"T.V. Eye" is not about television, of course.
T.V. has a particular private slang meaning in Stoogesworld and to be honest, I would advise you not to look it up, it might subtly impair your enjoyment of the song as it has ever-so-slightly with me, which is a shame as it is a Top 10 all time rock song for me.
Somehow I've only just GOT around to hearing Los Microwaves, despite Barney Hoskyns going on about them in the NME back in the day.
They are None New Wavier that's for sure.
Yet another example of the very low status of television in the culture back then, compared to now.
From punkers to highbrows, all agreed that it was nonstop garbage, rotting your brain.
cheeky monkeys, going on Top of the Pops and taking the mickey out of it!
Gil Scott Heron obviously...
What else?
(Talking Heads being clever semi-invert the idea and in "Found A Job" have the characters making their own television)
"Damn that television, what a bad picture"
"Don't get upset, it's not a major disaster"
"There's nothing on tonight, " he said, "I don't know what's the matter"
"Nothing's ever on, " she said, "so I don't know why you bother"
We've heard this little scene, we've heard it many times
People fighting over little things and wasting precious time
They might be better off, I think, the way it seems to me
Making up their own shows, which might be better than TV
Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations
Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations
They've enlisted all their family
They've enlisted all their friends
It helped save their relationship
And made it work again
Their show gets real high ratings, they think they have a hit
There might even be a spin-off, but they're not sure 'bout that
If they ever watch TV again, it'd be too soon for them
Bob never yells about the picture now, he's having too much fun
Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations
Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations
They've enlisted all their family
They've enlisted all their friends
It helped save their relationship
And made it work again
So think about this little scene, apply it to your life
If your work isn't what you love, then something isn't right
Just think of Bob and Judy, they're happy as can be
Inventing situations, putting them on TV
(No quite the total inversion of rock convention as with "Don't Worry About the Government" but different than railing against the braindeath)
Most rock songs, the attitude to television is on the level of Network and Being There, or Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death i.e. typical highbrow "admass" critique of the brainwashing machine in the living room
Ironic in a way given that your highbrows like J.B. Priestley would have lumped rock'n'roll and youth culture in with TV, supermarkets, advertising, etc as part of admass.
Now, are there any pro-TV songs?
I have never clocked the lyrics to ZZ Top's "TV Dinners"
Mustn’t forget “Television, The Drug Of The Nation” by Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and “Channel Zero” by Public Enemy!
ReplyDeleteAs for pro…nothing that isn’t caked in irony. ”Coffee and TV” by Blur? How about “Satellite of Love” by Lou Reed?
One kinda-sorta paean to TV, especially if you watch the accompanying video, is Jesus Jones’ “Right Here, Right Now.”
My favorite lyric about TV is from “Tania”, Camper Van Beethoven’s song about Patty Hearst:
My beloved Tania
We carry your gun deep within our hearts
For no better reason than our lives have no meaning
And we want to be on television
David Lowery skewered a generation with that lyric.
Absolutely, I forgot about "Channel Zero".
DeleteI just read Joshua Clover's 1989: Bob Dylan Didn't Have This To Sing About book after his death and it's full of interesting ideas but strangely doesn't mention the one thing that always struck me as funny about the Jesus Jones song, which is that he's saying "right here, right now / there's other place I'd rather be" - but he's not actually "right there" where History is being made, he's watching on TV, far from the action, utterly vicarious.
It's a great song though, the only Jesus Jones tune I like.
I suppose now I think about it, much of the entire genre of hauntology is a tribute to television - spooky children's TV of the British Seventies, Public Information Films etc. The very name Ghost Box is a trope for the television.
Right! There’s supreme irony in saying ‘right here right now’ when you’re commenting on a world-historical event seen on tape delay. (I’m sure Joshua could have written 50,000 highly entertaining words on the subject, though, space permitting.) But I watched the fall of the USSR on A 13” RCA television in my bedroom and I can attest to the truth of that song and that moment. JJ got it right, at least in a documentary sense. I recall that’s exactly what it felt like. I just really, really hated those fucking painters hats.
DeleteIn the spirit of the Ghost Box comment, if you widen the parameters for TV tributes, perhaps mention can be made of Morrissey’s affection for British TV, manifested in a few sleeve images and interview remarks (e.g. Yootha Joyce, “Coronation Street”, etc).
Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star" seems to be accusing television of something or other.
ReplyDeleteIn that Liz Phair song on her second album, the line about doing it doggy style so they can both watch TV while they fuck seems to be implying some kind of decadence. Or at least a hollow relationship.
DeleteMeanwhile in televisual depictions of sex, they almost invariably choose positions where you can see both actor's faces.
Kubrick was an admirer of TV commercials. “With the editing, photography and...you know, I mean, eight frame cuts, just beautiful, and you realize in 30 seconds they've created an impression of something rather complex, and I haven't done it and no one else has...the ultimate way of telling its own story would have more to do with TV commercials than it does to the way they are presently told, the economy of statement and the kind of visual poetry.’
DeleteWhat would a Kubrickian 30-second televisual depiction of sex look like? If you got Madison Avenue’s best on the job? What positions? What close-ups? What precision editing to produce what effect? One thing’s for sure, the output could never be titillating, it would only be purely, embarrassingly, beautifully comic.