Starship -- "We Built This City"

I think Bernie Taupin might be the Rosetta Stone of awesomely bad lyrics. Not only did his collaborations with Elton John produce some of the loopiest lyrics of all time, but he's credited as one of four writers that contributed a little bit of pixie dust to this train wreck of a song.

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.

Styx -- "Come Sail Away"

Thanks to readers Emma and Peter for the recommendation.

No real comment on this video, expect to say that I REALLY want to buy the basketball jersey or whatever it is that the drummer is wearing.

Also, TONIGHT Styx is performing LIVE with REO Speedwagon and .38 Special! This is not a joke. If you are in or around Bismarck, N.D., as I'm sure many of you are, I recommend that you drop everything and head for the Bismarck Civic Center Arena for a show that is, quite accurately in my opinion, billed as "Can't Stop Rockin'."

But why stop there? Head on out to St. Paul, Minn., tomorrow for the Minnesota State Fair to see the very same lineup, or to Elkhorn, Wisc., on Sunday for the Walworth County Fair (?!), which is apparently a solo gig for Styx. In the 7:30 time slot at the county fair, Styx will be in direct competition, playing the grandstand, with the Bosworth Family Lumberjack Show over in something called "Kiddieland." VERY tough call ... as you are most likely well aware, the Bosworth family can really jack that lumber.

Okay.

I’m sailing away, set an open course for the virgin sea / I’ve got to be free, free to face the life that’s ahead of me

Sounds like a bold move. The question is, will you be able to carry on, Dennis DeYoung?

On board, I’m the captain, so climb aboard

I'm going to be honest, the lyrics to this song are not terrible. The real awesomelybadness lies in the last verse. However, this line is pretty bad. If he just sang "I'm the captain, so climb aboard," it would be totally fine, but to add the extra "on board" at the beginning? Why? The worst part is it's not even a matter of needing the right number of syllables ... it's almost as if the "on board" part is shoehorned in, like it's a vital piece of information that just must be imparted to the listener. In fact, it is entirely superfluous.

OK, let's just carry on here.

We'll search for tomorrow on (and?) every shore

I swear it sounds like DeYoung says "ond" both in the studio version and in the live performance linked above. He seems to be singing "on" and then adds a "d" sound. Both "on" and "and" would make sense here, so I'm stumped.

And I’ll try, oh lord, I’ll try to carry on

Whee! I love the way he sings "carry on." If I was writing out the lyrics phonetically I'd probably use about 23 A's in the word "carry."

Also, I guess Dennis DeYoung is supposed to be trying to escape something in this song, but damned if I know what it is. I guess it doesn't really matter.

I look to the sea, reflections in the waves spark my memory / Some happy, some sad / I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had / We live happily forever, so the story goes / But somehow we missed out on that pot of gold / But we’ll try best that we can to carry on

Not much to say here, except that this song was quite obviously ghostwritten by a leprechaun who yearns to be a pirate.

A gathering of angels appeared above my head / They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said / They said come sail away, come sail away / Come sail away with me

This is a fitting conclusion to what is actually quite a nice little parable. A man burdened by some unnamed pressures of society has decided to "sail away" to start a new life. He takes on a traveling companion who is willing to take a risk and join him on this journey. As he leaves, he inevitably feels a bit wistful/nostalgic/apprehensive about leaving everything behind, but knows in his heart that he is making the right decision, and that the potential rewards of his departure outweigh the risks. Then a vision of angels confirms that he is, in fact, going down the correct path.

Well done, Dennis DeYoung. I applaud you for writing a fairly coherent little song here and now I'm just going to enjoy this nice little guitar/synth/keyboard/whatever solo that's going on here and ... wait a minute ... sounds like another verse might be coming? Now I'm nervous.

I thought that they were angels, but to my surprise / They climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies

Noooooo!!!!!!! Aliens??? ALIENS?!?!!! He gets abducted by aliens?!>!>!^&@!%#$^&!%#E#$##&**()_ ? > ????? COME ON!!!! We had such a good thing going there. I didn't know this song was actually written by M. Night freaking Shyamalan. Argh. I don't know what to say. Oh well, at least we can break out the "space travel" tag, which I've been using with surprising frequency.

Singing come sail away, come sail away / Come sail away with me

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Bonnie Tyler -- "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

Nothing I can write here will be as funny as this video, so perhaps y'all should just click on that link, watch and enjoy, and then move on with your lives.

Fun facts! Bonnie Tyler is Welsh, her given name is Gaynor Hopkins (?!), and she is literally a coal miner's daughter.

