Songs Where They Spell Stuff
Quickly: Flash back to your youth. Aside from ice cream, smuggled fireworks and the constant fear of being humiliated by one's so-called "friends", one of the few constants that binds us together was having to sing that damn song about that damn dog: and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O. On paper, it's sort of fun, and it's sort of educational. In practice, however, it was neither, a fact that even younger tots are often capable of grasping at some lizard-brain level of conciousness.
But for ages (since the 1950s, at any rate) songsters have been belting out tunes that incorporate the magic of spelling.
And whether you're a soul-singing power-momma or a small, effete grumbly guy, you're likely to tap into their power. But the question remains: Why do people keep singing songs where they spell stuff out?
To begin, it will help if we weed out the pseudo-spellers long lumped into the "songs where people spell stuff out" category.
Many have suggested that "YMCA," by the Village People, should qualify as a song where they spell stuff. But the wise would disagree with this assumption. The Village People aren't spelling a word. They're spelling an abbreviation, which is a very different effect. Many people, including the Department of Transportation, have made this mistake, so there's nothing for The Village People's advisory board to worry about too much. Also, while the song has a certain something, it's not as though any sort of spelling-song related creative leap was required to make it click; you can't very well have a successful pop song where "Young Men's Christian Association" is the principle peg for the chorus. More accurately: The Village People probably couldn't have. Someone else might have pulled it off.
"O.P.P." is another case of abbreviations being confused with words. For those still in the dark, the spokesman for the hit group "Naughty By Nature" reports that O.P.P. stands for "Other People's [Property]." If that's the case, there's no reason why we all shouldn't be "down" with O.P.P., as long as we treat it with respect and return it in the same condition in which it came to us.
John "Cougar" Mellencamp's "R-O-C-K in the USA" is harder to classify. Half spelling-song, half abbreviation-belter, "R-O-C-K in the USA" is, by dint of its first, spelled-out word, a real inhabitant of the spelling-things out micro-genre. Does it work as a piece of music? Regrettably, yes. But most mature listeners agree that "R-O-C-K in the USA" is wholly disposable, if stimulating to the adrenal glands.
Aretha Franklin, on the other hand, brings us an unambiguous and positive model for a spelling song when she belts out her battle-worn classic, "Respect." In essence, "Respect" can be viewed as the perfect spelling song: It's the one raging success housed within the tattered genre. When Aretha sings:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB*
we are rooted to the spot, and transfixed by the power of her voice. Each musically boosted letter is a nail through the heart, compelling us to focus on Aretha's voice with everything we've got.
Originally written by gifted songsmith Otis Redding, "Respect" is one of the first (and last) spelling songs to really get it right — the staccato, rolling cadence of the letters is defiant, strong and clearly intelligible.
While Redding nailed "Respect," other equally gifted songsmiths have been vexed by the challenge of the spelling song. Elvis Costello, for example, is arguably one of the world's best songwriters. His lyrics are infused with wordplay, sarcasm, venom, sweetness, politics and poetry — they don't fuck around. Of course, even brilliance needs to take a cat-nap from time to time, as it does when Elvis sings out on "I Stand Accused":
I stand accused of loving you
So guilty baby
Oh yeah
I stand accused
I S-T-A-N-D A-C-C-U-S-E-D
I stand accused, loving you
So guilty, baby
Oh yeah
It's possible that the spelling in this case is meant to drive home the song's central fact: Pop sensation Elvis Costello stands accused by you, the listener, of loving you. Yep: He's accused. By you. Of loving you. To bring this home, Costello wrote it out in all caps with dashes: I S-T-A-N-D A-C-C-U-S-E-D. This probably looked great on paper, or a cocktail napkin, or whatever Mr. Costello originally wrote on.
But when sung, the letters come in a hodgepodge of notes, and wind up as a confusing verbal blizzard. One essential bit of truth about spelling songs: You shouldn't try to spell out anything long enough to actually confuse the audience. Even "Respect" walks the line. It's much better to spell things like "R-I-N-G," "K-A-N-T," or "B-R-U-S-H."
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Similarly over the line is songwriter Stephin Merritt, of The Magnetic Fields.
When Merritt put together 69 Love Songs, he did the actual writing at a furious pace over a two-to-three- month period. He reputedly shat out songs at a rate that peaked at around 2-3 a day, an impressive performance for any songwriter, and a tremendous achievement when one considers that most of the 69 Love Songs range from good to terrific.
"Washington, D.C." is the spelling song of the lot, and it speaks for itself, in terms of quality:
W! A-S-H! I-N-G! T-O-N, baybee, D.C.!
W! A-S-H! I-N-G! T-O-N, baybee, D.C.!
Washington, D.C., it's paradise to me
it's not because it is the grand old seat
of precious freedom and democracy
no no no
it's not the greenery turning gold in fall
the scenery circling the Mall
it's just that's where my baby lives,
that's all
Right.
What happened? Well, some purists would argue that since Washington, D.C.'s eponymous letters are chanted, rather than sung, it gets off the hook — but this can't possibly be true. Spelling is the piece's central lyrical device, and it's clearly meant to be the crowd pleasing rallying point for a song that mostly just staggers along like a wounded musk ox trying to get down to the river to die.
The collapse of "Washington, D.C." isn't purely the fault of the talented Mr. Merritt. It's fair to blame the devil's tool: spelling. In song after song, chanted or sung strings of letters fail to bring the music together, or, worse, tear it apart.
Spelling songs are a fool's bargain. As the Pixies would say:
And as no one can really make out what that's all about it, we can take it as the final word: Spelling songs don't work, unless you're a big-ass black woman with an ax to grind. It's time for everyone else to move along.
