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Song Analysis #36: Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls

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Title: ‘No You Girls’
Where to find it: ‘Tonight: Franz Ferdinand’ (2009, Domino)
Performed by: Franz Ferdinand
Words by: Alex Kapranos

Franz Ferdinand’s third album saw the band go – or attempt, at least – to go in a more dance-oriented direction, and ‘No You Girls’, the second single released from it, was a good indicator of this. Yet the song retained the smart arse, sleazy, leery vocal style we’d come to know from Alex Kapranos. You never knew whether to desire the man or detest him. Witty, yet with such simple lyrics, it’s ridiculously smart, and it’s been a live fan favourite ever since it’s seen the light of day. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s got the catchiest guitar line since their breakout hit ‘Take Me Out’. It’s so catchy, Kapranos himself is singing right along to it at the end. Yet, I think this inherent catchiness might just be taking away from the song’s take home message.

First, the words:

Verse 1
Oh, kiss me
Flick your cigarette, then kiss me
Kiss me where your eye won’t meet me
Meet me where your mind won’t kiss me

Flick your eyes and mine and then hit me
Hit me with your eyes so sweetly
Oh, you know you know you know that yes I love
I mean I’d love to get to know you

Pre-chorus
Do you never wonder?
No, no no

Chorus
No, you girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
You girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
How you make a boy

Verse 2
Oh, kiss me
Flick your cigarette, then kiss me
Kiss me where your eye won’t meet me
Meet me where your eye won’t flick me

Flick your mind and mine so briefly
Oh you know, you know you’re so sweetly
Oh you know, you know that I know that I love you
I mean I, I mean I need to love

Pre-chorus
Do you never wonder?
No, no no

Chorus
No, you girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
You girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
How you make a boy feel
How you make a boy

Bridge
Sometimes I say stupid things
That I think
Well, I mean I
Sometimes I think the stupidest things
Because I never wonder
Oh how the girl feels
Oh how the girl feels

Modified chorus
No, you boys never care
Oh no, you boys’ll never care
No, you boys never care
How the girl feels
No, you boys never care
You dirty boys’ll never care
No, you boys never care
How the girl feels

Oh, how the girl feels
Oh, how the girl feels

Now, the analysis:

I struggled for a long time on whether I wanted to do an essay about the topics explored in ‘No You Girls’, using it as one example for a broader piece, or just a straight-forward analysis. I’ve decided to do something in the middle. It all started from a couple weeks ago, when I woke up with the ticking of this song’s guitar line in my head. I thought it was strange that it should come to me all of a sudden. I don’t even own this album, so it’s not like a song that I had on repeat in my life at some point. But then I considered why I was thinking about this very song. I might be wrong, but I have a theory, which goes back to why I wanted to write that essay in the first place.

At the basic level, ‘No You Girls’ is about attracting the opposite sex, how such attempts at attracting are interpreted by the recipient, and what feelings are felt by the sender. Physics tells us “opposites attract”, at least when it comes to electromagnetic forces. As we all know however, love is never that simple. Even before you can get to love, you’ve got to make sure the other person is even receptive to the mere fact that you like him/her.

It’s easy to get lost in the chorus of ‘No You Girls’ because it’s oh so catchy, and I bet this was done on purpose. The rhythm of the chorus appears three times. The first two are identical and sung from the perspective of a man (Kapranos). But then you get to the end. Hmm. Uh huh. Has he changed sex? Because all of a sudden, he’s singing it as if he’s a woman. The words slightly change too. Genius, I tell you.

In the male versions of the chorus, he’s telling off a woman, saying, “no, you girls never know / how you make a boy feel.” I was talking to a good guy friend of mine and he was saying how true this sentiment was, that it’s not just the women who want the fairytale relationship, guys are not only capable but often think of relationships in such dreamy terms. As a woman, it never occurred to me to think this way, to think that a man might have similar hopes and dreams about relationships like us women. After all, most girls I know and I were brought up by our fathers to think that most men are not to be trusted and they only have one thing on their minds. Of course, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve met plenty of men / guy friends who don’t fit this profile (thankfully!), but I think the general consensus still is that men don’t feel about love the way us women do. I am quick to point out that all men are not the same, just as all women are not the same either. (Case in point: the female player.) Either way, ‘No You Girls’ gives you some definite food for thought.

