Hook the Rock--Rock the Hook

 

NOT the Clash

In their song “Hook,” Blues Traveler tells us that no matter what they say, the Hook will bring you back—that catchy little phrase that we all like to sing with when the chorus comes around.

                In the 1982 song by Clash, the hook was all I seemed to listen to, or at least quite understood.  There was something about the order of the prophet, but other than that, the chorus was the most singable part—sort of.  To my youthful ears, I was unsure of what we were supposed to be rocking.  It sounded like “catbox,” but why on earth would anyone want to shake the litter box?  Eventually I decided it must be “catwalk.”  Perhaps I decided that about the time Right Said Fred’s 1991 song “I’m Too Sexy” came out—he was always singing about models on the catwalk, after all.

So whenever the Clash’s song came on the radio, I always sang along:

"Sherri don’t like it. :: Rock the Catwalk, :: Rock the Catwalk.”

                 And then I found out that they were rocking the casbah.  What the heck is a casbah?  It is an Arabic word describing a citadel or an old part of a city.  I then began to suspect the song was more like something out of Arabian Nights with rajahs and harems and all that stereotypical stuff.

                Nope.  This is no Bollywood opening night thing.  The chorus actually tells us,
“The sharif don’t like it.”  Sharif is a term used to describe a noble and is a traditional Arab title.  The whole song came out of the banning of rock music by certain governments.  It’s a 1980s “stick it to the man” hit.  I really had it all wrong.

                So—the hook may bring us back, even if we have no clue of what the hook even means.  We will still “Rock the Casbah.”

                One day when I had grown up and knew the word was casbah, I was working an event which involved collecting money.  When the event had finished, I took the box of money back to wherever it was to be stored.  I held the box in my arms and began rocking it like a baby.  The people with me asked what I was doing.  I told them, “Rock the cash box!”  Yeah, the ones who got it groaned.  The others were like, “Huh?”  Some people just don’t get the hook (even if they should).

Vanity, Vanity

     My dad was always full of pithy sayings.  One day my sister and I were painting our fingernails, and he walked by and said, "Vanity, Vanity, all is vanity."  That, of course, is a quote from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.  Chapter one, verse two in fact.  In this chapter, "vanity" means pointless or meaningless or futile.  My father was critiquing my sister and my desire focus on our looks.

    Of course, this leads me to the most vain of songs: In fact, you probably think this song is about you.

    Carly Simon's 1972 hit "
You're So Vain" has had people asking for decades: "Who?"  Of course, Who is the band who let the dogs out into a teenage wasteland, so it seems to be the wrong question.  Oh, wait, sorry.

    We may never know the "you" of Carly Simon's song.  Part of it, she revealed is about Warren Beatty, but as to the rest, she keeps that a closely guarded secret.  There has been speculation over the years that it could be any number of men, but the world still waits to know.

    All that said, there is a misunderheard lyric--one that I did know know was misunderheard until today!

    The line I misunderheard makes me think of a guy I went to high school with.  Every day he would walk into the choir room for rehearsal and went straight to the mirror to look at himself.  In the song this guy did too, apparently, for she sang, "You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself go by. . ."

    Apparently, he was a little more vain than that.  What she sang was, "You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte."  A gavotte, as you may or may not know, it a French dance (of peasant origin, funnily enough) in which the feet are raised instead of slid.  Apparently this guy liked to watch himself dance--he really thought quite highly of himself.

    At the end of the second verse, we find these lyrics:  "I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee."  What is it with clouds and songwriters in the late 60s/early 70s?  After all, Judy Collins sings about clouds in her 1969 song "Both Sides Now."

    Anyway. . .I never misunderheard the part about clouds in my coffee--I always knew they were clouds in my coffee (esoteric much?).  Yet sometimes I can't help think that she says "clowns in my coffee."  That must make your coffee taste funny. (rim shot)

     I hope you don't think this blog is about you, but I hope you read it so that what I have written is not vanity.

A One Week Milkshake

         I lived in St. Louis for a decade and a half—the second-longest I’ve lived in any one place.  I lived longer in California where I was born and grew up, making me a California girl.  Still, I consider myself a St. Louisan somewhat.  I still perk up at the sight of the Arch on a TV show or commercial or the mere mention of the city.  I am a Cardinals fan, though now displaced.  I will still sing “Gloria” for the Blues and grouse about the Rams.  I don’t mind the square cut, cracker-thin crust of St. Louis style pizza; hold the [bleah] Provel cheese, please (there are some things about St. Louis I refuse to adopt).

                All this leads me to a joke:  A woman is complaining to her friend about her husband: Lately he’s been obsessed with the musical group the Barenaked Ladies.  He’s been listening to their music, reading articles about them, trying to find out their tour schedule, etc.  Finally the friend asks, “Just how long has this been going on?”  The woman answers, “It’s been. . .”