And, oh my god, is this true? This song was written by Jim Steinman, along with "Making Love (Out of Nothing At All)," for Meat Loaf, but Mr. Loaf's record company refused to pay for them, so they were given to Tyler and Air Supply. Wow. Can you imagine the alternate universe in which Meat Loaf's record company had sacked up and coughed up the cash for those babies? Meat Loaf would be worshipped as a god and probably would have served three or four terms as president in the '80s and '90s, nobody would have ever heard of Bill Clinton (but oddly enough, they would have heard of Monica Lewinsky), Bonnie Tyler would be relegated to performing in casinos (oh wait, that happened anyway), and killer robots would terrorize the human population (this is speculation).

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round

Good start here, rhyming the word "around" with the abbreviated version, "round."

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears

Bonnie Tyler's tears sound like Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" played by 1,000 garbage disposals and sung by Gilbert Gottfried.

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by

You should be more nervous about the fact that I haven't turned around yet.

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes

Now that I've got you lonely, nervous, and terrified, it shouldn't be too hard to make you fall apart, right?

Turn around, bright eyes, every now and then I fall apart

There we go. Also, if you keep telling me to turn around, it is only going to perversely make me not want to turn around, and then we get into what psychologicians call a "vicious cycle."

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit restless and I dream of something wild

Hey, now we're getting somewhere. Your titillating insinuation that we could be engaging in some kind of fun activity, rather than wallowing in your own self-pity, is intriguing. Maybe I'll just turn around now and then we can ...

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms

YOU BLEW IT!!!!

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit angry and I know I've got to get out and cry

But then ... wouldn't you have to listen to the sound of your tears?

Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit terrified but then I see the look in your eyes / Turn around, bright eyes, every now and then I fall apart

I think you're confusing me with Conor Oberst. Happens all the time.

And I need you now tonight / And I need you more than ever / And if you only hold me tight / We'll be holding on forever

Uh yeah, that sounds great ... hold on a minute, I just have to get something out of my car ... (sound of car door slamming, engine starting, tires on rubber)

And we'll only be making it right / Cause we'll never be wrong

Well, this is just circular reasoning.

Bonnie Tyler: We'll only be making it right!"
Unnamed Paramour: "Why is that?"
BT: "Because we'll never be wrong!"
UP: "But why will we never be wrong?"
BT: "I just told you, because we'll be making it right."
UP: "Yeah, but you're just using two related conclusions, without a premise to support them."
BT: "Turn around!"
UP: (suffers self-inflicted gunshot wound)

Together we can take it to the end of the line / Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time

Now here's the part about the eclipse. I guess it makes sense, sort of. She's saying this guy's love kind of overshadows any other feelings she might have, to the point where he is all she can think about. Right? All other aspects of her heart have been "eclipsed" by this feeling. I mean, technically, she should be entirely unable to feel if her entire heart is eclipsed, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

I dont know what to do and I'm always in the dark / We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

OK, I was with you up until the part about the powder keg, which seems to totally nullify the decent metaphor that you were building. You just said in the previous line that you were always in the dark, and now you're giving off sparks? Come on! I was trying to work with you here, but you're making it very difficult. Are you listening, Bonnie Tyler??? TURN AROUND!!! I'm talking to you!

(Also, I don't really want to drag this post out for the like 37 minutes of this song that remain, but near the end she says "Once upon a time there was light in my life / Now there's only love in the dark," which, again, doesn't quite seem to fit within the metaphorical structure.)

I really need you tonight / Forever's gonna start tonight

Yeah, that sounds really swell, Bonnie. Unfortunately, I just got a text saying I've been drafted to fight in Killer Robot War III and I'm really gonna have to leave right now for boot camp and stuff ... oh, crap, wrong alternate reality. What I meant was that President Loaf has asked me to serve as his Secretary of Whipped Cream in the upcoming administration and .... dammit!!!! Oh well, time for Plan B ... (swallows cyanide pill)

Elton John -- "Rocket Man"

As far as I'm concerned, there is only one version of this song, and it's this one. If that's not awesomely bad, I don't know what is.

She packed my bags last night pre-flight / Zero hour, nine a.m. / And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then

Oh, for the halcyon days of the Cold War, when the "space race" or whatever they called it allowed us to compete with the hated Russkies without blowing each other to smithereens. The moon had been conquered, its moon-men subdued and enslaved, and Mars was just around the corner. America's brave "rocket men" were hailed as heroes, showered with meats and cheeses (not literally), and probably, I don't know, had their pictures on stamps and things of that nature. Today our space program is in shambles, and astronauts are reviled and cannot walk down the street without being spit upon by small children.

Oh, right, the lyrics. They're kind of pretty but don't really make sense. I'm thinking the "zero hour" is when his space rocket is supposed to take off, but why is he going to already be high as a kite when that time arrives? Is he going to take hallucinogenic drugs? That seems like a questionable idea. Does NASA drug astronauts to make the launch more bearable? Unlikely.