When Kapranos assumes the female role, the words have now changed to “No, you boys never care / How the girl feels.” When the song was controlled by a man, he was telling a woman that women never seem to consider the feelings of a man. Now as the song is being sung by a woman, she is telling men that men don’t even get to the point of consideration. No. They just don’t care.

He gets to this point of changing from a man to a woman via the bridge, which comes across as playful:

Sometimes I say stupid things
That I think
Well, I mean I
Sometimes I think the stupidest things
Because I never wonder
Oh how the girl feels
Oh how the girl feels

It’s kind of adorable the way Kapranos is stumbling in his words. I think this was meant as also. This ‘stumbling’ is also apparent in the first verse, when he can’t seem to form a sentence and tell the girl he has his eye set on that he’d like to get to know her better (“Oh, you know you know you know that yes I love / I mean I’d love to get to know you“). It also reappears in the second verse, when he seems to confuse his needs with his feelings (“Oh you know, you know that I know that I love you / I mean I, I mean I need to love“).

In the bridge, he has a thought about what he says out loud and how he might come across to other people. But halfway in the middle of his thought, he realises this might come out all wrong. Or maybe what he really meant was the things he says – a direct product of the way he thinks – are the source of ‘stupid thoughts’ and he reaches this great epiphany. “Hey, wait a minute. I’m railing off about how women are always treating us men badly, being terrible flirts, etc. But now that I really think about it, I never wonder how the woman feels.” And really, what’s worse, being the male target of female flirting going nowhere, or being a woman whose man never truly considers her feelings? There’s no right or wrong here. Depending on the person on the receiving end, both can feel pretty rotten.

Yes, there’s sexual innuendo in this song, and I’m not going there. (If you see and hear it, you’ve probably already figured it all out for yourself.) What I find far more compelling about the song are two things: 1) the cocksure way it’s sung, even though Kapranos is complaining about female flirtation habits and how women turn on men (and presuming this is not at all accidental), and 2) the reversal of roles when Kapranos comes to realise that it’s not just the women who are at fault. Or maybe the word ‘fault’ is wrong: has this all been a big misunderstanding between the sexes?

And I like how this song goes there, to question both sides of the story. While ‘No You Girls’ won’t win any awards for provoking any great sociological debates, the lyrics alone allow the song to transcend normal pop song boundaries.

Lastly, the song, in promo form, as an over eyeliner-ed Alex Kapranos and co. serenade what appear to be pinup girls from the future. I guess he is as perturbed by the women as they are of him? Hmm…

Song Analysis #35: Maximo Park – Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry

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Title: ‘Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry’
Where to find it: ‘Too Much Information’ (2014, Daylighting /Co-Op / PIAS)
Performed by: Maximo Park
Words by: presumably Paul Smith

I’d waited 6 long years to see Newcastle band Maximo Park. I’d missed them 3 times previous: their 2008 American tour got cancelled; I couldn’t get in their Great Escape festival appearance in May 2012 at Brighton Dome; and the only other time I had known of them playing DC, I had the unfortunate luck of being in California for work and had to have one of the other writers in town cover it. Thankfully, they returned to our city on the 20th of May, they were amazing, I got to meet the band, and I also got to interview their drummer Tom for this ace feature.

‘Too Much Information’, their fifth album, is their most ambitious yet. There are still some songs on there that I don’t relate to and skip over when I’m listening to the album, but the dancey ‘Brain Cells’ and the reflective ‘Leave This Island’ are superb (I’m pretty sure the latter will be one of my favourite tracks of 2014). This one too is just superbly haunting. I’ve listened to it so many times, I think I’ve figured this one out, though other ideas keep swimming in my head on what else it could be about. And this is really good considering lyrically it’s a short song and repetitive. Just goes to show how great the songwriting is!

