So much of the “found audio” in their music makes me curious about its origin. But none more than in this song, particularly the central section in which an FBI-type narrator seems to describe to underlings their quarry (that’s how I interpret it anyhow):
This is such a fascinating description. If it is from a fiction film or TV show (as is most of their audio), something like Dragnet, it’s unusually vivid. I almost wonder if it is from a newscast or something, about a real fugitive; but Googling this description only seems to pull up references to the song.
Returning to Jackson Browne, this must be the most film directors in one verse:
He worked for Walsh and Wyler with the chariot and sword
When he rode out in the desert he was quoting Hawks and Ford
He came to see the masters and he left with what he saw
What he stole from Kurosawa he bequeathed to Peckinpah
When this thread started 8 years ago, someone mentioned Blue Öyster Cult, but not that they include the unusual word purposeful in their metal anthem Godzilla, of all places.
The Judybats song “She’s sad she said” contains the line “Her beautiful arse, cantilevered over a table of hors d’oeuvres”. It is not everyday you hear the word “cantilevered” used in a song, or even casual conversation.
*Tell me off in a letter, completely ignore me.
Gettin’ high off of saying why you don’t adore me.
I’m well-versed in how I might be cursed,
I don’t need it articulated.
*
And, almost two years previously, their “Back Street Girl” has nonchalant. Mick playing with French-derived words, to give an air of haughty refinement to these first-person characters: respectively, the Devil and a fellow who likes to keep his working-class second girlfriend in her place in the shadows.