November Rain, Video Pain

Bring back Steve

Nobody told Axl that the excessiveness of the eighties was over prior to the 1992 release of the video clip for November Rain. It goes for 9 minutes. 9 minutes! Can you imagine the time poor, attention deficient whippersnappers of today putting up with that?

It was a controversial time for many reasons. Gunners purists were hesitant about the direction the band were heading in. There was the issue of a double album release named Use Your Illusion I and II. Additional band members including…hold your breath…a KEYBOARDIST. Significantly more ballads. A softer sound that appealed to younger teenagers who didn’t wear black t-shirts or drink Jack Daniels from the bottle. The band sporting stylised, designer, heroin chic attire rather than the old heroin addict look.

Not to mention the rumours of increasing tensions between Axl and Slash. Tensions that were not helped by a nine minute video featuring Axl playing indulgent piano solos in the beginning, middle and end. His supermodel girlfriend with seven foot legs and bee stung lips starring as his doomed bride. A wedding dress so rock n’ roll that the front fell off. Tongue kissing at the alter that made a Jesus statue bleed from his eyes. Slash was so upset he took off half way through the service and ended up at the wrong church. Solitary, sad (and possibly secretly in love with the bride), playing a stormy guitar solo in the middle of a dust bowl.
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Why do I keep getting lost?

Extravagant doesn’t quite cover it. It cost a bloody fortune. Was it also the beginning of the end? Suddenly there were more long videos with crazy story lines featuring…Axl. His doomed bride. Helicopters, babies lying on beds of candles, Axl buried alive in a grave, Axl in therapy, Axl and a dolphin hanging out in their dressing gowns. By this stage, Slash had decided his best option was to drive his hot rod off a cliff a la Thelma and Louise, and the band were wearing “Where’s Izzy?” signs around their necks. Before long everyone had left. Apart from Axl.

Extravagantly brilliant. Excessively enjoyable. Right until the very end.

M is for…Misheard Lyrics

What did you just say??

For those who love singing along to their favourite tunes there is always the danger of not quite grasping what is actually being said. This provides the funny bone tickling pleasure that is Misheard Lyrics. Discussion on this topic never fails to produce a snort laugh or two at a party. According to some brief research I have done, the technical term for this musical phenonemeon is mondegreen. It is specific to the unintentional use of similar sounding words in place of the real ones.

Not to be confused with when you’re trying to be funny by singing, “It’s a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll” in AC/DC’s It’s A Long Way To The Top (if you want to rock n’ roll). Or that thing large groups of Aussies do at the pub when The Angels politely ask,”Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?” and we reply, “No way, get f*****, f*** off!” I don’t think there’s a technical term for that.

Here are my personal top three mishaps in the misheard lyrics department.

Flashdance, What A Feeling – Irene Cara
Take your pants off, and make it happen (Take your passion and make it happen)
I was a naive young girl in primary school when this song was out and I can remember being very scandalised by these racy lyrics.

Luka – Suzanne Vega
My name is Hooker, I live on the second floor (My name is Luka)
Again, I was very worried about a song discussing a prostitute that lived upstairs.

Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Don’t go out tonight, cos it’s bound to take your life, there’s a baboon on the run
(There’s a bad moon on the rise)
This misheard song lyric did nothing to help with my irrational fear of large, human killing baboons.

Another honourable mention has to go to the friend who grew up believing the peace loving Bob Marley had his own serial killer tendencies when he sung: I shot Sherry, but I did not shoot Debbie down.(I shot the sheriff but I did not shoot the deputy). And last but not least, a recent family favourite to be sung whilst shaking your booty on the kitchen floor to Sheppard’s Say Jeronimo:

Bums away, bums away, put your bums away, bums away (Bombs away, bombs away, put your bombs away). 

What are your own favourite misheard lyrics?

Let’s Go

L is for Let’s Go by The Cars.
Because it is poetry.
Because he says she’s got “wonderful eyes” but doesn’t mention what colour they are.
Because she’s got a “risqué mouth” instead of beautiful, rosy lips.
Because she’s a goddamn frozen fire.
Because I could hear that she’s so beautiful now, she doesn’t wear her shoes a million times and it would still make me shiver just like the first time.
Because it reminds me that one person can write a few words on paper and create a moment that someone will remember for a lifetime because…

Because.

