The Colossus

OK, I've got something. Time for a song to get fisked.

The Piano Man. I don't know about you, but Billy Joel's lyrics have always seemed forced and insincere to me. Whenever a Billy Joel song comes on the radio, I usually sing along in my most hostile, mocking voice (which is pretty damned hostile and mocking, if I do say so myself). I just don't take the guy seriously. He's living in this whole world of false community that I just don't buy into -- the whole "I'm an urban kid from Brooklyn in the fifties" thing that reminds me of The Lords of Flatbush. I just don't believe Billy Joel grew up in some ethnic enclave in the city. I think he's actually a kid from the suburbs who was so insecure, hated, and picked on in high school that he had to create this alternate reality in which he was one of the cool kids. And all of his songs come from this alternate reality, where the dude pretends that he's Fonzie.

I listen to Billy Joel's music, and I don't feel all the fond reminiscences that other people do. I think his songs reek of self-pity, delusions of grandeur, and not a little bit of psychosis. Seriously. He got beat up a lot in childhood. And he probably deserved it.

That's what I get when I listen to Billy Joel. Your mileage may vary.

At any rate, The Piano Man. A song about the neighborhood bar. It's a little bit like the badly dated 80s sitcom Cheers (seriously -- if you've caught a Cheers episode in the last five years, it hasn't aged well), except the characters are even more dislikable. Let's begin, shall we?

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The Regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin

Hey, old man. Put that thing away, you sicko, or I'm calling the cops. I remember actually drinking a Bombay Sapphire and Tonic one time, and hearing that line, and actually retching a little bit, because the thought of some old guy, dangling his . . . oh, you get my point. I know it is just a metaphor, but it's a really bad metaphor. I don't like to think about old people having sex with mixed drinks.

He says, "Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"

Man, when I think about my favorite bar in the 80s, it didn't involve any winos with Alzheimer's, stinking there in their rumpled hobo suits, badgering me to try to remember some Billie Holliday tune from the time when they still had teeth, lived indoors, and weren't plagued by incontinence. But that's just me.

Chorus: Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright

Me, when I go to a bar to drink, just about the last thing I want to do is join in some freakish jamboree with a bunch of sad, bourbon-swilling lowlifes. No sir, I drink, I tip the bartender, I might have a smoke (if it's the America I remember -- an America where you could smoke in a bar without some health Brownshirts taking you out back and beating the crap out of you like that scene in Cabaret), and I mind my own business. Bars are places you drink in when you have no family, and no one loves you. When you start bonding with strangers over some maudlin show tune, and start "feelin' alright", then I'm sorry, my friend, you're an alcoholic. Get help.

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there's someplace that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me."
As the smile ran away from his face
"Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"

The bar is, evidently, in some sort of weird, purgatorial place where its denizens cannot, of their own free will, leave (cf. California, Hotel). But oddly enough, there are mixed drinks and smokes. Usually when I think of Hell, and of Jean Paul Sartre's observation (correct, by the way) that it is composed of "other people", I usually picture it a little more vividly -- flames, suffering, and gladiatorial combat with the other denizens. Maybe I just played a little too much Quake III Arena in my time. In my world John at the Bar would periodically get taken out by a chain gun, and instead of a piano, I'd probably be sitting in a dark corner with the chainsaw.

Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talkin' with Davy, who's still in the Navy
And probably will be for life

And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone

A real estate novelist . . . ah, clever, Billy. A guy who think's he's writing novels, but is really schlepping two bedroom condos. And is it that he never had time for a wife, or is Davey from the Navy more his type? Of course, the Piano Man was written in the 1970s, so today's statutory requirement that all works of fiction and music contain at least two sympathetic gay characters was not, at the time, applicable. Still, he seems to be hinting at something here. Other signs of the song's age are also visible -- "stoned" as a term for inebriation, as opposed to smoking pot.

But doesn't the whole paragraph reek of condescension? Billy really doesn't like these characters. Paul? A failure because he's not really ever going to be a novelist. Davy? In the Navy for life, because he's too limited a creature to do anything else. The waitress is "practicing politics" -- in other words, behaving as insincerely as possible, and the businessmen are pathetic creatures drinking themselves into stupefaction. Some people see "The Piano Man" as some kind of warmhearted, upbeat ballad.

But not me.

I think it's an indictment of these poor, sad losers who are paying good money to hear this chump mangle a few Sinatra tunes, all the while looking down at them. Message to Billy -- you mock your customers at your peril. And who is the real sad, pathetic character here? The losers sitting and drinking their lives away, or the guy who is paid to entertain them? Seems to me you're working for them, Billy.

