The Poetry of Gordon

     When I was in high school (I won’t say how long ago) I disliked the poetry units in literature class.  They were boring and pointless.  I didn’t understand the emotions a well-crafted poem could evoke.  There is something esoteric about a poem: a good poem conveys its idea subtly, yet the understanding thereof brings stark clarity.

                Perhaps my lack of appreciation for poetry caused me to overlook the lyrics of “Wrapped Around Your Finger” by The Police.  Everybody knows the chorus “I’ll be wrapped around your finger”, and then it switches at the end to “You’ll be wrapped around my finger.”  I picked up a few words here and there about “things they would not teach me of in college” and “staring at the ring around your finger” and “You’ll find your servant is your master.”  I thought it was a song about a guy who was so in love with a woman.  They were married, based on the “ring around your finger” and “band of gold” lines, and therefore he was wrapped around her finger as signified by the rings.  In likewise, his being her master, that is, he being her husband, she will be wrapped around his fingers.  Sweet story, right?  Not so much.

                The reality of the song is completely different from what I had imagined.  Instead of being a Hallmark Movie romance, it’s more like a Dangerous Liaisons subterfuge.  She imagines she is the teacher, he the student, but then he turns the tables.  But the poetry, wow.  You can definitely tell Sting taught Literature. 

You consider me the young apprentice

Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis

Hypnotized by you if I should linger

  Staring at the ring around your finger

I have only come here seeking knowledge

Things they would not teach me of in college

I can see the destiny you sold

Turned into a shining band of gold

I’ll be wrapped around your finger

I’ll be wrapped around your finger

 

Mephistopheles is not your name

I know what you’re up to just the same

I will listen hard to your tuition

You will see it come to its fruition

I’ll be wrapped around your finger

I’ll be wrapped around your finger

 

Devil and the deep blue sea behind me

Vanish in the air you’ll never find me

I will turn your face to alabaster

When you’ll find your servant is your master

You’ll be wrapped around my finger

You’ll be wrapped around my finger

You’ll be wrapped around my finger

You’ll be wrapped around my finger

                He sets up the scene at the beginning: he is the young apprentice—the one who learns from the master—caught in a tough spot.  Scylla and Charybdis were sea monsters in a narrow channel named in Homer’s Odyssey.  Scylla was a six-headed monster who ate sailors, and Charybdis was a monster/goddess who caused a whirlpool.  To sail too near the one could cause destruction by the other.  Being caught between Scylla and Charybdis is to be caught between a rock and a hard place.  The young apprentice is in danger of being caught (hypnotized) in this tough situation if he does nothing.  He acknowledges he is there to learn and is destined to be controlled by her. 

                The song takes a more sinister turn when he says, “Mephistopheles is not your name; I know what you’re up to just the same.”  Mephistopheles was the demon in the Goethe story of Dr. Faust, in which Dr. Faust is so bored he ends up selling his soul to Mephistopheles—essentially selling his soul to the devil.  In other words, she may not be the devil, but she is up to something, and he knows it.  Still he allows her to wrap him around her finger.

                Then comes the plot twist. . .

                Just as “caught between Scylla and Charybdis” is an idiom like “caught between a rock and a hard place;” so is “caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”  They all mean basically the same thing—stuck in a situation where there are two choices, neither good.

                Here’s the twist: the devil and the deep blue sea are behind him.  He’s come out unscathed the other side but disappears on her.  (Ghosting before ghosting was a thing?)  Only when he’s gone will she realize that she’s been had.  I love the line “I will turn your face to alabaster,” meaning she will become pale when she understands what he has done.  What she thought was her servant/apprentice has mastered her.  Beat at her own game!

                There is so much packed in this song that it is easy to miss its sheer cleverness with its idioms and literary references.  It is a great example of what a good poem should be.  Bravo: you’ve got me wrapped around your metaphorical finger.

Shut up, Baby, I'm Tryin'a Sing

    I have said before: my father's idea of "culturing his children up" was playing us his 45s.  One song he played us was "Guitarzan" by Ray Stevens, of which my mother did not approve.  Why?  Because Jane tells Guitarzan to shut up.  My mother did not like us to say "shut up."  Of course, she didn't disapprove of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and it has a bad word in it--go figure.

    Aside from the questionable lyrics, this song always had me a little baffled.  How does a monkey get "tight"?  (Yes, I was a very sheltered child.) And then there's this whole part with a pile of letters that I didn't really understand.  I got "He ordered Chet's guitar course C.O.D."  Obviously he mail-ordered somebody's correspondence course on guitars and will pay for it on arrival.  At the time I didn't know who Chet was, but now I know Chet is my father-in-law's idol.  Oh yeah, he played the guitar or something.

    The next part says Guitarzan "makes A and E and he's working on B and digs C and W and R and B. . ."  What's with all the letters, man?  I suspected A, E, B, and C were notes or chords, but the W and R were elusive in my mind. Of course you've already known that A, E, and B are his learning to play the chords, and the other letters are Country and Western (C & W) and Rhythm and Blues (R & B). Yeah, it took me awhile to figure this part out.

      One thing that didn't confuse me was the "carry moonbeams home in a jar" because that was another song on my father's list of "culturing his children up."  Strangely, it was not the (BEST) Bing Crosby version.  Go figure.