Let’s go.

Can I Keep On Loving You Kevin?

Despite Reo Speedwagon’s song Keep On Loving You being 36 years old and an all-time favourite, I have just watched the video clip for the first time. Really, really wish I hadn’t done that.

I have loved this song for a very long time. It’s a love ballad that’s JUST rock enough to  save its ass from mushy. There’s the dramatic keyboard intro, a pleading guitar solo in the middle and intensity building vocals that climax in a fabulous you … woo…ooooh to finish it off. Slightly odd lyrics including something about stealing a dress left coiled up and hissing. What’s not to keep on loving? It is ballad perfection in true 80’s style that has remained a classic.

The video clip – not so much. It has not stood the test of time. I think I may have been expecting Rick Springfield as the lead singer for a start. Kevin, that permed HAIR! I could forgive your pink suit jacket and shirt in the concert footage but I am slightly disturbed by your fantasy dream sequence. A sexy lady (who turns out to be your Psychiatrist) is huddled on the floor of a bare room with your tuxedo clad bandmates sitting on the couch playing dominoes. One of them removes her mink coat to leave her lolling around in a pink negligee and gold heels, while the guy with the frightening mullet is lurking in the background with what seems to be a large shot glass of Absinthe.

 Video Killed The Radio Star

My eyes! My eyes! And to think this was one of the video clips played on the first ever episode of MTV. It’s a small miracle that anyone watched a second episode. You could have been responsible for the destruction of the greatest music programme since Countdown. I could have gone a lifetime without seeing that clip Kevin. It will take considerable effort to block those images from my mind if I am to remain true to your beautiful lyrics…

And I meant…every word I said,

When I said that I’d love you, 

I meant that I’d love you forever.

– Keep On Loving You – Reo Speedwagon

A Medley of Love

If love is a song, it’s a musical medley in three acts.

Act 1: H is for Heaven

Oh, thinking about all our younger years
There was only you and me
We were young and wild and free
– Heaven, Bryan Adams

First love feels like you have died and gone to heaven. You are young, wild and free and there is no one else in the world apart from the two of you. It’s fresh faced, innocent and a little bit cheesy.

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Act 2: I is for I Got You

There’s no doubt, not when I’m with you
When I’m without, I stay in my room
Where do you go, I get no answer
You’re always out, it gets on my nerves
– I Got You, Split Enz

By this stage, your Facebook status would read “it’s complicated”. Like a Finn brothers eye makeup, the bloom of fresh love has gone a little crinkly. It’s still love but suddenly you know each other. Very well. The lyrics of your love are sweetness and light however there’s an occasional creepy undertone. Sometimes you shout. Sometimes they want to know why you go out. Sometimes you get on their nerves.

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J is for Jealous Guy

I was feeling insecure
You might not love me anymore
I was shivering inside
I was shivering inside
I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you cry
I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy
– Jealous Guy, Roxy Music

The third stage is distinctly more pathological and sad. You’re both unhappy. Everyone is crying, particularly your friends who have to listen to every stanza of your relationship being dissected like a frog in a human biology class. He’s jealous, you’re hurt and you might not love each other anymore. You’re shivering inside because your love light has died.

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THE END

Get Back Into The Shadows

Sometimes a song finds you.

I was listening to talkback radio in the car when I heard Luke Peacock tell his story. He’d been working at a radio station sorting through archived material when he came across an album called The Loner. It grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let him go until he’d uncovered the lost history of the singer/ songwriter behind it, Vic Simms. An album Vic had recorded in one hour in 1973, whilst a resident of an Australian prison. One hour.

The Loner – rereleased 40 years later in 2013 

A friendship gradually developed between Luke and Vic, culminating in the release of a reworked collaboration of the album in 2014 – The Painted Ladies Play Selections From The Loner. The story intrigued me and the songs grabbed hold of me too. Especially Get Back Into Shadows. Joyful, upbeat music with lyrics that shine a light on our not so joyful past. One man’s story. One hour. One lifetime.

