Beastie Lyrics, under the Becky Microscope

You wake up late for school, man you don't wanna go
You ask your Ma please, but she still says no
You missed two classes and no homework
but your teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk

You've got to fight for your right to party

Your pop's caught you smoking and he says no way
That hypocrite smokes two packs a day.
Living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag (busted!).

You've got to fight for your right to party

**********************************************************


It was the battle cry of a VW-sign-stealing generation, of rebellious youths eschewing education, resisting parental repression, fighting for their right to party. The colloquial diction reflects this: it is the at times eliptical idiolect of youth and rebellion that would have parents everywhere wondering where a child of theirs learnt to speak in such a crude manner. The 'you' addressed in the lyrics invites empathy from the listener, assumes a shared set of ethical and cultural values, while the refrain calls for a collective fight against oppression of the young and advocates universal action to achieve a form of freedom. The internal rhyme of 'fight' and 'right' in the refrain show that battle and human liberty are intertwined, that one is achieved by the means of the other.

Yet the colloquial diction and the views expressed in this song can obscure the poetical structures and techniques at work here. The opening line of the song is a perfect Alexandrine, twelve syllables perfectly balanced into two hemistiches, showing the conflict of action and desire: 'You wake up late for school, man you don't wanna go'. Moreover, the opening verse employs the rhetorical device of anaphora: the repeated and insistent use of the word 'you' as the first word of the first three lines serves a variety of purposes: it insistently links the speaker's experience with that of the listener, emphasises the repetitive nature of daily conflict both in the home and the educational establishment, and looks ahead to the 'you' at the beginning of the refrain and its call for action. The use of rhyming couplets is appropriate: it is the most simple of rhyme schemes and thereby reminiscent of youth. But it is also an echo of a great literary tradition, a scheme used by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, and by Shakespeare to conclude his sonnets. Many of the lines are haunted by the iambic pentameter, but the metre is increasingly distorted until we reach the refrain line which, despite having ten syllables, defies scansion. Thus, the form of this song is haunted by structural and technical devices which are part of a great literary heritage, but the speaker subverts them, rebelling against formal constraints of poetry as much as he rebels against his parents and teachers. Moreover, the heavy stress of trochaic words such as 'classes', 'homework', and 'teacher' suggest a second voice, the use of free indirect style, which mean that his words are haunted by the persistent nagging of authority figures.

There are also echoes of something more sinister beneath the simple desire to party. The mother is linked with sex and also with rejection - she denies his plea not to go to school (and the opening allusion to waking up suggests that the plea the speaker makes is from his bed), she throws away the porno mag. The father is linked with authority but also with death: he is tyranically emphatic that the son must not follow in his footsteps by smoking, but the son already recognises him as a chain-smoking hypocrit. Thus, an Oedipal theme runs through the lyrics with the Freudian suggestion that in order to achieve full adulthood, the speaker has to kill his father and sleep with his mother. The free indirect speech telling the speaker he will be kicked out of his house if he does not cut his hair, betrays a repressed castration anxiety but also suggests that the parents are deliberately attempting to deprive him of his power, in a sinister echo of the Samson and Delilia story.

****************************************************

... well, that's as far as I've got so far. Yes, as you can all probably tell, I have an essay due! Instead of writing about the Beastie Boys, what I should be doing right now is writing about Shakespearean tragedy and the Greek example. But this song came up on my ipod shuffle today, and it got me thinking. And thinking. And over-analysing. And then, as you can all see, it got me writing utter bullshit. This, dear readers, is what Cambridge does to you! It teaches the fine art of Craptical Priticism (see what I did there?) and procrastination - essential life skills, especially for people who wish to avoid writing Shakespeare essays.

No More Leonard Analysis

Because it's getting a bit obsessive. I found myself wandering back from the English Faculty today wondering whether Suzanne was financialy astute in choosing a riverfront property, given the propensity of such places to appreciate greatly in value and wondering whether the young and then not-at-all-famous Leonard was just a weensy bit jealous because she was on the property ladder and he wasn't. Enough is enough.

