Inane in the Membrane

For no reason whatsoever, I recently found myself repeating four words that sound nonsensical, which is appropriate, because they connote idiocy.

Pell mell.

Harum scarum.

Willy-nilly.

Helter-skelter.

I'm a word nerd, a grammar geek, a usage unicorn. Wait, that last one doesn't make sense. I love using obsolete or obscure words and phrases, such as "What the deuce!" and "satchel." So as I repeated the four words above, I realized I needed to know more about them. So on, then, to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Pell mell -- adv.: in a confused and hurried way; Middle French pêlemêle; first known use, 1590.

Via Google Books, I found a great usage of the word from Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art. In an essay dated December 28, 1889 and titled, "Remarkable Charities," the author recalls days gone by when the well-to-do of England would donate food, drink and tobacco to the poor.

Referring to "the lord of the manor" giving "a bull, a boar, a sack of wheat, and a sack of malt" to the less fortunate, the author says that at some point this practice was discontinued in favor of beef and mutton being distributed.

"The origin of this seems lost in obscurity, and the practice whilst it lasted seems to have been productive of much intoxication and riot; the poor paraded the streets during the whole night preceding the distribution with an incessant clamor. In the morning they marched in crowds to the donor's house, and when the doors were opened, rushed in pell-mell to the feast prepared for them, often inflicting wounds on one another with their knives in their struggle for priority."

Like Dave Barry, I often find myself, when confronted with an interesting word or phrase, thinking, "That would be a good band name."

Ladies and gentlemen, Pell Mell:

I picked this song at random on YouTube, but realized almost immediately that it was familiar. Turns out it was played on HBO's "Six Feet Under" for the first two seasons during the previous episode recap at the beginning of each show.

Harum scarum -- adj.: reckless, irresponsible; perhaps from archaic hare to harass, and scare; first known use, 1751.

Also, an Elvis Presley movie, "where the slave girls and sultans are swingers":

You see, The King is in Iraq, I think, or perhaps Saudi Arabia or even the Garden of Paradise, and all those swingin' chicks are his harem, so, well you can make the connection.

Willy-nilly -- adv. or adj.: in a careless and unplanned way; in a haphazard or spontaneous way; alteration of will I nill or will ye nill ye; first known use, 1608.

You could straight up use Willy Nilly as a punk rock stage name, or perhaps a porn appellation. Singer/songwriter/dancer/comic entertainer Rufus Thomas ("Do the Funky Chicken") used it as a title for a catchy R&B romp:

Helter-skelter -- adv.: in a confused and careless way; perhaps from Middle English, skelten, to come, go. First known use, 1593.

This one, of course, also has a music tie-in, but it's a bit more complicated than the other ones. Paul McCartney wrote "Helter Skelter," so the story goes, in an effort to pen the loudest, most un-ballad-like song he could muster. Released on the White album, the song relies on two definitions of "helter-skelter": the one I've indicated above, but also the British term for an amusement park slide ("When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide").

Let's listen to it, shall we, in all its mania and dishevelment, before we discuss the darkness. Unfortunately, the Overlords of Beatles Central have evidently made sure that YouTube is void of any decent McCartney/Lennon version of this song, so you get this gamer's video featuring "Helter Skelter" as a soundtrack, and not the full song.

Helter Skelter from Dag@bert on Vimeo.

Charles Manson. Yes, we need to discuss the mastermind behind the Tate-LaBianca murders, in which seven people were killed in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969. Somehow, he interpreted the lyrics in "Helter Skelter" as a call to wage an apocalyptic race war.

"Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down fast. If you don't see the confusion coming down fast, you can call it what you wish. It's not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says 'Rise!' It says 'Kill!' Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness."-- Charles Manson, November 1970 (I took this from The Beatles Bible web site)

Well, let's not waste any more time on that.

Did I forget any similar words? Let me know. Now pardon me while I go run amok.

Music by Caldor

Other than a brief fling with anti-apartheid activism in college, I've always kept my politics mostly to myself. Sure, if you know me well, you know I'm a liberal Democrat. But I don't speak out much about my views except in close company.

So you might be surprised to learn that the first 45 (remember those?) I bought was "Give Ireland Back to the Irish," a political screed written and recorded by Paul McCartney & Wings.

OK, screed might be too strong a word, but considering the song was written by the guy who penned "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah!", "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" is a pretty strong statement.

I have no idea why I opted for this song as the first single I bought from the Avon, Connecticut, branch of Caldor, the department store chain that closed in 1999. My parents would take my brother, sister and me there once in a while, and we kids would buy 45's there, then take them home and play them on our pop-up record player.

