos he deserves as a (dare I say) poet. 'God Save The Queen' alone has some BRILLIANT lines/imagery: We're the flowers in the dustbin/We're the poison in the human-machine - absolutely peerless.
So,...
So, that is my long-time-coming response to your interesting reply. Stay safe and well