It turns out I've got far more pressing things to worry about. At our tap dancing class tonight, we were practising our second dance for the much-anticipated annual show, when our teacher informed us that our outfits will consist of bright green shiny leggings, woolly ankle-warmers and ra-ra skirts. She didn't mention what we are wearing our tops, and by that stage I didn't dare ask. How do I get myself into these things? I'm refusing to order tickets for friends/family because I know what will happen - tears of laughter and in Sophie's case, hysterical hyperventilating. People laugh at me enough as it is, without being paraded on stage looking like a reject from Fame. I want my money (not to mention my dignity) back!

Prac Crit

Today was an essay day. Chaucer and the Woman Debate in Medieval England. But instead of thinking about anti-feminism and the Wife of Bath, I ended up thinking about Leonard Cohen songs. This, of course, is not fault of my own but the fault of my Leonard-hating correspondent - and I shall hold her entirely responsible when my Chaucer essay is trashed at tomorrow's supervision.

I give you my alternative essay, on Suzanne, by that frightful but conflicted cad, Leonard Cohen.

Suzanne and the dialectics of desire and abandonment


Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
you can hear the boats go by
you can spend the night beside her
and you know that she's half crazy
but that's why you want to be there
and she feeds you tea and oranges
that come all the way from China

Leonard Cohen's Suzanne is the construct of a male-inscribed literary and oral tradition. The elusive and enigmatic speaker, and his repeated and haunting use of the word 'you' suggests a universal male experience, with the assumption that any male quest for intimacy with Suzanne will be unquestioningly accepted, and that the speaker's own experience will be echoed in that of the anonymous person to whom the song is addressed.

The imagery of the river in the opening lines locates the speaker's experience in the context of the love tradition of ages past, the river having long been the symbolic scene of love, longing and mourning from bibilical times ('By the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down and wept') to the present day (ask Justin Timberlake - why does he want us to cry him a river, not a lake?). The river evokes loss, yet it is also Suzanne's abode. The implication of ownership on Suzanne's part instils her with a power that the abandonment of the speaker seems to deny her. Yet the fact that she lives by this image of eternal longing suggests that whereas the 'you' in the poem will 'spend the night beside her', thereby implying a departure the following day, for Suzanne the state of longing is one which endures, almost to the extent that it dictates her existence. Nevertheless, an encounter with Suzanne remains on her terms: the repetition in the next verse of the words 'she'll want' hints that not only does she articulate her own desires but that she does so insistently.

What power does Suzanne hold over men? The opening lines appeal to the senses, yet are double-edged: the sense of hearing is evoked in 'you can hear the boats go by' but what is actaually heard is a vessel that is passing through, merely transitory as Suzanne's men inevitably seem to be; the sense of taste is evoked, for 'she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China' - yet this is a bitter concoction, despite its momentary exotic appeal. Suzanne's mental state, moreover, is a force of attraction: the syllabic balance of the sentence 'And you know that she's half crazy, but that's why you want to be there' reinforces not only a synergy in Suzanne's mental state and man's desire, but it also articulates a double-voice, an argument followed by rebuttal. This suggests that the speaker and addressee are both one and the same person, a conflicted schizophrenic self. A self, moreover, who is attracted by a melancholy and vulnerable woman, one with whom he knows he will inevitably achieve a brief and easy intimacy, only to abandon her.

Yet Suzanne's power endures, even after the encounter. Like Euripides' Trojan Woman, who are self-consciously aware of their role in the future oral and literary tradition as exempla of suffering and grief, Suzanne exists to be left and yet remembered. The tea, the oranges, even her choice of abode (location, location, location, darlings) can be seen as a cunningly manipulative attempt to feed a poet his fodder to enable him to encapsulate their brief relationship as a series of beautiful and charming moments through which, by the power of his nostalgia and song, she will achieve immortality.

German supermarkets vs Leonard

The correspondence continues:

Dear Becky

I have recently discovered Lidl and it has been a revelation. I did not expect to fall for anything again, and certainly not a discount German supermarket, but Lidl has crept into my heart and made me smile again. Despite my initial cynicism and coubts, I have started looking forward to my visits there.