Thus the rationalization is summoned:

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano, sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, "Man, what are you doin' here."

Me, I'm not buying any of this. The Piano Man as some sort of magical creature, able to dispel people's misery and weltschmertz. What a bunch of hooey.

Because think about it. How many times have you sat in a bar, and watched some jerk set up his equipment, and blow through a half-hearted set of covers, and said to your friends "Hey, this sucks -- let's get out of here." In my youth, I can tell you, it happened all too often. We didn't sit around idolizing this guy who sat there, ignoring our song requests, and secretly mocking us from behind his jar full of "bread". No, my friends, we got up and left.

And then we went somewhere where we could drink in peace.

UPDATE: Wikipedia has him growing up in the Bronx, and not Brooklyn, but then out to Long Island as a kid. I listen to him, and I hear that whiny kid in high school whom the football players would give a ten second head start to before they'd chase him home from the bus stop. Again, a lot of people like Billy Joel. But I don't believe any of his lyrics. They all seem contrived to me.

Posted by The Colossus at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This one isn't mine, but is an observation made by Mrs. Colossus.

We were listenting to the song California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas the other day, and she hit me with her take on it.

The lyrics are, to me, pretty straightforward.

All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.

California dreaming
On such a winter's day

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees
And I pretend to pray
You know the preacher likes the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay

All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
If I didn't tell her
I could leave today

But Mrs. C. assures me that there is a hidden backstory to this that I'm not seeing.

First of all, the idea that he just happened to be passing by the church? Mrs. C.'s not buying it. There are no coincidences, in her mind -- which, I'm increasingly discovering, has a paranoid bent nearly as prononunced as mine.

He was sent to the church. He's supposed to be talking to the preacher about arranging a wedding. Men, after all, being the instruments of women, don't just go to church of their own volition. Our hero in the song is supposed to be talking to the preacher about getting married to the girl, but he is avoiding it.

Because he's planning to run out on her.

Why? Well, my take was that he just really misses L.A. You know, warm weather, sunshine, etc. At this, Mrs. C. just snorted indignantly. Surely I couldn't be that naive.

He's running out on her because she's pregnant.

Here he is, supposed to be doing the responsible thing, going to the preacher, admitting his mistake, and explaining to him that he needs a discreet wedding for his pregnant girlfriend. And instead, he's planning to run out on her.

Now I thought that was a fairly dark take. Then she hits me with the real plot twist.

I asked, "Well, what's stopping him? Why talk about it, why not just go ahead and run back to California?"

Then she smiled. "He can't," she said. "He can only dream about it."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he is a draft dodger. He's up in Canada, because the Vietnam War is going on. That's why it's cold. And if he goes back to L.A., he's going to be either sent to prison or sent to war. So he's stuck."

Then she laughed.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: Humor, guys. This is a humor piece. No, I don't actually believe this, OK? Just a little bit of dark humor . . .

OK, this is a song that has always bothered me.

On the surface of it, Bridge Over Troubled Water is a reassuring enough tune. It has an ethereal, maudlin-yet-strung-out quality to it that defines it as part of the late 60s -- it was on an album of the same name, released in January, 1970. So the sixties were winding down; the party was ending. Everyone was in the mellow, sated, stoned on hash phase of the decade, just prior to the point where everyone gets their coats off the bed in the spare bedroom and leaves. You know -- the part where your girlfriend has already told you that she's leaving you for some f*cking loser, but you're still civilized -- and sober enough -- to still drive her home, because Sh*thead doesn't own a car, and it's too cold for princess to ride home on the back of his motorcycle.

I hate that part of the party.

But I digress.

Each time I listen to Bridge Over Troubled Water, I get a disturbing feeling that Simon and Garfunkel aren't levelling with us. It's kind of similar to the feeling I used to get when reading an unfamiliar comic strip in the paper, where I've clearly come in mid-story, and I'm hopelessly behind in catching up with the plot, characterizations, etc., and I just want to rage "Give me a summary of what's really going on here!". Sort of like installment #18 of The Spy Novel -- monks with tommy guns? WTF?

Unless you believe -- as I do -- that Apartment 3G was really just a way for the CIA to get messages to agents in the field. Then it all makes sense.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Simon and Garfunkel. Bridge Over Troubled Water. It bothers me. It always has. Because it's a little too straightforward, a little too "on the level". A little too pat.

There's a hidden story in these lyrics, I tell you. And I don't trust the narrator for a second.

