“Gotcha” Lyrics
FCRP regular Ken suggested a topic some time back that I’ve been musing on, and hope that it might interest—or amuse—you to muse on it to. To wit: “Pivotal lyrical lines where the wording reverses or puts in question the accepted or common meaning or understanding of the balance of the lyrics.” The examples Ken adduced were The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” the Buzzcocks’ “I Believe,” and the Kinks’ “Lola.”
What I take Ken’s question to be getting at is the turn-on-a-dime emotional reversal that songs, like poems and fiction, can sometimes achieve. In “Sympathy for the Devil,” of course, that moment comes when the song’s narrator reveals his name: “Just call me Lucifer / For I’m in need of some restraint.” To that point, the song has been a grab bag of world history, emphasizing the twentieth century but going all the way back to B.C.E. (“I was around when Jesus Christ / Had his moment of doubt and pain”). Sort of an international world-historical “American Pie” avant la lettre.
How shocking is the narrator’s revelation? What effect does it have on the song’s listeners? Like all of these experiences, it’s impossible, once one knows the punchline, to recreate an “innocent” listening experience: Now that I know it’s the Devil singing to me, I’ll always know, and can’t remember what it was like ever not to know. But if one were to play “Sympathy for the Devil” for a first-time listener right up to the moment when the narrator reveals himself and pause the record, many clues would have been presented: Not enough, perhaps, for a game-show contestant to hit her buzzer and shout out “Lucifer!”, but enough that when Lucifer outs himself, it’s not entirely a shock. (The way that “Sympathy” is deployed, inaccurately, in the mythology of the Altamont shooting is an altogether different, though interesting, question. In fact, as viewers of Gimme Shelter know, the Stones weren’t playing “Sympathy” when Meredith Hunter pulled a gun and was jumped and killed by the Hell’s Angels, but “Under My Thumb”—merely a [deeply] misogynist song, not a satanic one.)
The Buzzcocks’ “I Believe” is an altogether different kettle of fish: a song I’ve long admired, but not one I’m confident I can interpret properly. The rushing internally rhyming cascade of the verses tells a story of someone trying to catch up with the speed of life in the modern world; the chorus, on the other hand, rehearses a series of credos: I believe in the workers’ revolution … the final solution … the immaculate conception … the resurrection.
The “volta,” as we say in poetics—the moment when the song turns back on itself, and turns on us—is, I imagine, in the final verse:
I believe in original sin
And I believe what I believe in
Yes I believe in
I believe in
I believe in the web of fate
And I believe in I’m going to be late
So I’ll be leavin’
What I believe in
This song of belief in the end is a song of apostasy—which is, let’s face it, a much more rock & roll subject.
The Kinks’ example, the ending of “Lola,” is quite well known: it’s not just a turn, but a double reverse. The storyline, of course, tells of the singer’s meeting a girl “in old Soho,” and their ensuing romance. It turns out that this girl is in all likelihood a transvestite: “Girls will be boys and boys will be girls / It’s a mixed-up muddled-up shook-up world except for Lola.” (One of the song’s many nice lyrical touches: It’s Lola, the transvestite, who is not mixed-up muddled-up; she knows who she is.) Hence “Lola” is part of the holy trinity of transvestite rock & roll radio hits, along with Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Jane’s Addiction’s “Jane Says.”
The big reveal comes, as it should, in the closing verse:
Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is Lola.
I called this ending not a reverse, but a double reverse: this is the kind of electric literary thrill of which the very best of our songwriters (Ray Davies, Elvis Costello, Aimee Mann) are capable. For look at it closely: the narrator isn’t simply telling us that Lola is a man. “I’m glad I’m a man / And so is Lola”: So is Lola … a man? Or is Lola glad (that the narrator is a man)? And if the latter—if Lola’s glad that the narrator is a man—is s/he glad because she’s a woman who likes men, or a transgender person who likes men? What, in short, is under Lola’s skirt? The world will never know, because Ray Davies is too clever, and too perverse, to tell us.
So that’s my stab at Ken’s three examples. I’ll talk about three of my own tomorrow; in the meantime, if you have an example or two of your own of this kind of thing, I’d really love to hear about them, via Comments.
I guess that I was struck by different lines in SFTD which veer away from Kevin’s view and the assumed direction given by the song’s title. Specifically: “Just as every cop is a criminal/And all the sinners saints/As heads is tails just call me Lucifer” suggests that we need to turn over the coin (with Lucifer on one side) and see the real protagonist.
I’ll end with an open question about “Under My Thumb.” Since he’s singing about revenge, is it truly misogyny or a more generalised antisocial behaviour?
Not sure I follow what you’re saying re: SFTD. “Under my thumb’s a squirming dog who’s just had her day / Under my thumb’s a girl who has just changed her ways….” Revenge, yes; misogyny, for sure.
Hmmm. Was it me who suggested this topic? I have no recollection of it. Plus, it’s suspiciously astute, ruling me out. Perhaps Steve in one of his guises?
“Under My Thumb” is definitely misogynist, I’m afraid. That song (and a couple of others from the Stones’ canon) makes me squirm every time I hear it.
I do remember suggesting this premise for a blog posting and those three songs as (possible) places to start . . .
My point with SFTD is that pictures are painted of evil historical events and then we’re told that cops are criminals, sinners are saints, heads is tails and, so, who/what we are invited to call Lucifer is [fill in the blank].