I think the principal difference between Lidl and Leonard is Lidl's culture of innovation. Similar to Leonard, Lidl well may have no love to give us, but it has Ulster pancakes, Black Forest ham and some fabulous own-brand cereals. Indeed, who needs trouble taken from their eyes when they can pop in after work and pick up the fabulous little man malt crunchies or nougat pillows? I feel this is an avenue that Leonard could have explored in his music, and indeed in his relationships.

Lidl's mission statement includes a commitment to friendly service at great prices. I am unsure if Leonard has a mission statement. Possibly, he considers them an affront to his artistic integrity. However, the lyrics of you-know-who-i-am do provide us with some insight as to what such a mission statement could contain. Consider, if you will, "I cannot follow you, my love, you cannot follow me. I am the distance you put between all of the moments that will be."

Ms X



Dear Ms X

Well, well well.

I think Lidl sounds just wonderful, which is odd as I have never encountered a decent supermarket in Germany - maybe it's something they do better in a foreign environment. I may to come and inspect it so as to formulate my thoughts. One thing I have been wondering, however, is whether Leonard has ever baked a cake for his loved one. I'm afraid I rather suspect not. I do, nevertheless, think he could probably make a pretty good roast dinner if he put his mind to it. He could probably buy a great tin of goose fat in Lidl in order to make his roast potatoes extra crispy. For - and here is a great truth that I have discovered about love - extra crispy roast potatoes can serve to deepen love, to make it more sustainable, to create the essential ties that bind lovers together. My dad makes his roast potatoes with lard and olive oil, and my Mum has loved him for over 40 years. Mark makes his with goose fat, and Megan has loved him for over a decade. And Jamie makes his with olive oil and butter, and is expressing a willingness to experiment with the goose fat option. But then again, our love is young. He is still finding his way, still finding his own special method of crisping up his roast potatoes. It's a labour of love, you see. And it's one that has the potential to last a lifetime. Only people like Leonard don't see that. They are blinkered, dismissive of German supermarkets and have a cavalier attitude towards roast dinners (the fools). All the love songs in the world can't change that. Maybe instead of letting Suzanne feed him tea and oranges (which has always struck me as a very odd combination - was she TRYING to make his stomach feel all acidic? I've also read that tea prevents the body from absorping the essential vitamin C in oranges - maybe Suzanne was trying to give him scruvy, in which case I'm almost glad that he had no love to give her or he would have ended up very vitamin-deficient. Some might say he deserves this, however..) ... where was I? Yes, INSTEAD of letting her feed that weird concoction to him, HE should have worked on his cooking technique, carefully considered his choice of fat, and fed her crispy roast potatoes. I'm sure it would all have ended better and they could have touched each other's perfect bodies with their genetalia instead of (or as well as with) their minds. It would have been a better outcome all round. He could have poked her with his love sausage (just to keep the Germanic theme going).

Regards,

B

Julie has just written to point out, furthermore, that she always found it peculiar that Suzanne's oranges came all the way from China. It seems Suzanne cares very little about her carbon footprint. From my own memory of China, she would have had some problems sourcing them too. I remember lots of locally-grown cabbages, but no oranges. But that's Suzanne for you, the unenvironmentally-friendly scurvy-giver.

Obsessive Dislike of Leonard

A dear friend of mine is in something of an emotional pickle, having fallen for someone who has the emotional maturity of a cucumber but the public persona of a charismatic, sensitive free-soul who cannot be bound by conventional 'relationships'. I received this e-mail from her today:

Dear Becky

I'm tired today because I stayed up very late last night listening to sad music and reading a novel of lost love and civil war. I was with my mum at the weekend. I told her everything and she let me play very miserable music, though she was tired of Leonard Cohen by the end, especially when I started singing along in an operative and gospel style. Try it, it's great fun! Anyway, for some reason, I've moved on to the anger stage; however, the anger is directed at Leonard. I thinkLeonard used the guise of being a poetic, gorgeous genius to behave appallingly to women, in somewhat the same way Mr X behaves. So, instead of being annoyed with Mr X, for whom I feel tender compassion, though the man is an eejit, I feel a cold fury towards Leonard. I'm aware this is unreasonable but take, if you will, the following lyric:

i loved you in the morning,
our kisses soft and warming
your hair upon the pillow
like a sleepy golden storm
yes, many loved before us
i know that we're not new
in cities and in forests
they smiled like me and you
but now it comes to distances [aye - and whose fault is that?]
and both of us must try [why, why must we try to make things easier for you]
your eyes are soft with sorrow [exactly!  not that you care]
hey that's no way to say goodbye [no, mustn't make a fuss and upset the genius, must we?]

