Also, I encourage you to watch the video (linked above) if you enjoy unnecessary reaction shots, impassioned pleas to statues of Abraham Lincoln (presumably to suspend habeas corpus or something in order to allow Starship to keep on rockin'), statues of Abraham Lincoln that spontaneously come to life in order to rock out, floating emotionless disembodied heads, oversized killer dice that terrorize entire populations, and of course, big hair!
Let's get it on!
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll / Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
I like songs that get right to the point. Here. Listen. See this city? We built it. On what? Funny you should ask. Not on bricks or mortar or asphalt or dinosaur bones, but on good old fashioned rock and roll!!! It's a metaphor, you see, because obviously you couldn't ... I mean it would be ridiculous to suggest that ... heh heh. Ahhhh.
OK, now that that pesky chorus is out of the way, let's bust out the first verse.
Say you don’t know me or recognize my face / Say you don’t care who goes to that kind of place / Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight / Too many runaways eating up the night
Clearly this song wants to rebel against something, but I'm not sure what. I'm not sure the four writers of these lyrics really agree on what, either.
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don’t you remember / We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
I was going to make an obscure joke about Guglielmo Marconi here, but after a little research it appears this lyric actually refers to Guglielmo Marconi. My goodness. Marconi's Wikipedia entry reveals that not only was he a Nobel Prize winner and a pioneer in wireless communication, but was, later in life, "an active Italian fascist and an apologist for their ideology and actions such as the attack by Italian forces in Ethiopia." Umm, maybe not the guy to whom you want to hitch your fake-counter-culture wagon here, Starship.
Wikipedia is silent on whether G. Marconi ever actually played the "mamba," which is a kind of snake. Did you mean "mambo"? Maybe "samba"?
Or, maybe we should take this literally and believe that an early 20th-century Italian inventor is attempting to play a deadly reptile like a musical instrument. Makes about as much sense as any other interpretation.
Hold on a second ... Marconi!!!! LOOK OUT!!!!
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll / Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Phew. That was a close one.
Someone always playing corporation games / Who cares, they’re always changing corporation names
Yeah! Take that, CORPORATIONS!!! How dare you establish yourself as a legal entity for the purpose of doing any kind of business! You suck!!!! Except, of course, for RCA Records, the good people that marketed and distributed this song.
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage / They call us irresponsible, write us off the page
What are you angry about? Seriously. I'm getting sleepy.
It’s just another Sunday, in a tired old street / Police have got the choke hold, oh then we just lost the beat
What? How do these lyrics make any sense together? The first line makes me think everything is boring and people have stopped rocking because of complacency or something, but then you tell me the police have "got the choke hold," which then caused you to "lose the beat."
I think the songwriting process for this tune was like an exquisite corpse-type scenario in which Bernie Taupin and his collaborators would each just contribute one line, then pass it off to the next person, and so on until this #1 hit was complete!
Who counts the money underneath the bar?
Probably the bartender.
Who rides the wrecking ball in two rock guitars?
Ummm .... I don't know. Ronald Reagan? Anthony Michael Hall? Is this a trick question?
Don’t tell us you need us, cause we’re the ship of fools / Looking for America, coming through your schools
The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine.
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