Ah, I getcha now. Yeah, certainly that makes sense, too. Maybe I’m alone in experiencing a kind of shock when Lucifer is name-checked.
And speaking of name-checked, sorry to have credited Ken with your own brilliant prompt. I’ll be more scrupulous in my attributions in the future.
Just fired up SFTD, which I haven’t listened to (as opposed to heard) in a long time. Cool groove. Love the tone on the guitar solo.
I wonder if this is one of those cases when the lyrics are driven as much by the rhyme scheme as anything else. I mean, Jagger ain’t exactly the Bard of Avon, know what I’m sayin’? For example, we have “I rode a tank/Held a general’s rank/When the blitzkrieg raged/And the bodies stank.” So maybe the ambiguity in the big “reveal” is just the result of clumsy writing. The logic of the song makes it clear that the protagonist we’re talking about is L-dog. Further evidence of sloppiness is “Cause I’m in need of some restraint.” That just screams out desperation, in my opinion: “What the hell can I rhyme with saint?”.
Personally, I think this kind of ineptness is pretty common, which is one of the dangers in “figuring things out from the lyrics of popular songs” as Fran Leibowitz so memorably phrased it.
I even heard Richard Thompson, no slouch, admit as much in an interview. The interviewer asked something about a lyric and he responded with something like “The rhyme scheme was getting pretty desperate at that point.”
Kevin will no doubt have something to say about the dangers of try to figure out intentionality. But I think incompetence explains a lot, in popular music, as in life. (In my life, for sure!)
There’s definitely a danger in giving more credit than is due; but I guess I’d rather think about effect than cause or intention: that is, how do we hear the song? Questions about whether Jagger “meant” a certain ambiguity seem largely beside the point? Even more, I think that sometimes the discipline of rhyme and meter can actually bring out the (hidden) best in a writer: that is, the exigencies of rhyme scheme may sometimes result in doggerel, but sometimes, as in “I Believe,” the effects are just extraordinary. The discipline of the form is really good for most writers.
I completely agree with you about how rhyme and meter and repetition can propel a song forward. If it’s all working right, the words and the rhythm and the tune fuse together into a whole that has a sense of inevitability about it. “I Believe” is a great example; another Buzzcocks tune, “Why Can’t I Touch It” also has that effect.
I also know what you mean about cause and effect. When I listen to a song, I take it for what it is; I just accept what’s there and react to that.
I guess my point is that most popular songs don’t reward the deeper kind of reading that leads to wondering about authorial motivation. If you read T.S. Eliot, you can be sure that he thought pretty darn carefully about the words. Mick Jagger? He’s a smart and talented man. But I’m not sure there’s much beyond the most obvious sense of the lyrics, some of which aren’t that great in any case.
Hi Kevin, I’ve got one for you. It’s more of a “volta” than a “gotcha” per se. The song is the soul-tinged mid-70s hit “Be Thankful for What You Got,” by William deVaughn (later covered, soullessly, by Massive Attack). “Be Thankful” seems, in the verses, to be preaching a kind of gratitude and humility–Southern Baptist New Testament meets emerging hippie-New Age anti-consumerist credo. Then, in the chorus, which I think is catchier and more memorable, DeVaughn seems to be reminding the humble listener of the kind of showy things s/he could have if only there were a lot of money. It’s ideologically overdetermined, as we used to say back in the 80, but I think it leans toward promoting the showy things one can’t have–sort of like the Sirens episode in Ulysses…
Verse:
Though you may not drive a great big Cadillac
Gangsta whitewalls
TV antennas in the back
You may not have a car at all
But remember brothers and sisters
You can still stand tall
Just be thankful for what you’ve got
Though you may not drive a great big Cadillac
Chorus:
Diamond in the back, sunroof top
Diggin’ the scene
With a gangsta lean
Gangsta whitewalls
TV antennas in the back
Verse:
You may not have a car at all
But remember brothers and sisters
You can still stand tall
Just be thankful for what you’ve got
Chorus:
Diamond in the back, sunroof top
Diggin the scene
With a gangsta lean, wooh-ooh-ooh
Diamond in the back, sunroof top
Diggin the scene
With a gangsta lean, wooh-ooh-ooh
Diamond in the back, sunroof top
Diggin’ the scene
With a gangsta lean, wooh-ooh-ooh
I would think you could dig the scene with a gangsta lean and, without a Cadillac, still stand tall, but what do I know?
Yours from Upper Volta,
N
That’s fantastic, Nico. First, I’m so grateful to be reminded of “Be Thankful”: even when that song was on the radio, and I was resolutely a rock kid, I always loved it. The yearning in that falsetto is palpable.
This does seem like an interesting sub-genre or something, and it reminds me, weirdly enough, of noir. By which I mean: the way that in a Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane novel, Vice is on parade, sort of like the fantasy sequence in Faust–and then it’s mown down by a snub-nosed .45 (or something: I know nothing about guns). That is, there’s a kind of pornographic display (of female sexuality or, in the “Be Thankful” case, of material opulence), and it’s then wiped away. But of course, it’s hardly wiped from the imagination.
I’d never thought about “Be Thankful” that way–or ever really thought about the song at all, I suppose. The way the singer rushes through that list of goodies is rather telling.
Thanks so much.