I could go on, but I won't.  And take, for example, 'So Long, Marianne' and 'Love Came In'.
And I could name many others but am frankly too busy.  And he ran off for a few years to
become a Buddhist monk!  Typical! During which time he wrote about loving women but not
being able to give them what they need.  And how do I know this?  Because I read the
book of longing he wrote during that time, which was - wait for it - beside Mr X's bed.
I don't think we need to be a genius to see the connection.

And as for Tom Waits?  Don't get me started on him.  Have you listened to 'I hope I don't fall
in love with you'? Or Martha?  or Days of Roses?  Have you?  Have you?  And, moving on to
Damien Rice.  Have you listened to 'The Animals are Gone'?  Cads, the lot of them.  Oh, I know,
they're sensitive geniuses, with voices that can melt your insides, but they're emotionally
stunted eejits who use their artistic temperament to treat women appallingly because they
write beautifully about it.

I think you can see I'm moving on.

Love  Ms X

And it got me thinking.  She's probably right you know.  I always thought I'd like to shag
Leonard because (a) he's had a lot of practice at it and is probably quite good, and (b) he'd
be sure to write a lovely song about me afterwards.  But what sort of song?  An anguished
break-up, a relationship full of passion and anguish but ultimately unsustainable?
Or he might write one his mean songs (but not as mean as Elvis Costello - if I'd like
anyone to write a cuttingly cruel song about me, it would be him: 'She said she had been
working for the ABC news.  It was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use'.  Classic).
Anyway, here's my reply:

My dear, I agree with you entirely.

'let's not talk of love or chains, or things we can't untie' - well,
firstly I'd like to know why he equates love with chains: chains, moreover,
which cannot be untied, when I'll bet my bottom dollar that he and his ilk
expend a great deal of emotional energy in attempting to untie every
emotional bond they form in their hapless existences.

I give you also:

Thanks for the trouble you took
from her eyes
I thought it was there for good
so I never tried.

Well, that's just charming, isn't it? Rely on someone else to heal the the
trouble that you probably caused in the first place, by being an emotional
feckwit of an eejit. It's all very well him going around touching people's
perfect body with his mind, but he doesn't seem to be able to follow
through in any emotionally mature or sustainable way. If that's the case,
he should keep his perfect mind to himself, dance himself to the end of
love with or without his burning violin. Shame on him.

Can we like Nick Cave instead?  He's a bit more thoughtful:

I don't believe in an interventionist god
but I know darling that you do
but if I did I would kneel down and ask him
not to intervene when it came to you
not to touch a hair on your head but leave you as you are
and if he felt he had to direct you
to direct you into my arms

Well that's much nicer - isn't it??

B

Apologies to anyone who is not familiar with the work of Leonard.  But seeing as Ms X is probably going
to hunt him down and kill him, there's probably not much point getting to know him now anyway.  Except
she wouldn't kill him, would she?  Because these men, cads though they be, can talk the talk.  She'll probably
end up humping him instead.

Windswept

My, what a blustery day it was today! As the wind forcibly shoved me towards the Tower of Darkness (aka the university library), the person walking towards me seemed to be walking in slow motion, the skin on his face stretched flat from the effort of walking against the wind. Meanwhile, across the road, a hapless student was seen trying to fish his essay out of a rather large puddle by poking it with a long stick. We all exchanged rather rueful smiles, as we English people often do when the weather becomes challenging. And thus it came to pass that I was smiling when I arrived at the library this morning. But not for long - oh no! Roland Barthes soon put a stop to that! I copied out a sentence for you all to share - and please bear in mind I have 250 pages of this stuff to read:

"The classical text, therefore, is actually tabular (and not linear), but its tabularity is vectorized, it follows a logico-temporal order."