    I haven't mentioned Jane or the monkey, but they're pretty self-explanatory.  One thing I haven't understood yet is this: they live in the jungle--how can they mail order anything?  Where'd he get his guitar anyway? Why does he wear B.V.D.s and not animal skin loin cloths?  What was his name before he started playing the guitar--Zan?  So many unanswered questions. . .

    

Won One

                 It was written in the late ‘50s by Buddy Holly’s replacement and recorded as the B side.  It was picked up in the mid ‘60’s by a band from Texas which had, up until that point, only minor hits.  The band recorded it as the A side, and it soon became a top ten hit.  In the late ‘70s, a British band picked up the song and recorded a cover of it.  It would be the band’s first single released in the United States.  In 2004 the song was named one of the 500 songs that shaped rock.  And of course, I misunderheard it.

                What is this oft-recorded song which was covered not only by the above artists [the Crickets, Bobby Fuller Four, the Clash], but also by the likes of Hank Williams Jr., the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Roy Orbison, and Colin Farrell (who totally should have played Grindelwald, not just Percival Graves, Grindelwald’s alter ego in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)?  The song is “I Fought the Law and Law Won.”

                The song itself is not a poetic marvel in that “I fought the law and the law won” makes up over half of the original song recorded in the 1960s by the Bobby Fuller Four.  Of 22 lines, 12 say “I fought the law and the law won.”  In the Clash’s version in the 1970s, a full 2/3 (20 out of 30 lines) of the song is the line (if you count those three times they sing “I fought the law and the. . .”)

                Taking out the title line, one is left with the following:    

Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun I needed money ‘cause I had none I left my baby and it feels so bad Guess my race is run She’s the best girl that I ever had Robbin’ people with a six-gun I lost my girl and I lost my fun I left my baby and it feels so bad Guess my race is run She’s the best girl that I ever had

 

                There are literally only three lines of the story:  He’s in jail (breakin’ rocks) because he needed money and robbed people at gunpoint.  The remaining seven lines (three of which are repeated) bemoans how he lost his girl and feels bad. 

                All this leaves one to wonder how this could be one of Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.  Since I’m just a mere music lover and misunderstander and do not know the ins and outs of what makes a great rock song, I guess I’m not at liberty to question.  I mean, it has had widespread dispersion.  The Bobby Fuller Four version has that kind of sound that was prevalent in the ‘60s—I’d say the Beach Boy-ish surfing sound.  The part I find most fascinating is that in the Bobby Fuller Four version and the Clash version when they sing about “robbin’ people with a six-gun”, the drummer has six distinctive taps, obviously indicating the gun.  Maybe all this makes it great—again, I don’t know.

                What I do know is as a child I misunderstood this song with its oft-repeated line because of homophones.  A homophone, as you may remember is words that have the same sound but have different spellings and meanings.  I thought for the longest time that they fought the law and the law one.  I wasn’t sure if the law and the sheriff had conspired against them or what.  In my mind, the law and the law one were two separate entities.

                It wasn’t until I was older (maybe 11 or 12) that a t-shirt helped clear up my confusion.  Yes, that’s right, a t-shirt.  One day my great-uncle was wearing a t-shirt which showed a cartoon person up to the ears in grass.  There might have even been a lawn mower on it.  The caption read, “I fought the lawn and the lawn won.”  It was then that I realized the error of my ways.  If I recall correctly, I commented to my parents that I finally understood the song at last.  I’m sure that brought on a few weird looks from them.

                So I would like to take this opportunity to thank my great-uncle for helping me clear up my misunderhearing of the song, and I encourage you all to go cut your grass—just pick up the rocks first.

I Did That

                 Radio edits are a good and bad thing.  Taking out or covering up the bad words, good.  Cutting the song down to 3:05, bad.  (Kudos to you if you get that Billy Joel reference!)  Speaking of cutting down songs and Billy Joel: I hate, Hate, HATE the cut-down version of “Piano Man”.  Just play the whole ding-dang song already!   The other song that seems to get cut down is “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meat Loaf, the singer whose death we mourn today.

                This song came out about the time I graduated from high school and went to college.  I know I heard it on the radio during that time.  I bought the sheet music for the song after all (not that I can really play it. . .).  I saw the music video much later, and my Phantom of the Opera-loving heart rejoiced. 

                “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” is quite a long song.  With the full introduction and all, the song is almost twelve minutes long!  It’s no surprise the full introduction gets cut, but why, oh why do they have to cut out half the actual song?!  Sorry—I tend to get emotional about it.

                You know I’m going to describe the misunderheard lyrics, as I am wont to do.  Like most people upon hearing this song, I asked, “What won’t he do!?”  Then after listening it a few times, I realized that the “that” he won’t do comes at the end of the song when the girl says he’ll forget everything and move on and cheat on her, to which he replies, “I won’t do that.”  Awww. . .

                Well, even in my realization, I was incorrect—at least I was only partially correct.  Throughout the song he tells what he would do, and then just before the chorus he sings a phrase that begins with “But I’ll never. . .”  What is contained in that phrase is what he won’t do.  The end is only part of that.  (See what I did there?) 

                So now you know what to listen for to hear what he will do and won’t do, but you’ll have to listen to the song for yourself.  Just don’t wait for it on the radio.  The DJs may play the song, but not the whole thing.  No, they won’t do that.