HAIRSHIRT
Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery
|
HAIRSHIRT Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery |
|
Saturday, December 02, 2006Velveeta Jukebox, Part II: Go West Welcome to the second edition of Velveeta Jukebox, in which I take a look at some of the best of the best of the cheesiest. This week, we're looking at the only song on my list that comes from after 1989. It is one of the gayest songs ever recorded. Seriously, seriously gay. I don't mean that in the junior high, "Dude, that's fucking gay" sense. I mean that it's a Pet Shop Boys cover of a Village People song. That's, like, gay squared. The year was 1993. The World Trade Center was bombed; foreshadowing the cataclysm that would come eight years later. Cheers went off the air with a bloated final episode and a drunken cast appearing on Jay Leno, foreshadowing the craptacular Seinfeld finale that would come five years later. Michael Jordan retired, foreshadowing his unretirement that would come seventeen months and one embarrassing stint in minor-league baseball later. And the Pet Shop Boys recorded and released their version of the Village People's "Go West". This song is the lispiest, fayest song ever sung into a microphone. It makes PSB's earlier "West End Girls" sound like the Theme from Shaft in comparison. Which is fine and all, it's just not my usual cup of tea. I would guess that there were probably some "extended dance mixes" that were big on the club circuit, but I never heard them. I hate clubs and I hate dancing. This song has meaning for me for completely different reasons. In 1993, I graduated from college. I hadn't gotten into any graduate schools. I had no great acting work lined up. I hadn't made plans with friends to move someplace and take the theater scene by storm. I had no real idea what to do. What I did have was an uncle who lived in Phoenix. I didn't figure on hitting it big as an actor in Arizona, but I thought it might be far enough away from home that I could start to figure out how to do things on my own. (With the occasional help from my parents when I needed a car or help with the rent every once in a pathetic while.) I was scared, though. I'd never lived farther than forty-five minutes from my hometown. I'd never lived in a city larger than Kent, Ohio. I didn't have a job. I didn't have any idea what I was going to do. But, one day not long after I moved there, I heard "Go West" on the radio. And it reassured me. It came along at just the right moment to lift me up just a little bit and kind of tell me that getting out of Ohio and moving across the country might not be a fatal mistake. As it turns out, I hated Phoenix. I loved my uncle and I made a lot of friends there, but the city itself was just not for me. Too dry; too spread out; too conservative. But it was a first step on the long and twisty road toward adulthood. And I met the love of my life there, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. "Go West" is one of the songs that brings back good memories of my time in Phoenix. There are also "Leaving Las Vegas", "Loser", "Laid", "Screenwriter's Blues" and the entirety of Bjork's album Debut. Of all of them, though, only "Go West" is cheesy enough to earn a spot in the Velveeta Jukebox. Next time, we look at one of the greatest Christmas songs of all times, sung by a classic 80s band.
Comments:
I enjoyed this post. I must have read it 10 times over. I love it. I'm a friend of Punk Ass biker and I was clicking around his links and came across your blog.
I remember being at a Stryper show in the 80s and they sang their cover of Winter Wonderland which I thought was totally gay yet I loved it. Can't wait to read your next post on the 80's XMAS song.
Thanks, CU.
Gotta say, it's tough sounding macho while singing Winter Wonderland (although Ray Charles did a good job of it). I think if someone like, say, Clay Aiken sang it, he'd just burst into flames.
"Go West" is SO gay, my gay brother literally SKIPPED out of his gay wedding ceremony (which I totally supported and attended, by the way), arms locked with his gay husband, to this homosexual classic.
Yes, they could have chosen any song on this earth to skip gaily out of the church to, and they picked this one. Although, it was the Village People version, so perhaps the remake (never heard it) is more "hetero?"
# posted by
 : 3:11 AM
I've never heard that song. When I saw "Go West," I immediately thought of "The King of Wishful Thinking."
Post a Comment
|
|
|||
| . | |||||