I miss the earth so much I miss my wife / It's lonely out in space / On such a timeless flight

Switching tenses within the verse? Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. would be spinning in his grave if he were dead. Actually, I only mention Aldrin so I can link to this video of him punching a guy in the face. The lesson here is, of course, don't fuck with a guy who walked on the fucking moon.

Actually, Sir Elton and co-writer Bernie Taupin switch tenses twice during this verse, giving us the rare and delicious trifecta of past, present, and future all wrapped up in a few short lines. Is this a commentary on the "timelessness" of the rocket man's flight, meant to give us a window into the effects on the psyche of isolation in the inky blackness of space? My guess is no, but what do I know? I'm not a filthy, pathetic astronaut.

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time / Till touchdown brings me round again to find / I'm not the man they think I am at home / Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man / Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

What kind of man do they think he is at home? I mean, this song was written before the profession of astronaut reached sub-janitorial levels of respect, and once-proud men like Buzz Aldrin had to resort to vicious physical attacks to protect their dignity, so there's no reason he would've had to lie about his job.

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids / In fact, it's cold as hell / And there's no one there to raise them if you did

I was kind of on the fence as to whether these lyrics were really that bad until I got to this little chestnut. "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids"? Why not? Substandard school systems? High crime rates? Exorbitant bus fees? Afraid your kids would have trouble making friends with the little Martian children? Oh, no, I'm sorry, it's because it's "cold as hell" (this is true) and because "there's no one there to raise them if you did" (also technically true, I guess, but what?). Also, there's the small matter of the atmosphere being 95 percent carbon dioxide. But I guess "they would rapidly asphyxiate if you did" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

And all this science I don't understand / It's just my job five days a week / A rocket man, a rocket man

This line kind of makes me laugh because it sounds like something the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer would say. Also, again, I am no astronaut, but I have to think the people manning space missions have at least some basic understanding of how their craft works, and know a little bit about astronomy. Otherwise, something like this might happen:

Mission Control: Space Shuttle Eltonia, one of your oxygen tanks is failing. You're going to have to shut down your command module and use the lunar module as a lifeboat.

Rocket Man: What is this, science? I don't understand science! I'm just a rocket man! It's just my job five days a week. My real passion is rock gardens. Man, I tell you, when you get that feng shui just right it's really --

Space Shuttle: (explodes)

Europe -- "The Final Countdown"

Please, please, please, before you do anything else, watch this. Ohhhhh my god. I could watch that 100 times in a row. Wow. I am having trouble composing myself and going on with this post. Everyone go back and watch it again all the way through while I pull it together.

Ahem.

DA DA DA DA, DA DA DA DA DA .... DA DA DA DA, DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.

Awesome!

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome EUROPE!!!!


We're leaving together / But still it's farewell / And maybe we'll come back to earth, who can tell?

Wikipedia says the lyrics to this song were inspired by David Bowie's "Space Oddity." I'm sure Mr. Bowie was absolutely just bursting at the seams with pride when he learned of this.

OK, so clearly the protagonists here are heading into space, but they don't seem to have planned the trip very well. Will we come back to Earth? Who can tell? Initially I thought this was like a post-apocalyptic thing, and these people were heading into space to escape some awful disaster. This would explain the clear lack of foresight. But "Space Oddity" is just about an astronaut, and there's no clear indication here that anything has gone wrong on Earth, so ....

I guess there is no one to blame / We're leaving ground / Will things ever be the same again?

No one to blame for what? What happened? If this is indeed some kind of apocalyptic event, I'm sure there is *someone* to blame. If not, what are you talking about??

It's the final countdown / The final countdown

Woohoo! The persistence of the bombastic keyboard riff that made this song famous indicates to me that this launch is something to be excited about, not a grim flight from a world gone terribly wrong.

We're heading for Venus and still we stand tall

And yet, this excitement is almost surely misplaced. Venus has an atmospheric pressure 93 times that of the Earth, and surface temperatures of 860 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, I hope you like breathing carbon dioxide and nitrogen! At least you're standing tall, though, so you have that going for you.

'Cause maybe they've seen us and welcome us all, yeah

Oh dear. Europe's lead singer, the awesomely named Joey Tempest, apparently believes that there is sentient life on Venus. This crew really should've consulted NASA, or a book, or anyone with a brain in their head, before embarking on this journey.

With so many light years to go and things to be found

Wikipedia: "The nearest known star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.23 light-years away. The fastest outward-bound spacecraft yet sent, Voyager I, has covered 1/600th of a light-year in 30 years and is currently moving at 1/18,000th of the speed of light. At this rate, a journey to Proxima Centauri would take 72,000 years."

Joey Tempest, unless you have discovered a wormhole or have found a way to circumvent the theory of relativity, I think you are in for some serious disappointment and most likely death.

I'm sure that we'll all miss her so / It's the final countdown

What a magical song.