First, the words:

Verse 1
Near the Palace Hotel
Where you used to dwell
Engraved against your wishes
One of your greatest misses

You hope the ink will never dry
You’re fooling yourself
You feel set up
You’re telling yourself
You don’t believe in luck

Verse 2
On Princess Street
Where we used to meet
We knew not where we’re treading
Or how the dye will spread in
You hope the ink will never dry

You’re fooling yourself
You been set up
You’re telling yourself
You’ve done enough

Chorus
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me

Instrumental bridge / guitar solo

Final chorus / outro
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
I don’t know about you
but it feels good to me

Now, the analysis:

Instrumentally, the first thing about this song that will strike you is the Johnny Marr-esque guitars. I don’t know what to say if this isn’t a song written to thank the memory of the Smiths. Further, after having spent some time there last month myself, mentions of the Palace Hotel and Princess Street seem to indicate the song is set in Manchester.

Before I saw the lyric video the band released to go with the song, as a writer, I just assumed they were talking about a piece of writing that wasn’t complete or a situation with words, such as a relationship, that was left unfinished. Then you get the video (see bottom of this post) and the act of tattooing gives the word ‘ink’ an entirely different meaning. Hmm, okay.

I started to think about tattoos in history that have been “engraved against” someone’s “wishes”. Steers that are branded by their owner’s telltale marks; Holocaust victims with the numbers burned into their skin. The latter is why I’d never get a tattoo personally: why would you want to mark yourself voluntarily when people in our past history have been forced against their will to have these marked that they are ‘owned’, someone else’s ‘property’, or not a human being? These are very strong words in the song, which made me change my original idea of this being just a fluff piece about a relationship gone sour to one something far more creepy.

I’ve decided that I don’t think Paul Smith literally meant a tattoo but something that is mentally burned into someone’s life. To be fair, if you consider that verbal abuse can be as bad or worse than physical abuse, the thought of feeling like you don’t measure up can be pretty damaging to someone’s psyche, and this is the exact feeling I get in this song. There’s a mention of Princess Street being “where we used to meet”: Princess Street is one of the main thoroughfares of the city centre and the choice of using the action of meeting made me think one thing: this woman is a prostitute. She “used to dwell” in the Palace Hotel. Think about it, what kind of person tends to choose to live in a hotel? Someone who is an itinerant, someone who doesn’t want people to know what he/she is doing.

Why do I think this? The chorus isn’t gleefully sung – thankfully – and just insistent. “Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?” Something is difficult for her to get past. I just get the vibe that the voice of the song is one of her regular customers, having come into the city for his ‘usual’. He sees no problem with the transaction in a literal sense: “I don’t know about you, but it feels good to me.” To his credit, he recognises initially there was a question of whether what they were doing was right: “We knew not where we’re treading / Or how the dye will spread in”.

The man also recognises the woman’s own misgivings: “You’re fooling yourself / You feel set up” and “one of your greatest misses” (she knows she’s made a mistake with choices in her life). But what I find the most haunting is the repetition throughout the song “you hope the ink will never dry”: she doesn’t want this less than savoury lifestyle of hers to be the be-all and end-all of her life. To use the engraving metaphor again, she doesn’t want this to be her legacy, what will be printed on her tombstone. This is the part of the song that impresses me the most. I don’t know if men can relate to what ‘Lydia’ is going through, as I think us women have entirely different life struggles, because society dictates that we’re ‘supposed’ to be good wives, good mothers, good caregivers, although old societal norms that were present when my parents were young have now changed.

Girls no longer have to get married or have partners at all. This is a good thing in my eyes, as I am from a culture that still has to get with this program. Yet something that has become exceedingly, painfully clear after the Isla Vista massacre last month is that some men still look at women as objects, things to be ‘had’, and even though I’m not some bra-burning ultra feminist, thinking about things like this scares me a woman. A lot. I don’t identify with ‘Lydia’ literally because I haven’t had her experience, and I am thankful I have not. But what I can relate to is the feeling that as a woman, there are things that are ‘done’ to us by the men we encounter in our lives that leave emotional scars, scars that will never heal. Time will pass and we will get to the point where the pain no longer feels fresh. But the scars will always, always be there. Give that a thought for a moment.