One song that found me and led me to an album that will stay with me forever.

He said if you’re, if you’re brown, stick around
But if you’re white, he said it’s alright
But if you’re black, yeah you get back…into the shadows
– Get Back Into The Shadows, Vic Simms

F is for Fatboy Slim

Brixton boxing beats

Dear Norman,

Thank you for igniting a love of dance music in a girl who had no idea what mixing was or what DJ’s were for (apart from playing the Birdy Dance and Grease megamix at wedding receptions). Before I left home and broadened my musical horizons, I went to a Sunday Session at a popular watering hole where Boy George was scheduled to perform. We left that evening bitterly disappointed and confused that he hadn’t turned up. None the wiser until much later that George WAS there but on the decks rather than on stage in makeup singing Karma Chameleon. No freaking idea.

You first captured my heart with a soul lifting happy tune on British radio about bosoms and brimfuls of asha. Then you took my scary solo adventure to the other side of the world, flung it on its head and stuck a happy face on it. I was in love. I can close my eyes and see you right before us at The End. There in your little booth, drinking vodka & OJ, a dozen hands stretched out with lighters ablaze every time you took a cigarette out. You’d pass your cigarette through them all.

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Forever burned in my memory the moment after some frenzied hours on the dancefloor when you suddenly dropped the tempo with When Doves Cry. Time stood still. Festivals, New Years Eve celebrations, boxing matches in Brixton or lying in my shared room above shops taping your late night session on Radio One.
(Yes I still have the cassette.) A million memories and anthems as we partied like it was 1999.

It was the best of times…and the best of tunes. Xxx

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God is a DJ

E is for Eye of The Tiger

E is also for energy. Back when I had it in spades, thirty years ago. I was a skipper. Not as in skipping along the road or skip to the lou my darling. Like a boxer but hardcore. This was supercool, school based, synchronised skipping. To music.

To Eye of the Tiger.

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I know I left my skipping rope here somewhere…

I lived in a small, isolated town and our demonstration team was part of a national programme designed to improve and promote fitness for kids, as well as to raise money for The Heart Foundation. We practised religiously under the strict coaching of our formidable Physical Education teacher and did several tours of our sunny state. Like I said, superstars.

Every time I hear those opening riffs to Eye of The Tiger I’m transported back. “Timing! Timing! Keep in time to the beat! Do it again.” Probably the only time in my life when I’ve been a part of a successful team based activity. Or demonstrated something that vaguely resembled coordination. This extreme sport just seemed to work for me. I loved the music, the dance routine, mastering the tricks with the rope. Cross armed skipping with two people inside a single rope within a larger double dutch skipping rope. Cartwheel entries and death defying footwork. We were the Harlem Globetrotters of the skipping world.

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That’s me in the red shorts.

I attended a reunion for the programme at the school some time ago with a demonstration by the current team of skippers, cake and presentations. Some of my original team mates who still lived locally also did a skipping routine. You know, to demonstrate how it was done back in the day. They kicked arse over those young whippersnappers. I’ll never forget the look on our PE Teacher’s face. “Look at the timing”, he whispered to himself. “They’ve still got it”. I may have cried.

We were so, so fit. I’m hoping to get some of that old fitness back into my life as part of the Winds of Change Project and I’ve decided skipping should be a part of that.. look out Rocky, here I come.

Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

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Dee knew those old bandanas from her glam metal days would come in handy one day.

 

(D is for) Dudes That Looked Like Ladies

Rangy, heroin-thin, loudmouth men with flowing locks of hair, platform shoes, earrings, sparkly scarves and eyeliner, drinking Jack Daniels directly from the bottle. Poured into leather pants, bandanas obscuring their eyesight, nipples on display for all to see. Songs about dudes who looked like ladies. What kinds of men were these?

 

Not the kind that parents from backward suburbs in the arse end of Australia understood. Mine were confused by the posters of half naked men wearing straightjackets and lip gloss that were blue tacked to every inch of my four bedroom walls. A friends father was dumbstruck at the sight of his son and male mates glued to TV vision of a singer in leather pants with the butt cheeks cut out. My Dad annoyed to the point of profanity at being woken at 2 am every weekend by the VHS player clunking into life as it recorded the latest video on MTV.

