Niki N. Phaser

Watching TV the other day and I saw this video for Alexandra Burke’s Bad Boys and I have to say that the plot as well as the coregraphy got my sick mind thinking about what could it all mean. You don’t have to watch too closely to realize that this video seems like a 4 minutes metaphor for a gang bang. The girl’s car breaks down in a shady neighbourhood at night and then she is slowly followed and surrounded by an army of thug looking fellows, who keep checking out her bod. They end up in a pool joint, where the guys make their move and she ends up dancing with all of them, while Flo Rida sits alone and sad outside contemplating “She so so addicted to them rougher fellas” or “get them more the merrier” and concluding “You’ll have them shawty don’t worry”. It all ends outside, where the bad boys circle the girl and one final face-off follows, leaving them big guys down on the ground. This is one faulty cautionary tale for girls walking alone at night…

WHAT D’YA THINK ?

And just so you wouldn’t think that I’m raging against The X Factor, because it’s the seasonal thing to do, I’ll focus my sick mind on a classic hit, a video which I actually saw the same day: Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl. The lyrics talk about, obviously, an uptown girl who is “getting tired of her high class toys” and I guess that because “she never had a back street guy”, she decides to look “for a downtown man”. In the video, the girl just so happens to have her chauffeur stop at a garage, where Billy and his gang of Merry Mechanics giver her the full treatment. As soon as she gets down from her car, the dancing starts. Two bikers and two breakdancers with weird tops join in and soon our uptown girl is dancing with 8 guys at once. Her chauffeur doesn’t interfere, which is very Once Upon a Time in America of him. This is a cautionary tale for all of you uptown boys, this is what happens when your girl gets tired of “living in her white bread world”.

Up WHAT Girl ?!

You might find this slightly immature, but it’s always nice to win a bet, no matter how trivial it is. On June 18, 2009 I posted this article , which I called at the time “a public bet I made with myself”. Basically, in it I’m saying (or joking ?) that Kasabian’s music would fit perfectly in a Guy Ritchie brit-gangsta-movie and guess what, it turns out my prediction was pretty right. In a September 12, 2009 article, NME.com is informing us that the director is indeed very impressed with Kasabian and might just ask them to score a movie for him. I guess, I do know my Guy Ritchies…

Ok, I need to make this as clear as possible: what you are about to read is a joke, it’s having fun with lyrics interpretation. I’ve listened for many times to When in Rome’s The Promise and at one point, the lyrics started to sound like some remorseful wifebeater’s plea/threat thing. I mean, the song starts with the following verse: “If you need a friend, don’t look to a stranger, You know in the end, I’ll always be there. And when you’re in doubt, and when you’re in danger, Take a look all around, and I’ll be there”. Now… this could be easily read as a violent husband’s calm and ironic threat to his wife. “Don’t look to a stranger” meaning don’t ask for help, it will be futile because “in the end, I’ll always be there”. Then, when she is in doubt and in danger, he says “take a look all around, and I’ll be there”, so maybe that’s exactly the reason why she is in danger. The second verse is filled with other ambiguous stuff like “Sometimes, if I shout, It’s not what’s intended”. This kinda resembles “I’m sorry, but you make me do this. You know I love you” sort of line we hear in movies about violent spouses. The chorus sounds like another shape of the same line: “I’m sorry, but I’m just thinking of the right words to say. I know they don’t sound the way I planned them to be”, which means he expresses himself in all the wrong ways. And there is no escape for the poor woman, since he promises: “if I had to walk the world, I’d make you fall for me, I promise, I promise you I will …”, which means she could run and hide, but it’ll do her no good, because he’ll walk the world to find her. This is what his promise is all about. Crazy stuff. Remember that movie, Sleeping with the Enemy ? Just imagine a montage of Julia Roberts-Patrick Bergin scenes with this song as soundtrack…

I’ll finish up by reminding all of you Napoleon Dynamite fans out there that this is joke, I like this song just as much as you do – after all, it’s by listening to it thousands of times that I came up with these hidden meanings (and I admit, afterwards, it was pretty difficult to listen to it as the love song it was meant to be). So, if you can’t take a joke, go watch an Eddie Murphy movie…

LISTEN TO THE SONG AND READ THE LYRICS HERE