Excerpts From A Psychopathology Of Pop (1.)

The Spice Girls emerged in 1996 with an audacious post-feminist attempt to engage with one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers – Sigmund Freud.

Freud famously posed the question: 'What does a woman want?' In their single Wannabe, the soi-disant 'Girls' set out to answer him in a typically forthright manner. 'I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want', they declare through their spokeswoman 'Scary Spice'. 'So tell me what you want, what you really really want', echoes 'Ginger Spice', here taking the part of the sceptical yet persistent father of psychoanalysis. 'I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want', 'Scary' once again promises/threatens, and things continue in this manner until the revelation is finally forced upon us: what the Spice Girls – and, by implication, all women – 'really really want' is something called a 'zigazig ha.'

There has of course been much debate in academic circles as to the nature of this item, or concept. Frobes, in his specious Jungian study of late-twentieth century girl groups, Bewitched, maintains that the 'zigazig ha' is in fact an Ancient Egyptian fertility symbol, whose form may be glimpsed repeatedly – so he maintains – in the video for Spice Up Your Life. Meanwhile, Denister, in his lurid, if occasionally insightful volume Impure Shores, puts forward, with characteristic brusqueness, the (wholly unsupported) claim that it is 'some kind of cat'.

Both of these commentators seem oddly unwilling to acknowledge the powerful and undeniable influence of Freud over this piece. Though at first glance one may not realise it, here is a perfectly coherent response to Freud's eternally-reverberating question. The importance of the 'zigazig ha' lies not so much in what it is, as in what it isn't. It isn't anything.

By which I mean to say that the thesis proposed by the Girls is that female desire is not a graspable 'thing', and neither is it sayable. Rather, it eludes language – a system imposed upon the world by men – entirely. In their response to Freud, the Spice Girls betray the influence of Jacques Lacan, a post-structuralist interpreter of Freud whose attempts to escape the shackles of language have resulted in writing that challenges our notions of sense. The Spice Girls' 'zigazig ha' is a perfect example of this 'non-sense'.

However, the Girls part company with Lacan over his notion that desire is necessarily unattainable. Rather, they maintain that it simply lies outside the cerebral areas in which Freud's and Lacan's theories operate. Shrewdly, the Girls turn Freud's question back upon itself, offering him advice on how he should proceed 'if you wanna be my lover'. Thus Freud's own unacknowledged, possibly repressed, desires become the song's focus, while the entire foundation of psychoanalytic theory is brilliantly refuted by 'Sporty Spice''s pronouncement: 'If you want my future, forget my past.'

The implication is surely that Freud's theories are little more than a means of legitimising his attempts to get women onto his couch and probe them, but this is not necessarily held against him. Instead, he is flirtatiously encouraged to abandon the pseudo-scientific charade of psychoanalysis and get to know the Girls directly, within a social context ('If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.') In order to facilitate this the Girls effect a basic introduction to the group's various members, one of whom is said to be 'a real lady', while another 'likes it in your face'. Freud must respond positively to this friendly, yet curiously threatening, introduction if he wishes to gain access to the fabled 'zigazig ha'.

However, a further obstacle is now placed in his way as he is called upon not only to 'slam his body down', but also (and perhaps simultaneously) 'wind it all around', in what may be seen as a physical analogy to the mental convolutions of psychoanalysis – or, perhaps, as an attempt to kill an old man through over-exertion, thus striking a symbolic blow against patriarchal oppression.

Because in spite of Freud's stated mystification on the subject of 'what women want', there is something which he has previously suggested that all women want - namely, a penis. The notion of penis envy is one of the bulwarks of psychoanalysis, one that has been challenged by some of Freud's successors - such as the intriguingly-named Karen Horney, who suggested that womb envy might be just as valid a notion. The Spice Girls, obviously, are aware of this, and their professed enthusiasm for such a seemingly absurd entity as the 'zigazig ha' may be read as a parody of penis envy - and the zigazig ha itself as a parody of the penis. One may, for example, imagine it as a jagged, twisted or ornately-decorated (yet fundamentally useless) version of the male member - almost as if the Girls had created a wildly improbable balloon animal out of the male generative organ and proceeded, sarcastically, to worship it. We may also note the resemblance of 'zigazig ha' to 'cigar', that notorious phallic symbol. There is a very real sense in which the Girls are replacing Freud's own cigar with a joke one that explodes in his face.

Harmlessly, however - as incisive as their critique is, the Girls never forget to make it all 'fun'. It is certainly tempting to picture Freud taking their criticism in good part, and even enthusiastically 'winding his body all around' to their lively pop music confection. And yet, looking closer, do we not see terror dawning in his eyes at this display of 'Girl Power'? Surely he is fundamentally appalled at the sight of women, formerly defined by men, now calling themselves 'posh' even when they aren't.

Perhaps, in desperation, he is already planning an 'answer song' to Wannabe, in which it is he who tells the Spice Girls - possibly in 'gangsta rap' form - what they 'really really want'.

