LM: I'll buy anything if you explain it with candy metaphors. But there may still be beatings later. Carry on.
GA: The lyrics describe the comic dilemma of a leader torn between being a man of the people, but also a man. It's sort of like Premier Kisof or Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, torn between social obligation and wanting to impregnate Mary Magdalene. One side of the brain wants to run with the evil redhead, but the other side knows that he's got a revolution to engineer.
Red hair with a curl
mellow roll for the flavor
and the eyes for peeping
can't keep away from the girl
these two sides of my brain
need to have a meeting
can't think of anything to do
my left brain knows that
all love is fleeting
LM: And if you want to look at this in some context that doesn’t sound like it came from Pinky and the Brain, this is again about an a woman who seems awfully easy to judge – a theme we’ve seen before in "You’re Pretty Good Looking." Here we have a woman who is obviously seeing someone else, who is “looking for something new.”
She says "come and kiss me by the riverside, Bobby says it's fine he don't consider it cheating"
……
she's just looking for something new
and I said it once before
but it bears repeating
LM: So, this is an attraction that is purely physical, for a woman who is grounded in the physical, and I sense here a hunger for something more… something cerebral. But to hell with it, it’s a song, a moment, a kiss – and what’s it really matter in the end, right? And that simplicity of thought and action mirrors the song itself and is a monument to punk sensibilities.
Viva la revolution! Go back to the beginning of WHITE STRIPES NATION!
-------------------
LegendaryMonkey Alisha Karabinus provides the inner voice of sweet reason for evolved primates at Sudden Nothing.
Al Barger plots the overthrow of the government and his continuing crusade for Moorish dignity at More Things.
Article comments
1 - Mark Sahm
I'm surprised you two didn't mention the Lego-esque video for this track. While obviously, it had nothing to do with the music, it was definitely part of what helped it blow up in the way it did.