Completely off-base lyrical analysis

Cafe Society
1

Blue Jay Way is not, as common myth would have it, about Geo. Harrison having to wait for Derek Taylor. It is, in fact, a rather stirring bit anti-drug message set at an airport.

It is told from the point-of-view of an air traffic controller who, while high on drugs, caused the plane his friends were traveling on to crash in heavy fog while looking for a flightpath nicknamed “Blue Jay Way.”

The druggie, so spaced on that evil weed marihuana he can no longer think, blames his friends for crashing. The police have come to investigate the crash and are walking the tarmacadam, looking for survivors. They have yet to come to the horrible conclusion: A man was high in the tower!

These passages, like so much of the Beatles’ anti-drug ouvere, have two possible interpretations. Which one we pick depends on how much we truly know about the evils of narco-drugs:
[ul]
[li]The stunning light of realization has dawned on the addict and he is trying to come to grips with the enormity of his crime. It being “past his bed, I know” implies that he is ready to face the righteous punishment: Death by lethal injection. The fact that he would “really like to go” means that he cannot forgive himself and longs for death. “Soon will be the break of day” means he hopes for Divine forgiveness. The last line, about him still sitting on Blue Jay Way, means he knows he is doomed to Hell for smoking the devil’s weed. The chorus means that he is hoping for a miracle, for his friends to return, before he is sent to die.[/li][li]The addict is simply getting tired and wants to sleep in his own bed. He wants to go back to work tomorrow (“Soon will be the break of day”), most certainly while high. The last line implies that he has been brought down to face his crime, to help hunt for bodies, and simply doesn’t care. In this case, the chorus is an impatient and petulant demand for his friends to come to him before he is too tired to smoke devil-reefer with them.[/li][/ul]
Of course, as anyone who has seen the fine docu-drama Reefer Madness knows, the second is the only plausible explanation.

The Beatles, those clean-cut boys from Liverpool, proved their worth in the anti-drug crusade with this beautiful message about the evils of hemp. Imagine, if you will, a world where paper and, yes, even the clothes on your back are made of hemp. People would be ‘sparking bowls’ of socks! Rolling ‘joints’ of paper! The skies would be chaos!

-This message brought to you by the Lumber Cartel (TINLC)

2

CS.

3

I forgot about Cafe Society. I’m forgetful, damnit!

Hell, maybe it’ll actually get a response here. :slight_smile:

4

No, no, you’ve got it wrong. See, it’s about someone who’s dying and on his way to heaven, and his friends are dead, too, but they aren’t going to heaven, because “they’ve lost themselves instead” even though he “told them where to go.”

Got it now?

(Why is it that every off-base lyrical analysis involves either drugs or religion?)

5

Consider the song “Mickey” by Toni Basil. On the surface, a simple pop song about a girl’s unrequited love for a boy. But closer examination of the lyrics reveal the nature of the issue preventing their love; Mickey is gay.

Ask yourself why Mickey doesn’t respond to the singer’s open flirtation; Mickey for some reason doesn’t understand that he takes her by the heart when he takes her by the hand. The singer wants to go home with Mickey but every night he leaves her all alone.

Then consider how the singer describes Mickey; he’s pretty, a term most commonly used for a woman not a man. Or consider the meaning behind the words “guys like you”. What kind of guy is Mickey like? Perhaps a guy who likes guys? Maybe when the singer says she loves him too, the others she’s implying exist are Mickey’s gay lovers.

The most telling line is when the singer realizes the lengths she’ll have to go to to attract Mickey; she says he can give it to her anyway he can and she’ll “take it like a man”. What could this be except an oblique reference to anal sex?