As we drove up Route 1, Lovely Wife dialed Michael Jackson's Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' on the iPod. This is not a song on my usual playlist. I was enjoying the flashback to junior year until the third chorus arrived:
I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'
I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'
It's Too High To Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)
Too Low To Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)
You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah)
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah)
It's Too High To Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)
Too Low To Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)
You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah)
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah)
You're A Vegetable, You're A Vegetable
Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable
You're Just A Buffet, You're A Vegetable
They Eat Off Of You, You're A Vegetable
(copyright Michael Jackson)
"... You're a Vegetable"?
I'm sorry, what?*
This has consumed me. Four days in the Big Sur mountains, and I cannot stop thinking about it. I was humming the tune as I watched deer frolic. All because of this chorus. Please, in the name of God, someone explain this. Or, at least, add your own bizarre lyrics in the Comments. Bonus points for the 80's factor.
*You'll note the recent Akon remake seems to lack the "vegetable factor."
Sorry, I'm absolutely at a loss there. However, it does make Weird Al make more sense. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
ReplyDeleteAll I can conclude is "vegetable" is symbolic for "something common, wholesome, and yet unloved."
ReplyDeleteOT, but still:
ReplyDeleteLeverage episode 4 blog pimpage
Nicely done as usual.
You will all spoil me.
Heh. Thanks. Between this and Leverage on the Tivo, I think I've got my Christmas Eve entertainment taken care of.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's a Nostradamus-esque commentary on Terry Schiavo?
ReplyDeleteI can't help you with the english lyrics, but I can at least explain that the chant "mama-ko, mama-sa, ma-ka-ma-ko-ssa" during the bridge is a lift from the afro-pop song Soul Makossa.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you know.
I have three possible answers:
ReplyDelete1) Maybe the writer just has a vegetable fetish?
2) It seems like he is equating vegetables with the stuff at buffets that people do not like, or ignore, maybe?
3) The writer is Michael Jackson (assuming it is) - that should be explanation enough.
I never really listened before. Thanks a lot. Like I needed something to ruminate on.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I can play this game.
I see your Michael Jackson, and I raise you one PET SHOP BOYS:
Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?
(How much do you need?)
In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
West End girls
West End girls
(How much do you need?)
In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
Oooh West End town, a dead end world
East End boys, West End Girls
West End girls
You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait 'til I get you home
We've got no future, we've got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From Lake Geneva to the Finland station
(How far have you been?)
WTF???
By the way, I really do miss the cold war. Fear of it, fiction about it, and the pop subgenre...
And here's my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE WTF. The lyrics are sort of decipherable; I'm down with trashing the skin trade industry by comparing it unfavoroubly to the heady intellectual beauty of chess. Yet the music choices, the giddiness, the sarcasm, its very existence as a huge WHY??? factor...
I present, Mr. Murray Head:
One night in Bangkok makes
The hard man humble
Not much between
Despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok
And the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful
With your company
I can feel the devil
Walking next to me
Bangkok
Oriental Setting
But the city don't know
What the city is getting
The creme de la creme
Of the chess world
In a show with everything
But Yul Brynner
Time flies
Doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa
Had the chess boards in it
All changed
Don't you know that when you
Play at this level
There's no ordinary venue
It's Iceland
Or the Philippines
Or Hastings
Or, or this place
One night in Bangkok
And the world's your oyster
The bars are temples
But their pearls ain't free
You'll find a god
In every golden cloister
And if you're lucky
Then the god's a she
I can feel an angel
Sliding up to me
One town's
Very like another
When your head's down
Over your pieces, brother
It's a drag
It's a bore
It's really such a pity
To be looking at the board
Not looking at the city
Whattaya mean?!
You've seen one crowded
Polluted, stinking town
Tea girls, warm and sweet
(Sweet)
Some are set up in
The Somerset Maugham suite
Get Thai'ed
You're talking to a tourist
Whose every move's
Among the purest
I get my kicks
Above the waistline
Sunshine!
One night in Bangkok makes
The hard man humble
Not much between
despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok
And the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful
With your company
I can feel the devil
Walking next to me
Siam's gonna be
The witness
To the ultimate test
Of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than
Would a muddy old river
Or reclining Buddha
Thank God
I'm only watching the game
Controlling it
I don't see
You guys rating
The kind of mate
I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch
I would invite you
But the queens we use
Would not excite you
So you better go back
To your bars, your temples
Your massage parlors
One night in Bangkok
And the world's your oyster
The bars are temples
But their pearls ain't free
You'll find a god
In every golden cloister
A little flesh
A little history
I can feel an angel
Sliding up to me
One night in Bangkok makes
The hard man humble
Not much between
Despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok
And the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful
With your company
I can feel the devil
Walking next to me
Sigh. That's just the best.
Here's an 80s Primer, if anyone else wants to play.
"One Night in Bangkok" is a song from a Tim Rice musical, Chess. It makes some additional sense in context.
ReplyDeleteQueen's song: One Vision featured the immortal line "Give me, give me, give me fried chicken!" at the end. Not as freaky as the vegetable thing though. ;)
ReplyDeleteMaybe different song title ... it's from the It's a Kind of Magic album they did for Highlander
ReplyDeleteI was too young to see the play, but a deejay talked about it on the radio when callers first asked WTF? It just always sounded so overly complicated and like horrible lyricism. I love the music and the crazy ass lyrics but come on...You already have the Bobby Fischer thing, the KGB, the defecting, the love story, Italy, the actual chess matches for god's sake...do you REALLY need to add in condemnation of Bangkok prostitution speaking from the point of view of Bobby Fischer? And have that be the hit representative song of the play? It makes noooo sense to me. My brain explodes trying to picture the story...Spock...Kirk...Spock...zzzzttttt! And of course The Pet Shot Boys are singing about One Night Stands, but it's muddy as well and I never even bought in sixth grade that they were interested in west end GIRLS. I don't know.
