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I wish I was a prawn cracker
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 02:31 pmMy wife has a wonderful ability to mishear songs in such a way that they are actually improved. For example, the other day, while Fort Minor’s “Where’d You Go?” was playing on the radio, she asked, “Why do they keep singing about chewing gum?”
“What’d you mean?”
“You know … ‘I miss you so, seems like it’s been for ever, chewing gum.’”
I therefore responded with some scepticism when she asked me to search the Internet for a song entitled I Wish I Was a Prawn Cracker. Nevertheless, I dutifully typed the phrase into my search engine, and got nothing, thus proving that it is still possible to think of a sentence that isn’t archived in Google. Ever mindful of the subjunctive, I tried “I Wish I Were a Prawn Cracker”, with the same non-result.
Then a song came up on the radio: I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker. Aha. I vastly prefer “prawn cracker”, though. I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker is a nice little ditty, but it’s also rather silly; it would be improved by being made into an overtly silly song, and prawn crackers would do the trick. After all, a prawn cracker is about as likely as a punk rocker to be decked with flowers.
The main silliness in this song, however, is that not only does Sandi Thom conflate two cultural decades (1965–1975 and 1975–1985), she also seems to think that the second one was a glorious time—“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven,” and all that. To move from Wordsworth to the Sex Pistols, “Bondage Up Yours!” I was a teenager in the late ’70s, and believe me, they were crap.
Sure, “music really mattered” then. It mattered so much that listening to Genesis rather than Crass was social death. It tried to matter so hard that playing a diminished seventh was politically incorrect. It mattered so much that feminists refused to listen to rock because it was “sexist”, and chose instead to listen to reggae and soul. Heh.
It is also true that “record shops were still on top”. This meant that if you were a musician, you couldn’t just podcast your songs to anyone who would listen, you had a choice of crawling to A&R men from the big labels or trying to make sure your music (and hairstyles) mattered enough that some indie company would take you on. And contrary to popular belief, vinyl was not a good thing, at least not after the record companies started making records using recycled vinyl, which ensured that after a few playings, the sound quality was about that of a bootleg cassette (kudos to ECM and Deutsche Gramophon for resisting this trend).
Oh well, never mind the bollocks, it’s still a nice tune. I guess I’m just part of that “world that doesn’t care.”
“What’d you mean?”
“You know … ‘I miss you so, seems like it’s been for ever, chewing gum.’”
I therefore responded with some scepticism when she asked me to search the Internet for a song entitled I Wish I Was a Prawn Cracker. Nevertheless, I dutifully typed the phrase into my search engine, and got nothing, thus proving that it is still possible to think of a sentence that isn’t archived in Google. Ever mindful of the subjunctive, I tried “I Wish I Were a Prawn Cracker”, with the same non-result.
Then a song came up on the radio: I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker. Aha. I vastly prefer “prawn cracker”, though. I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker is a nice little ditty, but it’s also rather silly; it would be improved by being made into an overtly silly song, and prawn crackers would do the trick. After all, a prawn cracker is about as likely as a punk rocker to be decked with flowers.
The main silliness in this song, however, is that not only does Sandi Thom conflate two cultural decades (1965–1975 and 1975–1985), she also seems to think that the second one was a glorious time—“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven,” and all that. To move from Wordsworth to the Sex Pistols, “Bondage Up Yours!” I was a teenager in the late ’70s, and believe me, they were crap.
Sure, “music really mattered” then. It mattered so much that listening to Genesis rather than Crass was social death. It tried to matter so hard that playing a diminished seventh was politically incorrect. It mattered so much that feminists refused to listen to rock because it was “sexist”, and chose instead to listen to reggae and soul. Heh.
It is also true that “record shops were still on top”. This meant that if you were a musician, you couldn’t just podcast your songs to anyone who would listen, you had a choice of crawling to A&R men from the big labels or trying to make sure your music (and hairstyles) mattered enough that some indie company would take you on. And contrary to popular belief, vinyl was not a good thing, at least not after the record companies started making records using recycled vinyl, which ensured that after a few playings, the sound quality was about that of a bootleg cassette (kudos to ECM and Deutsche Gramophon for resisting this trend).
Oh well, never mind the bollocks, it’s still a nice tune. I guess I’m just part of that “world that doesn’t care.”
