Lyrics 101

Welcome to what we here at Random Ramblings intend to be a regular feature: Lyrics 101.  We will take a song, regardless of popularity, and analyze the lyrics for all the intended (and unintended) brilliance the writers were aiming for.

In honor of the first installment, we selected Starship’s “We Built This City”.  Not only is this an award winning song (taking #1 in Blender’s list of Most Awesomely Bad Songs), but it was written by quite the popular guy: Bernie Taupin, of Elton John fame.  

Really, we don’t need to get much past the title of the song.  I know Grace Slick and company can’t really be blamed, since they didn’t write the song.  But it doesn’t really seem advisable to build a city on Rock and Roll.  What does that even mean? My grandma has always said it is generally regarded as a good idea to build a city on land.  Other considerations are of course possible traded goods, waterways, accesibility, etc.  Clearly Mr. Taupin does not have a strong understanding of infrastructure.  But he is the one responsible for the lyrics “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”, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  

Another line worth looking at is “Marconi plays the mamba”.  I have no idea who Marconi is, or why the mamba is related at all to Rock and Roll.  What I do know is that at www.kissthisguy.com, an archive of misheard lyrics, they have a much better line: “My colon plays La Bamba”.  

Finally, we get a little business tip from Mrs. Slick in the second verse.  She sings “Someone’s always playing corporation games, who cares they’re always changing corporation names.”  While that is an interesting aside, it doesn’t really explain the title much. Shall we get on with talking about the building of this city?  I’ve tried to find cities that have been built on Rock and Roll, but alas could not find any.  So while I admire Starship for their unprecedented effort, as far as I know they are lying. (for the record, if anyone was ever able to actually build a city on Rock and Roll, I would have to live there.  But it depends on what band was most heavily involved in the construction. If it was The Beatles then count me in.  But they just put Madonna in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a city built on “Express Yourself” just isn’t that rockin’ to me.  (for more on this, check out my friend Ed’s blog The National Evil). At Your Own Risk.

This concludes our class.  But for homework, watch the amazing video.