Monday, April 18, 2005

"Girls and Boys"

From what I can work out, this song is about androgyny, unemployment, dumbing down, sex as a commodity, holiday romances, sexually-transmitted diseases and the lack of original thought. It's a sneering look down the nose at the lumpenproletariat in the same way that Pulp's "Common People" isn't. I didn't think the class divide was quite as entrenched as this. Or perhaps it's not class. Maybe something else has taken over as the main yardstick in judging our fellow humans. Our aspirations? Our thoughts? Our sexual preferences? In any case, Blur were terrific observers and chroniclers of the Brit life in the same tradition as the Who and the Kinks were in their time. The song is vaguely hypnotic, perhaps suggesting the mindless follow-the-leader thing that the lyric suggests. And the chorus is sung with an uncomfortable amount of relish...

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