I guess the song must have been popular on the radio when I was 7 years old. Somehow, I grew up in a household devoid of Beatles music, and I didn't buy an album by the Fab Four until I was well into adulthood.

Digging through my musty stack of 45's in the attic, I did find, however, that one of us bought McCartney & Wings's "Jet," as well as Ringo Starr's "Oh My My."

I had no idea what "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" meant at that age. As I got older I came to an understanding of just what Great Britain was doing in Northern Ireland.

The song didn't mean much to me, but perhaps I thought of it during my time at Keene State College as a member of a student group that tried to raise awareness of the appalling apartheid in South Africa.

Oh, who am I kidding -- that didn't happen.

Here's a video of the song that shows the 45. Below this clip is an interesting video of the band practicing the song in somebody's living room.

The second 45 I bought had a bit more of an impact on my life.

"Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Koo" by Rick Derringer continues to be a song that I listen to, and one that inspired a story in my short story collection, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity.

This one was also popular on the radio when I was young, but unlike McCartney's song, it continues to get airplay on classic rock radio.

Let's watch and listen together:

Other 45's I bought that I still have in my collection (but never play) include "Hot Rod Lincoln" by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, a song that also features in one of my (C)rock Stories; and The Knack's "My Sharona," the sleeve of which features a somewhat androgynous young woman in a tight, see-through tank top.

When I started writing this a few days ago I wasn't planning on digging through the little pink box that my siblings and I stored our 45's in, but now that I've done so, I think I'll write a few more installments in coming weeks.

Radio Clash

I can't get Flo-Rida's oral-sex request song, "Whistle," out of my head, and I blame summer camp counselors.

I mark the beginning of the end of my children's pop music innocence as Friday, August 10. That day I drove them to Connecticut for a long weekend visit with my family. There was a lot of traffic, and it was raining, so the trip took an extra hour. During those 150 minutes, Owen and Amelia demanded (OK, strongly requested) to listen to various pop radio stations. Because I'm a nice guy, I obliged.

Most recently, Owen had been into electronic music that he'd heard in the background of various Mario Kart-centric videos on YouTube. While I wasn't crazy about some of the cyborg-like vocals and manic guitar and synthesizer parts, the songs were harmless.

But then the high school and college kids staffing the camp where Owen and Amelia went this summer turned the kids onto the likes of Nicki Minaj, Maroon (read: Moron) 5, Katy Perry and Flo-Rida, by way of local radio they played during art and music classes.

So now, whether in the car or at home, all of us are singing/whistling along to Flo-Rida's extremely popular song, only the two adults in the scene having any clue what the song's about. Check it out:

I suspect Owen has stumbled across this video, I'm gonna do my all to keep Amelia away from it. Yes, I know. I sound like an anti-Elvis parent from the '50s, or a grown-up who banned the Beatles from their house in the '60s.

That's what parents do: try to shelter their kids as much as they can, while simultaneously encouraging them to explore the world.

While Flo-Rida's song is the worst offender in terms of lyrical content, there are plenty of other songs where artists or their rapper guests drop bleeped-out F-bombs and s-words. Owen knows what these words are, of course, and thinks it's funny. He points out when the words are digitally edited over.

I listened to plenty of commercial radio when I was a kid. And of course I liked it when songs had bad words that were edited out, such as in Steve Miller's "Airliner," when the phrase, "funky shit going down in the city" was changed to "funky kicks...."

I understand how this works. But I also recognize that my job is to try and keep my kids from becoming foul-mouthed louts who teach other kids about F words that end in "uck" and "ellatio."

I try to convince the kids to listen to my music, something I've done since they were babies. It used to be easy, of course, to just let my iPod run and we'd listen to, dance to and play air guitar to whatever came on.

A few years back, Owen took a shine to indie rockers Chin Up Chin Up, as well as one of my all-time favorites, The Police.

But Owen's 10 now and developing his own tastes in music, which unfortunately at this point don't include rock. So I guess I need to do my best to monitor what he listens to and try and steer him toward the better commercial stuff (whatever the hell that is).

Simultaneously, I need to convince Amelia to listen to safer "girl stuff" like her copy of the "It's My Party!" CD of covers of '60s tunes. In the last few days, I've gotten her to listen to some Deee-Lite, so that makes me happy.

Yeah, I know, I'm like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill, or the idiot who opened Pandora's Box. But if I can remove just one pop song from Owen and Amelia's playlists in favor of the Flaming Lips or the B-52's or something sorta cool, then I'll consider it a victory.