Well, I'm glad we've got that sorted! We wouldn't want to be labouring under the misapprehension that a classical text is linear, vectorized or unvectorized, let alone with or without following a logico-temporal order.

When I read anything by Barthes, it automatically means I have to read two books simultaneously: the book of his in question, and a large dictionary. Do you think my tabularity might be vectorized?

The Little Boat of Happiness

It has been a long and arduous journey for the Little Boat of Happiness, and it is a journey that continues through the years, through seas calm and rough. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

The Little Boat of Happiness, you see, first set sail in the early 1990s, in the form of a poem to my sister and the man who is now her husband and the father of her children. In those days, their love was young and fresh, like a cherry tomato. And I was living in Switzerland. Why I chose to send them a poem about a boat of happiness from a landlocked country remains a mystery. I wasn't too bright in those days and hadn't yet reaped the intellectual (and, as you'll see, artistic) benefits of a Cambridge education. The poem started something like this: "If I had a little boat/I know what I would do./ I'd fill it up with happiness/and sail it home to you" and then carried on in much the same manner for a few more verses. And this is how my brother-in-law and I first started our exchange of Little Boat of Happiness Poems. He once sent me a reply that went something like this:

And when your boat of happiness
Comes sailing into view
I'll run down to the harbour
and this is what I'll do

Your packages of happiness
I'll unload one by one
And when the hold is empty...
I'll WANK until I come!

We were quite fond of the word 'wank' at the time, as I seem to recall. We used to say it very loudly, in block capitals, at inopportune moments.

The most recent Little Boat of Happiness poem arrived recently, somewhat delayed due to the delicate situation regarding my Shiny New Husband and his right of abode in this country. Apparently, brother-in-law wanted to send this poem when the visa issue was at crisis point but my sister persuaded him to wait until my life was calmer when I would be able to take it in the light-hearted manner in which it was penned. And here it is:

The Little Boat of Happiness
has sailed back into view.
And while it makes its way to port
this is what we'll do...

A catalogue of many things
We'll write down in a list -
Of all the joys we hope it holds,
Perhaps some that we've missed.

Will it hold hugs and kisses
Enough for all to share?
A lover's sigh, a baby's cry,
the caress of a maiden's hair?

Perhaps a life of happiness
is what it holds for me -
A whirlwind trip around the world
and home in time for tea.

Now the boat has docked at last
and we can go aboard,
to see what joys are packed inside
As they are yours to hoard.

Alas! The hold is empty!
The walls are bare and plastered
The boat is only docking here.....
TO DEPORT THE AUSSIE BASTARD!

As you can see, B-in-L has all the sensitivity of a true poet!

Jetlagged New Year Musings

It's 4 am and I have no hope of getting any more sleep, seeing as I went to bed at 6 pm. We saw in 2007 at Bangkok airport, shortly before reboarding our flight to Heathrow. My first few hours back on English soil were not good, seeing as Qantas managed to poison me with the breakfast that they served shortly before landing. The one New Year's Eve when I don't touch a drop of alcohol, and Vomiting Veronica pays a visit regardless! Happy 2007 everyone!

We had a wonderful month away, enjoyed the sunshine, read lots of books (Chaucer, mainly: a much better travel companion than I would have previously suspected!) and had a great time being part of Jamie's Australian family. But it's so good to be home. We came back to one of Cambridge's more heart-warming winter days - blue sky, a chill, bracing breeze and a slight whiff of bonfires in the air. As we drove past Lamasland (long green grass and winding river stretching out to the horizon), past the old terraced cottages of Newnham Village and through our college gates, I realised that I feel more at home in Cambridge and in this little flat than I have ever felt anywhere else. This could, of course, have something to do with the man by my side. But the upshot of this mini epiphany is this: no New Year's resolutions this year. 2007 may not have started in the best way possible, but it's easy to think that when you've got your head stuck down an airport toilet: life is good; I don't want it to change one little bit (although I may consider taking my own food next time I do a long-haul flight...)

Happy 2007 mes amis!