Disclosure: I spent many of my young years unable to understand what the fuck this song was about. I couldn’t reconcile the lyrics to the chorus in any way that made sense. As it turned out, I was mishearing the words. The chorus is “gossip, gossip, oh yeah, gossip” not “carsick, carsick, oh yeah carsick” like I thought it was. Now it all makes sense. Turns out Beatle George was not a fan of the sou-sou inherent in the star system. George was undoubtedly smart enough to know that the gossiping is one of our most primal social urges, but that doesn’t mean he had to like it. He was, after all, in a position to know all about it.
Again with my embarrassing propensity for Elvis, you say! And again my defense is; Elvis wasn’t always as lame as he was when he took up sparkly-jumpsuit-wearing, Elvis was not the evil mastermind of a plot to rip off black musical culture and sell it to whitey for a dime, and besides if you listen closely you’ll find he was rather a good singer. To naught, because in most minds the musical legacy of Elvis can never be separated from the kitsch-parade monstrosity of the Graceland industry. I like to think of Elvis as a musical idiot savant who knew not what the changes wrought. He was, with his simple mind and terrible, terrible taste, living (then dead) proof that you can’t take the proletariat out of the boy, no matter how much cash you give him. Which is why he inspires such revulsion in folks who fancy themselves a touch above the common Twinkie- eating proles who enjoy velvet paintings and other stereotypical iconography of unsophisticated bad taste. All of which has not one iota to do with music. So, I point to the music. It is good.
I have a real problem with Danielle Z. Not that I don’t like her. It’s just I see her a lot (or I used to, back in the day) and I can never, ever recall her name. All I can think of is ‘something Z’. Odd, because she’s lovely, she was very popular and she worked with all the big names.
You know, I remember discovering Blondie, when I was a little girl in the big snowy woods. The Platinum Collection it was, and I found it absolutely transporting. It wasn’t exotic speaking of faraway lands – I’d lived in New York before. Blondie just served to remind me of a more exciting reality out in the world. And being, of course, a voice a twelve-year old could understand. Any little girls not already idolizing Deborah Harry should start immediately.
Bravissimo! To whom would it occur to make a video dressed as a Hokusai painting? Cheers to that. Ladytron rules the roost in terms of electronic dance music of the non-stupid varietal, and they’ve lots to contribute on the visual design front as well. See, pop isn’t just for people who can’t spell their own names.
I’ve included Desperanto here as the only track from Before the Poison. Most likely the time will come when that album clicks into place with me, but thus far, as Marianne Faithfull albums go, it’s disappointed. It may be because of what my expectations of it were. With helps from Nick Cave and PJ Harvey it promised to be the second coming of Broken, or something equally illustrious, but then arrived sounding like just another genteel late-life Marianne. Now this, this has some bite, some noticeable Bad Seed-ness. I love Marianne when she’s cabaret, I love her when she’s folk, but sometimes I want her to rock harder. The good news is, I hear she’s working on a new one already, for next year. So that’s exciting.
This is “a good jam” according my fabulously articulate buddy at work. A ‘jam’ is not how I would refer to it, but I realize some people have limited vocabularies. I realize too, that some of you younger generation type people may know this jam from the rather terrible cover recorded by My Chemical Romance. If anyone out there goes on to graduate from Gerard Way’s yowling to a real Bob Dylan album, then those boys will have done their good deed for the day.
“Desolation Row”
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row.
Cinderella, she seems so easy
“It takes one to know one,” she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
“You belong to Me I Believe”
And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave”
And the only sound that’s left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row.
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing
He’s getting ready for the show
He’s going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row.
Now Ophelia, she’s ‘neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession’s her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah’s great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row.
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row.
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They’re trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She’s in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
“Have Mercy on His Soul”
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row.
Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains
They’re getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
In a perfect image of a priest
They’re spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls
“Get outa here if you don’t know”
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row.
At midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.
They be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody’s shouting
“Which side are you on ?”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row.
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
About the time the door knob broke
When you asked me how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke ?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can’t read too good
Dont send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row.
Blondie had a good comeback moment. They broke up for a long time, then got back and cut a couple of albums that came out very well. Toured a lot too. Some critics said Curse of Blondie was marred by too much trendy production. I don’t think slick production has to be a bad thing. Dipping their feet into dance music Blondie was always good at. Not to mention Debbie Harry’s famous mc skillz. I would commend them for trying on a wide range of styles on that album. It’s not all great, granted – Background Melody is hands-down the skeeviest song ever. But they diversified mightily, and mostly with success. I heard rumors of a new album for 2010, but 2010 is almost over and I’ve seen no new album come out.
It occurs to me, belatedly, that Nina Hagen would be a great Halloween costume. Well, this year I spent All Hallows Eve on a trancontinental airplane flight, but next year for sure. Nina has a unique sense of style. While it’s a little too high-effort for everyday emulation, it’s still inspiring. Nina has no use for convention, and that’s inspiring.
You’ve never heard Japanese sung with a German accent. It’s actually the same song as Pocket Calculator. There’s a third version, in German, Taschenrechner. Kraftwerk recorded three musically identical cuts, each for the appropriate market. Dentaku being a Japan-only 7″. Years later, they recorded Dentaku again, with different music, for The Mix. That was the one I first heard, and had no way of knowing it was a translated Pocket Calculator. It’s confusing, I know.
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