When you’re weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I’m on your side. when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

Doesn't that give you a creepy stalker vibe? Why is he laying himself down? I'm just a little depressed, no need for the crazy sonofabitch to die for me. No one asked him to do that.

It's like he's Vincent, and we're the waitress who gets the ear mailed to us in a box.

When you’re down and out,
When you’re on the street,
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you.
I’ll take your part.
When darkness comes
And pain is all around,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

This guy has problems. Now he's out on the streets, reassuring the hobos, trying to lure them God-knows-where, and for what unspeakable purposes. What's his dark secret? Do I even want to know? Are the lambs still screaming, Clarice?

Sail on silvergirl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.
Oh, If you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.

OK, this part left me baffled. Who the hell is silvergirl? I had no answer for it. And then it hit me.

Gunshots.

If you listen to the track, as they build up to this big, massively overproduced ending, Simon and Garfunkel use this drum effect that makes each thwack of the drum sound like an explosion.

Or, like a gunshot from a large caliber sniper rifle.

So here's the hidden backstory. The sonofabitch is in the clocktower, surveying the scene below, and muttering the lyrics to himself in a crazy singsong, as he takes aim at the crowd below. Every now and then, he pulls the trigger.

With the gunshots put in, the lyrics for the last verse work work like this.

Sail on silvergirl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine (gunshot)
All your dreams are on their way (gunshot)
See how they shine (gunshot).
Oh (gunshot) If you need (gunshot) a friend
I’m (gunshot) sailing right (gunshot) behind (gunshot).
Like a bridge (gunshot) over troubled (gunshot) water
I (gunshot) will ease your mind (gunshot).
Like a bridge (gunshot) over troubled (gunshot) water
I (gunshot) will ease your mind (gunshot).
(gunshot) (gunshot)

We got him, lieutenant. The shooter's down. Son of a bitch got off eighteen shots before the SWAT team finally took him out.

Huh. He was using steel-jacketed ammunition.

Silvergirl, indeed. What a sick f*ck.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Another old warhorse of a song I've always disliked.

Carly Simon's You're So Vain

Let the lyrical fisking begin!

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner
They’d be your partner, and . . .

Where to begin. First of all, it sounds like this guy could use a visit from Stacy and Clinton of TLC's What Not to Wear . . . I'd send in the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy team, but let's face it -- Mr. Fancypants with his apricot scarf, dancing his little gavotte, watching himself in the mirror probably has the whole queer eye thing covered all by himself.

And hello, Carly? Apricot scarf? He's gay. No use writing us a chorus or a second verse -- no need to trouble yourself further about him, no need to be sitting, waiting next to the phone, eating a pint of Haagen-Dazs. He's gay. Not going to call you.

But she continues . . .

You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? don’t you?

Well of course he thinks the song is about him. IT IS about him!

Carly, your therapist is one line one. She's saying "Get a life . . . "

You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and . . .

Well, to be honest, Carly, you were both pretty drunk that night. Are you really sure he, you know, had you? I mean, not that I'm saying you imagined it or anything, but here we are, sitting in a Starbucks, and you're having hallucinations over your latte.

Acid. The gift that keeps on giving.

Well I hear you went up to saratoga and your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to nova scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well you’re where you should be all the time
And when you’re not you’re with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and . . .

OK, there are a few possibilities here.

1) Carly is off her Risperidone again.

2) This guy has a really killer system for picking horses, or

3) Bond. James Bond.

I'm thinking that Carly might need some help from some of her more concerned (and one or two burly) friends.

It'll be a nice stay in the country.

It's not a prison, Carly.

It's just a place where people with problems go for awhile.

Posted by The Colossus at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another song I've always disliked. More 1970s pop psychology for you, this song explains how we all grew up to be so dysfunctional. It helps to imagine the song being sung by the father of a recently convicted serial killer; picture "Buffalo Bill" in Silence of the Lambs going to trial. This song, or something like it, is what his dad would sing right before the sentencing phase.

Cat's in The Cradle by Harry Chapin
(Lyrics courtesy of Lyricsdepot.com)

My child arrived just the other day,
He came to the world in the usual way

The usual way. Crack addict mom gives birth to pusher's child. Or maybe this biography comes to mind . . .

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with a low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard really . . .

But I digress . . . shall we continue?

But there were planes to catch,
and bills to pay,
He learned to walk while I was away,
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew,
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you, dad,
You know I'm gonna be like you.