Such an artefact is unlikely to materialise, because Freud is neither a musician nor - strictly speaking - alive. However, there are surely many young male artists willing to grasp the (as it were) baton, and assert the primacy of the penis through the medium of popular song - artists such as FatBuggaz, The Germinator and Dappy Duck, to name but a few. Whether they will ever create anything with the audacity and intellectual rigour of Wannabe, however, remains to be seen. 

Arse Of Glass (after Felix Kubin)

People are always asking me what I would do if I was on Britain's Got Talent. 'Well', I reply. 'I'm glad you asked me that, because what I would do is to sing the Sinead O'Connor song Nothing Compares 2 Me.' 'Don't you mean Nothing Compares 2U?', they reply, and I laugh in their faces, because they have missed the whole point, stupid idiots.

As I win through in successive rounds, I will have plenty of material to draw on:

I'm The Best Thing

I'm The One That I Want

I'm the Greatest Dancer

Waiting For A Girl Like Me

and (the one I'm saving for the final) I'm So Vain, containing the mind-boggling line: 'I probably think this song is about me, don't I? Don't I?'

After this wins the show, I will probably 'go commercial' and do something merely vulgar, like, for example, substitute the word 'arse' for the word 'heart' in selected songs, as in:

Total Eclipse of the Arse

Don't Go Breaking My Arse ('I couldn't if I tried.')

My Arse Will Go On

Something's Gotten Hold Of My Arse

Then how about substituting 'wanking' for 'dancing', as in:

I'm In The Mood For Wanking

and:

Wanking On The Ceiling

After this it would all become too much and I would have to lie down for many many years, after which I would adopt a more subtle approach, changing one word in a specific song to alter its meaning dramatically, a good example being Papa Don't Preach, in which the substitution of 'eating' for 'keeping' elevates Madonna's penchant for controversy to whole new levels: 'I've made up my mind, I'm eating my baby, oh I'm gonna EAT my baby, mmmm...'

Lisa Stansfield police transcript

'Been around the world and I,I,I
I can't find my baby.
I don't know when, I don't know why
Why he's gone away.'

So, been around the world, have you Lisa? And we're meant to be impressed by that? You say you never found him, this 'baby' of yours? Have to say I'm not surprised. Because you weren't very systematic in your approach, were you Lisa? Most people searching for a loved one, they'd try to establish some idea of where he was. Then, they'd go there. You just blindly flew round the world, hoping you might bump into him.

You know what? I'm not sure you wanted to find him at all.

'We had a quarrel and I let myself go,
I told him many things, things he didn't know.'

You told him 'things he didn't know'? Was this an unusual state of affairs at your gaff, then? You mostly just exchanged information you were both well aware of, did you? But not this time, oh no. This time you really sprang it on him - all this new information. And he's reeling. Off he goes, staggering out into the street, never to be seen again.

But then, according to your previous statement, you 'don't know why' he went away. Strange. Thought you just told us. You even say here that he 'gave the reasons, the reasons he should go.'

Made out a little list, did he? It all sounds very civilized. And then he just disappears off the face of the earth.

You sound a bit confused, Lisa. Not to say hysterical. All this 'I,I,I'. All this 'oh, oh'.

'And I was oh, oh so bad
And I don't think he's coming back.'

But just how bad, Lisa? And why are you so sure that he's not coming back? Just what happens when you 'let yourself go'?

See, you come in here, wanting to report a missing person, then straight away you're all over the place. But have you really 'been around the world', Lisa? That would take some time, wouldn't it? When did you have this row? Oh, I forgot, you 'don't know when'. There's quite a few gaps in your story, Lisa, isn't there?

'So open-hearted, he never did me wrong,
I was the one, the weakest one of all.'

What's this, an admission? You were the one. The one who did what, Lisa? Suppose I were to tell you that we've found your 'baby'. Or rather, what's left of him.

'I've done too much lying, wasted too much time'

I couldn't have put it better myself.

'Now I'm here and crying. I,I,I...'

That's it, Lisa. Let it all out.

Do they know it's Christmas?

Band-Aid's 1986 single was of course an attempt to ease the suffering of the starving in Ethiopia, who are referred to in the lyrics only as 'them', 'they', or 'the other ones' because, it has been rumoured, they did not wish to be associated with this 'dire abortion' of a record ('They'd rather starve', sources close to them have said).

The misheard lyrics archive at kissthisguy.com has the following entry for this song: 'The greatest gift they'll get this year is flies.' Many will think that this is more incisive than the real lyric, in which the greatest gift is life. After all - life! That is a pretty great gift: almost the best you could get. Most sensible people, given the choice between, say, a smoothie maker and not being dead, will opt for the latter.

The difficulty of incorporating within one song two distinctly different experiences - eating Christmas dinner with a conventionally 'happy' family, and starving to death under the African sun - has, it's fair to say, led to some wayward lyrics. It is as though lines have been contributed by various people at various times and then assembled by a committee (which was, I understand, more or less the case). So in addition to a tendency to opt for safe statements with which few would care to disagree ('There's a world outside your window', or: 'There won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime'*) there is the odd mad Gothic extravagance like: 'The Christmas bells that ring there/Are the clanging chimes of doom'.

