I recently went on vacation. And, being a music lover, I filled my mp3 player to the brim with old and new stuff before I left.
While I have my morning coffee each day, I let Rhapsody generate song lists for me based on my listening history. And from those song lists I pull the interesting songs and dump them onto playlists with snappy titles like "Pinch n Poke" or "Map Maker, Make Me a Map" or some other label that doesn't help me remember what in the hell I put on them. It was a combination of these mixes mostly that I dumped onto my mp3 player before I took off.
So, there I am, on a train crawling along the coast, when I decide to listen to one of the aforementioned mixes; this one had a theme of world-y, Afro-poppy funky stuff from different decades. I hit play and zone out while I stare out the window. The music starts -- kinda bouncy and disjointed with sporadic 80's percussion. "Hmmm," I think to myself as the singer begins, "this must be that Grace Jones song I threw on there. Not bad."
I keep listening, tapping my finger on the arm rest, but not really concentrating on what I'm hearing. Then the lyrics start to become clear:
Pull up to my bumper baby,
In your long black limousine,
Pull up to my bumper baby,
And drive it in between.
Pull up, to it, don't drive, through it,
Back it, up twice, now that, fits nice.
Huh?!? Wait a minute -- she's not singing about parking cars! Now I'm paying full attention to the Jamaican chanteuse crooning in my ears:
The lines are short,
I'll fix you up so won't you please come on,
That shiny, sleek machine you wheel,
I've got to blow your horn.
The lyrics create mental images that are in stark contrast to the foreign shoreline and towns I see through the window. I laugh at my private joke and vow to research the Lp when I get home.
Produced by Sly and Robbie, the album "Nightclubbing" has great dub-flavor, but there is a New Wave edge to the grooves. I recommend it (especially for the Iggy Pop cover), but this post is really about the song and not the whole record.
The video (1981) does a great job of conveying the nocturnal city as a living thing. There's a post-modern feel; like the technology that was able to make the pastiche of the chaotic city was also responsible for its unruliness. Watch for the great shot towards the end of a wall of TVs exploding. Good ol' Regan-era, pre-MTV video.
