Start Me Up and I'll kill you

The BBQ Pit
1

ARRRRGGGGHHH !!!

So Toronto, in its infinite wisdom, decided to throw a party to make everyone feel better after SARS. The Rolling Stones agreed to come and soon it became The Biggest Ticketed Concert Ever, estimated 450 000 people are gathering at a former air base in northern Toronto listening to a mad line-up of bands.

Yes, it is exciting. Yes, it’s great for Toronto’s tourism and the Alberta beef industry and all the people that are there having the time of their lives.

But as a news junkie I am really fed up with all the coverage - about 1/4 of the TV news this week (no exaggeration) has been on the Stones (not the concert, the Stones), plus the commercials, and for some reason they ALWAYS pick “Start Me Up” as the song to use. Well, I understand the reason. I love the Stones as much as anyone, I really do, no joke. Give me shelter, or Midnight Rambler, my Og, people, show some imagination ! Yes it’s a great marketing song but did you know that they released quite a lot of albums, with a correspondingly large number of songs? GRR.

So I’m at work, thinking about how nice it is that we’re hosting the Biggest Ticketed Concert Ever, and that my Stones-loving friend is having a great time right now watching it, and so on, and out of the office across the hall come the undeniable strains of

Start Me Up

making about sixty times this week that I’ve heard that fucking refrain. He is watching the Webcast (cbc.ca, in case you’re interested) and some stupid thoughtless asshole thought it would be a good idea to play

Start Me Up

during the set break.

Thanks a lot for ruining a great song for me, arseholes. This will no doubt be what I remember most about SARS.

(Related rants re: how there’s not a single band playing that I would like to see, even for $21, out of the twenty-odd “Mega Huge Amazing Bands” they’ve booked; how it seems there’s nothing else happening in the world because the Stones are in town - peace in Iraq and Africa, tranquility in Memphis, no one being tortured or illegally detained, etc; re: the money that has been spent on Mick and the boys and NOT on Caribana, a festival that will bring in many more out-of-town tourists; re: the transit mess faced by anyone with the gall to want to be in the northwest part of Toronto today; etc, will remain unspoken. That’s how SICK I AM of this fucking song !!)

I think I need to go home and get some sleep. It’s been a heck of a few days. Slow me down, I guess.

2

Just pretend it’s 1995 all over again and you’re at the Windows 95 rollout.

3

“You make a grown man cry”

4

#start me up, start me up and never ever stop#

5

I like Jagger’s inspired lift from Lucille Bogan’s raunchy “Shave 'Em Dry” right at the end as the song is fading out. No radio station ever catches it, but he says, clear as day, “You make a dead man come…”

:slight_smile:

6

My heroes have always been cowgirls.

Start me up, cowgirl? :wink:

7

What, and make cowgirl feel worse? :wink:

8

Well, I bought it up
Brought Windows home and tried to boot it up
But when I load it up
It says my memory is not enough
I’ve been runnin’ out
I need some extra RAM to fix me up
I have to cough it up
Open my wallet up, it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops…

9

I’m watching it right now on the tube as it is simulcast on FM radio. Darn good concert. I’m quite enjoying it. Sometimes you do get some satisfaction.

10

Steven Tyler does something similar in Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle.” On record, the line is “She turned to give me a wink/That make a grown man cry” but live, it’s usually “She turned to give me a wink/That make a dead man rise.” And I don’t think he meant stand up.

Sounds like a cool concert though.

11

Figures that I had to come to Japan two days before the concert. :mad: Oh, well. I feel your pain, cowgirl. I get sick of the media’s obsession with the cheval mort du jour, too.

12

Since reading this thread last night, I’ve had that wretched song stuck in my head. And I hate it. Thanks.

13

I’m with you, cowgirl. I think it’s really great that all those people had such a fantastic time, but I was also getting really, really sick of Stones “news”, TTC cancellation issues (I had to get to Yorkdale yesterday, which sucked more than anything ever), people trying to convince me that deep down I actually wanted to go (hell no), and yep, that song, over and over and over.

14

I agree with the Stones overkill - Stones, Stones, Stones, Stones… However, I can’t really share your indignation with the “Start Me Up” marketing overkill. The concert was conceived to help kickstart Toronto tourism again. Now how well it achieved that goal is open for debate, but the logical Stones song to use would be “Start Me Up”.

Toronto - Sympathy for the Devil… Doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi to it…

15

Heehee
“Sad Sad Sad” might have been a bad choice too.

But there are plenty of other great songs to pick from. I had no problem with them using that song for the actual marketing campaign, but radio stations could have been a little more creative and chosen other, equally motivating songs to stick on their playlist over the last couple of weeks. “On With the Show”, “Good Times”, or “C’mon Everybody” would have been just as good, I think, and would have at least mixed it up a little.