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Music videos had exploded into our sheltered teenage lives, bringing everything cool and American with it. Aerosmith’s Dude Looks Like A Lady personifying the standard style for this glam / soft metal / hard rock / music / shit (depending on who you were talking to). It had it all. Brides with beards, bare chests and jackhammers. Simulated thrusting with a microphone stand laden with flowing scarves. Dangling diamond earrings, kimono dressing gowns and purple cod pieces. Amps that went to eleven.

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Nothing to see here ladies!

The parentals were confused. They thought these men were beyond confused. We knew that amongst the tattooed buttocks and tinsel of this song, there was a tongue in cheek tribute to a fellow pint sized, blonde haired rock god. That despite the makeup, lace and hairspray (or perhaps because of it), all the boys wanted to be them and all the girls wanted to be with them. That these were still the manliest of men and that even if they weren’t, what did we care? It was about the music, the theatre, the cartwheeling across the stage, the fireworks and the humour. And in the words of my buddy screaming in my ear as we watched Aerosmith explode on to our little local stage,

“THEY’RE EXACTLY LIKE THEY ARE IN THE VIDEO CLIP!!”

 

Mum and Dad were overjoyed at the musical influence on my interior decorating skills…

 

 

 

Congratulations…On Your Breakup Song

C is for Congratulations by The Traveling Wilburys. Not my favourite Wilburys song by any stretch of the imagination but it features in the A to Z Challenge music list because it was a breakup song dedication from my very first love. Back in the day when young kids wrote love letters to each other on bits of paper and the greatest gift a boy could give a girl was a “mixed tape” for her listening pleasure. 

Congratulations for breaking my heart
Congratulations for tearing it all apart

I’m sorry I dumped you dear Tim but don’t feel too bad. I’ll change my mind in two days time and then you’ll spend the next two years tearing my heart apart as payback. 

Congratulations you finally did succeed
Congratulations for leaving me in need

Better to be left in need than to be left waiting forever on a shopping centre bench outside Coles. Which is what you did to me the next time we went round.

This morning I looked out my window and found
A bluebird singing but there was no one around

I know EXACTLY how that bloody bluebird felt. Invisible. Hoping desperately every morning that I’d see you at school. Then seeing you and wishing I hadn’t because you were holding hands with one of my best friends.

At night I lay alone in my bed
With an image of you goin’ around in my head

Yes, as you plotted your ultimate revenge against me. 

Congratulations for bringing me down
Congratulations now I’m sorrow bound
Congratulations you got a good deal
Congratulations how good you must feel

A good deal? I don’t think so Tim. I dumped you, felt bad about it within 24 hrs and then deteriorated into an obsessive, dribbling mess for the next two years. Wasting my early, formative teenage years re-reading all your love letters, staring at your photo, crying over The Goddamn Traveling Wilburys. Hundreds of hours wasted, chewing my best friends ear off about what she thought you might have meant when you walked past me in the hallway and said, “Hey Dee”.

I guess that I must have loved you more than I ever knew
My world is empty now cause it don’t have you
And if I had just one more chance to win your heart again
I would do things differently but what’s the use to pretend

You sure did do things differently when you had one million and one more chances to win my heart again. Like leave me at the shops. Or get your friend to tell me, “Tim says you’re dropped”. Or ask me to go round with you on a Monday and then disappear off the face of the Earth on a Tuesday.

Congratulations for making me wait
Congratulations now it’s too late

Making YOU wait?  Hello? The time I spent waiting for you on that freaking supermarket bench was twice as long as our entire relationship.

Congratulations you came out on top
Congratulations you never did know when to stop

You’re right on that one at least. I had no idea when to stop. I wallowed in the torturous highs and lows of unrequited love for years. Until I finally worked out that love feels much better when you’re both singing the same song. Ah Tim, thanks for the memories and we’ll always have the Wilburys.

When the moon hits your eye, like an Angus meat pie…that’s Amore