ReplyDeleteGuess I didn't play a good turn. But Eleanor did! Never knew Leeroy Jenkins was a Queen fan.
@KidSis - as far as the Petshop Boys I can explain the lyrics. In London the nice end of town is called the 'West End' and, predictably, the not so good side of town is called the 'East End'.
ReplyDeleteThe song is about how high status, upper class (West End) girls liked to date low status, lower class (East End) boys and then throw them away when their curiosity was satisfied. The lyrics deal with how this relationship has no future and is not intended to go anywhere. In fact, it can't go anywhere because the differences are as vast as those between the Russians and Europe. The Berlin wall came down but the social divide between East and West End London still exists.
Kid Sis,
ReplyDeleteOne night in Bangkok is the opening piece of the second Act. It sets the scene which is vastly different from the Tirolean town of Mirano (in the Italian Alps.)
Eleanor - the "fried chicken" reference is an old gay term associated with finding young gay boys: i.e. chicken.
ReplyDeleteThe vegetable reference is about how the person is basically brain dead - they just start static for no reason because they are an idiot. Like a coma patient with motor skills. Then the rest of the reference is just a play off of that, about how they are using and ignoring the person and they need to wise the f up.
At least, that's always been my take on it. (And yes, I knew that was the lyric. I thought it was stupid back then, but hey, MJ could sing a laundry list back then and crap gold.)
Now, discuss this one from Kate Bush (I know what it means already):
If I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get him to swap our places.
Go running up that hill
Running up that road.
No problem.
In Robert Hunter's defense, he was not, here, trying to "make sense" in the conventional use of the phrase:
ReplyDeleteChina Cat Sunflower:
Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower
proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun
Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono
like a crazy-quilt stargown
through a dream night wind
Krazy Kat peeking through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire
like a diamond-eye Jack
A leaf of all colors plays
a golden string fiddle
to a double-e waterfall over my back
Comic book colors on a violin river
crying Leonardo words
from out a silk trombone
I rang a silent bell
beneath a shower of pearls
in the eagle wing palace
of the Queen Chinese
He has been quoted as noting:"Nobody ever asked me the meaning of this song. People seem to know exactly what I'm talking about. It's good that a few things in this world are clear to all of us."
This song was performed by the dead for nearly thirty years. Jerry was famous for having a somewhat elastic relationship with the lyrics - he would often mumble his way through particular verses.
A friend of mine, during initiation into a fraternity, once locked a couple of pledges who had professed to hating the Grateful Dead into a dorm room with a couple of cases of Genessee Cream Ale, a good stereo, and an awful quality bootleg of a rendition of this song where in Jerry might have pronounced one word in twenty, and told them they were not allowed out until they knew the lyrics to the song.
I am not sure they have ever forgiven him.
LB,
ReplyDeleteOhhhh...thanks.
David Hunt,
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh...thanks!
Paranoyd,
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...thanks?
The Kate Bush one seems to make sense to me. She's asking to carry a burden for a friend, right?
Nick, that's gorgeous. No clue. But I think Krazy Kat peeking through a lace bandana was the entire plot of INLAND EMPIRE.
I think it's 1990, but anyone know what Smells Like Teen Spirit is about? More than just the pathos of druggy Reagan-era teenagers? Think that's the most popular indecipherable generational hymn of all time?
ReplyDeleteEleanor & Paranoyd - the "Fried Chicken" ending of "One Vision" was just Freddie Mercury goofing off - the band had fried chicken for dinner that day. Jim Hutton (Freddie's partner at the time) convinced him to go ahead and keep it in.
ReplyDeleteWell, according to my gay friends, the chicken reference seems pretty plain. But if it was a reference to that nights dinner according to Mercury, then I suppose that's what it is. (I tend to think he was softening the blow for middle-America, but that could just be my, well, paranoia.)
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Kate Bush song goes, Running up a hill is apparently a Freudian term for ... being the man during sex. So, Kate is saying that she would ask God to swap genders with her beau to have sex. Of course, that is the "on the nose" explanation - its more of a metaphor for truly understanding the other person in the relationship.
Insert Keanu Reeves's "Whoa" here.
ReplyDeleteAnd who can forget David Bowie's ominous ode to love Chinese style in China Girl.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised this got as much airplay as it did considering its subversive subliminal messaging.
I stumble into town just like a sacred cow
Visions of swastikas in my head (I thought he said "popsicles" when I was a kid)
Plans for everyone
Its in the white of my eyes
My little china girl
You shouldn't mess with me
I'll ruin everything you are
I'll give you television
I'll give you eyes of blue
I'll give you men who want to rule the world
And when I get excited
My little china girl says
Oh baby just you shut your mouth
She says ... shhh
She says
She says
It's a coolly, perverse yet strangely (and genuinely) romantic ballad. If the hero doesn't get what he wants he threatens the apple of his eye with not just the ruination of her culture and occupation of her home town - he will also resort to the imperialization of her very soul.
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