                “One Week” was a chart-topper for Barenaked Ladies. It mixes stream-of-consciousness rap lyrics with a sung chorus about a man and woman who had a fight.  The rap part is not designed to correlate to the story in the chorus.  All in all, it’s rather a weird song when one stops to think about it; still, it’s an awesome song. 

                It takes a number of listenings to quite hear what they’re really saying, and even then a person may miss many of the pop culture references.  The words fly by so quickly.  Even now, I can’t keep pace with the line, “Gonna get a set of better clubs/Gonna find the kind with tiny nubs/Just so my irons aren’t always flying off the back-swing.”  Someday. . .

                Of course, with so many words coming at the listener so fast, there is ample opportunity for misunderhearing.  This is where St. Louis comes in.

                The fast-food chain Steak N Shake may have originated in Illinois, but it is beloved by St. Louisans.  Most in “the Lou” know the iconic “In sight, it must be right,” and that “Takhomasak” means to bring home a bag of burgers.  Of course, everyone knows the name is what they sell—steak burgers and delicious milkshakes. 

                All that said, it is no surprise that I believed the lyrics said, “I like Steak N Shake/ I like vanilla it’s the finest of the flavors.”  Of course, who wouldn’t want Steak N Shake and a delicious milkshake?   Well, of course that’s not the lyrics.  It is “I’d like a stinking aching shake.”  I don’t even know what that means.

                When we lived in St. Louis, I won tickets through the radio station WARH [The Arch] to see Barenaked Ladies in concert.  It was a great concert, despite being in the nosebleed seats (hey, they were free!).  They even sang “One Week”.   I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, they went to Steak N Shake and then changed the words.  Yeah, right.

Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals.

 

The Goode City

 

    St. Louis takes pride in its own.  When a local kid, makes it big, The Lou is proud.  Jon Hamm and Kevin Kline are revered in the city as acting icons—not to mention Ken Page is adored as a local treasure.  In the music world, Nelly and Sheryl Crow rank up there with Ike and Tina Turner as St. Louis locals who made good.  Yet, of all these notables, the king of St. Louis’ own is the patriarch of rock n roll: Chuck Berry.

                Chuck Berry attended Sumner High School where he gave his first on-stage performance.  His life, of course, did not always run smoothly—whose ever does?  Still, at his death at age 90, the city of St. Louis mourned collectively. 

                Of all Chuck Berry’s music, “Johnny B. Goode” is likely the best known.  It was a hit in its own right, but had a resurgence in the 1980s with its prominent placement in the movie Back to the Future (pretty sure Marvin Berry is apocryphal).

                As with many other songs, there was always a question in my young mind about why someone kept telling Johnny to be good.  Was the kid prone to misbehavior?  After all, he did not do so well with reading and writing.  He did play the guitar well—perhaps they were encouraging Johnny to always play his best.  The people passing by seemed to be pleased with his playing.

                Silly me, the song is not “Johnny, be good”; the song is “Johnny B. Goode”.  Johnny’s surname of Goode was a reference to Goode Avenue which, incidentally, runs along one side of Sumner High School.  You will not find Goode Avenue anymore.  The road’s name was changed to Annie Malone Drive in honor of Annie Malone who was an inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.  She was a benefactor for the Orphans Home and helped them purchase a facility on Goode Avenue, hence its renaming.

                So there you have it.  Johnny B. Goode was good, and St. Louis couldn’t be prouder.

Waking Up Daydreamers

 

    As I have said previously, my father liked to “culture up” his children by playing us selections from his 45s.  His selections were as varied as his records.  Sometimes it would be Jimmy Dean telling us about a hero in the mine; other times it would be Ray Stevens singing about a jungle musician and his girl and monkey. 

                Speaking of Monkees (what a segue that was!), my dad would play us a sweet song about a daydreaming guy singing about his homecoming queen girl.  There was, as usual, a couple lines in there that as a youngster I couldn’t understand:

“Oh, and our good times start to dance

And a follow want to squee;

But how much, baby do we really need?”

It’s a morning song about a man who wakes up and finds himself in a dream world where he has his homecoming queen who thinks of him as her white knight.  He couldn’t be happier, and she should be cheerful because their good times can only get better—they start to dance, after all, and they don’t really need more because they have each other.  Whatever that middle line means, I don’t know, but it’s probably not anything much important.

Pity the child when their idyllic world is shattered by reality.  Come to find out, this is not a sweet song of romance and good times.  Nor is the line “And a follow want to squee” (or whatever that mumble is).  The lyrics are as follows:

“Oh, and our good times start and end

Without dollar one to spend

But how much, baby, do we really need?”

 

It turns out that my interpretation of the song is rather opposite of what I thought.  Things are not going sweetly with Jean, and the man is not anxious to get out of bed.  Apparently daydream believers become middle-aged disillusioned realists when homecoming queens are more materialistic than romantic, and their relationships crumble.  Kind of a downer, actually.

So, wake up, cheer up, and follow want to squee.