The phrase 'the bitter sting of tears' is all that remains of Sir Bob Godfrey's original concept, in which stars would 'buy' a mention of their name in the song's lyrics, a concept abandoned due to the difficulty of introducing terms such as 'Spandau Ballet' and 'Bananarama' into the song in an unforced way. Nevertheless, as almost everybody knows, Sting refused to participate unless his name was included, and even wanted to change the line to the (arguably superior) 'the only water flowing is the bitter tears of Sting.' This apparently so enraged Bono that on some versions he can be heard to shout his own name over the 'Know' of the title in a kind of frenzied yelp.

Despite being the least Christmassy Christmas song of all time, it is, curiously, one of the few to embrace Christianity on more than a merely cosmetic level, though even here the message is rather mixed. So the listener is urged to 'pray' for these poor unfortunates in the desert, but shortly afterwards is being exhorted to 'thank God it's them instead of you'. 'Well, thank God it's them instead of me', muses the reassured listener, returning to their dinner.

But at least you can say that this song that returns us to 'the true meaning of Christmas' - the celebration of total unfettered capitalism. 'Feed the world!', cry the assembled stars (or, as kissthisguy.com would have it: 'Fever - woah!'). But how is this miracle to be accomplished? Not by parcelling up your Christmas dinner and sending it to Ethiopia. No: by buying the record. Hence, when Band-Aid tell us to 'let them know it's Christmastime', the message they are sending the starving millions is: your problems can be solved by capitalism. It's an ad for globalization.

Which has solved all their problems. I expect. Nevertheless, one question remains unanswered: do they know it's Christmas? There is clearly a need for some kind of survey so that we can settle this matter once and for all. Then we need never listen to this song again. Merry Christmas, everyone.



*Except possibly on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro

shakespeare: the living years

During his living years Shakespeare wrote many great plays. Subsequently, however, his output has declined. A number of possible reasons for this have been suggested:

1.) The end of Shakespeare's living years may have coincided with some great unknown trauma which effectively prevented him from continuing to write. Possibly his arms fell off or something.

2.) Possibly Shakespeare found the that only the process of living provided him with the inspiration he needed to write. When he stopped living, he ran out of ideas.

3.) Perhaps Mike and the Mechanics are shit.

lady in red

Chris De Burgh’s 1986 number one single is usually taken as a romantic ballad affirming the special happiness to be found in a long-term relationship. Of course it’s nothing of the kind.

Everyone knows that de Burgh wrote this song for his wife. However, there is another key influence on its composition - alcohol. Notionally written ‘tonight’, on the night of the party at which de Burgh’s lady ‘shines’ so remarkably, the song clearly shows its narrator (who is, we can only assume, de Burgh himself) experiencing the more pleasant after-effects of an extended drinking binge: a tendency towards embarrassingly effusive displays of affection (‘I’ve never seen you looking so gorgeous as you did tonight, I’ve never seen you shine so bright, you were amazing, etc., etc.’), set alongside an apparent difficulty in recognising his own wife (‘I hardly know this beauty by my side’).

In fact, the whole atmosphere of slushy sentimentality that characterizes the song is as redolent of drunkenness as it is of romance, as if de Burgh were sardonically equating the two. All that’s missing is the hangover.

And what does this drunken haze conceal? Bitterness, of course. The compliments with which de Burgh showers his lady are so crass that they become, on reflection, insults. ‘I hardly know this beauty by my side’, taken as a compliment rather than as a simple admission of dazed drunkenness, is double-edged to say the least. The clear implication is that de Burgh’s wife has, by means of a particularly strenuous cosmetic regime (the dress, the highlights) at last managed to transcend her innate ugliness. Even the song’s coda, ‘I never will forget the way you look tonight’, is utterly transparent. ‘Even as I cheat on you, abuse you, and finally dump you, I’ll bear in mind this one night on which you did manage to look presentable’, he might as well be saying.

De Burgh knows all this, of course. He’s far too clever a songwriter to be dishing out all this abuse accidentally. No, he wants us to see the awful insincerity of this ‘romance’, and his eventual decision to blatantly have an affair with his nanny only serves to confirm this.

Apart from the alcohol, the only positive feeling in this song derives from sex. It’s all about the look and, by implication, the shag to follow. De Burgh is in the position of a man who discovers that the attractive, if somewhat blurred, stranger he’s been eyeing up all night is already ‘his’, and that therefore he won’t be required to chat her up in order to get his end away.

The signs are all there, in fact - the colour red, the seeming stranger who is in fact already secured (paid for), even the dancing (a distinct echo of Tina Turner’s Private Dancer from a few years previously) - this is a song about marriage as institutionalized prostitution, as incisive as anything Germaine Greer has written (its theme significantly echoed in de Burgh’s subsequent affair, with a hireling).

How de Burgh must have cackled, deep within his Irish castle, to see his song hailed as one of the most romantic ever! The time has come to give this slyly subversive classic of post-feminist irony the attention it deserves.

Further listening: Patricia the Stripper (Chris de Burgh, 1976)