So, dad goes on a plane and misses something like the first five years of the kid's life. Who the hell is he? I'm thinking he might be Christopher Walken's character in Pulp Fiction . . .

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man on the moon,
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then, son,
You know we'll have a good time then.

Way to evoke the creepy factor, Harry. Little Boy Blue. Maybe the creepiest of all nursery rhymes.

Why, you say? The rhyme is innocent enough, right?

I'm not so sure. My older brother taught me that the real reason they didn't want to wake Little Boy Blue was because they knew he was dead.

OK, so my older brother may have just been pulling my leg, right? I'm not so sure. Consider this Little Boy Blue poem by Eugene Field, which was probably what my brother was talking about. Little Boy Blue doesn't play with his toys anymore . . . because Little Boy Blue is dead.

Freaked out now? I am.

My son turned ten just the other day,
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play,
Can you teach me to throw?, I said "Not today,
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok",
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed,
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah,
You know I'm gonna be like him.

So, the kid goes from five to ten overnight. Probably because Dad was doing five to ten, hard time, in Joliet for armed robbery. But his son -- who gets beaten up on the playground every day for throwing like a girl, by the way, because Dad wasn't there to show him how to throw properly -- just smiles his insincere little smile. Dad rejects him, but he's learned to just smile.

Sociopath.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man on the moon,
When you comin' home, Dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then, son,
You know we'll have a good time then.

I think Lyrics Depot has it wrong, by the way. I think it's the man in the moon, not the man on the moon. Unless Harry Chapin thinks he's Neil Armstrong or something. Which is quite possible. The song reeks of narcissism and megalomania.

Well, he came home from college just the other day,
So much like a man I just had to say,
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile,
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys,
See you later, can I have them please?"

Ted Bundy needs a getaway vehicle, Dad. Gotta dump the body, it's getting old. Come on, Dad, give me the keys now, please.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man on the moon,
When you comin' home, son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then, Dad,
You know we'll have a good time then.

Dad waits up for his son, to no avail. He's off making a woman suit or something. I'm betting that Dad knows it's not the first hitchhiker the kid's killed, either.

I've long since retired, my son's moved away . . .

Wanted in three states for questioning, no doubt . . .

I called him up just the other day,
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time,
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu,
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you."

I think we all know the reason the kid can't see Dad is because crossing state lines is a parole violation. Oh, and it's good to know that the psychotic son is having kids, now, too. The next generation of serial killers has to be mentored by somebody.

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me,
He'd grown up just like me,
My boy was just like me.

That's right, Dad. Time to call the FBI and start telling them what you know.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This post from Jeff Goldstein reminded me of one of my least favorite songs, which I cruelly mock whenever it comes on the radio.

So I thought I'd share. Here's my take on the song "Signs", by the Five Man Electrical Band.

"Signs" (with commentary by the Colossus)

And the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said you look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do
So I took off my hat I said imagine that, huh, me working for you

Huh. Imagine you working. That's funny enough. Seriously, Denny's doesn't want you. No one wants to get their eggs benedict with a long strand of hair in it that smells like the inside of Tommy Chong's van. The hair has to fit completely under the hairnet for them to hire you.

You're just not Denny's material, my friend. Which means it's pretty much the end of the road. You've hit rock bottom.

Sign Sign everywhere a sign Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

Yeah, man, tear down those fascist Stop signs! Roam free, man! Just leave the Yield signs, baby, because they give you a choice. And Yielding is cool.

And the sign said anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sight So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! what gives you the right To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in If God was here, he'd tell you to your face, man you're some kinda sinner

Maybe so.

But I did give you fair warning, so take it up with God when you see him, hippy.

Blam, blam.

Now, hey you Mister! can't you read, you got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat You can't even watch, no you can't eat, you ain't suppose to be here Sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside Uh!

Brunch at the country club. People are eating. And some shirtless, skinny guy wearing his cutoff cargo pants decides to hop the fence, get a plate, and sit next to them. Ugh. What's with this guy? The world isn't some giant open-air Grateful Dead concert, where we show each other our tye-dies and smoke from the same bong. Grow up.

And the sign said everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn't have a penny to pay, so I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign I said thank you Lord for thinking about me, I'm alive and doing fine

Taking, taking, taking. Always taking. The world isn't free. Even churches need money to pay for things. Like heat. Like maintenance. Ever see the roofing bill for a church? It's not pretty.
But you wouldn't know that, because it's not like you pay for things. Or try to do any good for anyone but your own narcissistic self.

And hey! -- give me my pen back, hippy!

Posted by The Colossus at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)