Lastly, the song, presented in an unusual way: a way too devoted Maximo fan getting the lyrics tattooed – as ink, geddit? – permanently on her back. WHAT.

Song Analysis #34: The Wombats – Walking Disasters

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Title: ‘Walking Disasters’
Where to find it: ‘The Wombats Proudly Present This Modern Glitch’ (2011, 14th Floor Records [UK], Bright Antenna [US])
Performed by: The Wombats
Words by: Matthew “Murph” Murphy

Matthew “Murph” Murphy of the Wombats has been through a lot. It’s often said that artists have to suffer for their art. I’d argue that in Murph’s case, we’re lucky enough that he’s willing to share his experiences with us, from self-doubt to letting go and having a good time out with mates, from depression to the euphoria of being in love. In an interview with a magazine produced by CALM that I’m a contributor to, Murph chatted with our editor Rachel Clare about his battle with depression and his decision to give up anti-depressants, which ultimately led to the writing of the single ‘Anti-D’. ‘Anti-D’ seemed way too obvious of a choice for Music in Notes, so I’ve chosen something else.

I found their 2011 album ‘The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch’ particularly strong in its songwriting, taking Murph’s often introspective and often dark lyrics and pairing it with the kind of pop melody others only wish they could come up with. It spawned several well-performing singles including ‘Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)’ and ‘Jump in the Fog’. But for today’s analysis, I’ve chosen a less obvious track from the LP to chew on.

First, the words:

Verse 1
She used to get her kicks from a fall to the floor
But now she’s always wasted
A total looker, but she’s jaded
The kind of shivering wreck that I adore
I can’t offer you a rescue
I can tell you what I’d do

Pre-chorus
I’d tell my mother that I love her dearly
And tell my father that I need him back again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

Chorus
And flowers might wilt when we walk past
And self-help might help when it makes us laugh
Only finding questions in answers
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters

Verse 2
She only finds her love in a downtown score (store?)
Consumption makes her stronger
She’s the sweetest anaconda
The kind of lack of respect that I adore
I can’t offer you a rescue
But when you’ve lost all that you have left to lose

Pre-chorus
I’d tell my mother that I love her dearly
And tell my father that I need him back again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

Bridge
As sharp as a knife and as blunt as a wheel
You be my calm, I’ll be your pneumatic drill
And what we’ll never want, we’ll always need
Right now we need some pop psychology
To keep us upbeat

Pre-chorus
So tell your mother that you love her dearly
And tell your father you won’t lock him out again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

Chorus
And flowers might wilt when we walk past
And self-help might help when it makes us laugh
Only finding questions in answers
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters

Now, the analysis:

‘Walking Disasters’ is about coming of age and coming to a point of your maturity when you’re recognising your own bad habits as well as what you yourself can do in life to make changes for the better. The title is typical Murph self-deprecation, calling himself and his girl / friend “walking disasters”, as if every waking moment they live is in a cartoon world and every action farcical.

In verse 1, every single transcription I’ve seen online makes the first line out to be “She used to get her kicks from a fall to the floor”; I had always assumed it was “She used to get her kicks from the four to the floor”, as if the girl he’s speaking of was a dance music fan who used to go to raves. But maybe that’s just me and my synth-loving tendencies. Admittedly, with the words reading as “fall to the floor”, it’s more poignant, as if he’s watching her like a bystander to a train wreck. He wants to do something while she makes a fool out of herself, but he knows he can’t because he is every bit of a human catastrophe as she is.

He is sympathetic to her: “The kind of shivering wreck that I adore”; I find that particularly nice, as it’s usually us women who are doing the mothering in relationships, not the other way around. No, he’s being brotherly or even fatherly, noting she’s “a total looker” but what a shame “now she’s always wasted”. He’s also mature enough to recognise that even when she is sober and realises the error of her ways and what a mess she really is, it’s not his place to be that grounding influence for her and to take her on as a project. He offers up advice instead.

I’d tell my mother that I love her dearly
And tell my father that I need him back again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

In the pre-chorus, he offers up that surprisingly mature advice to a youngster that maybe you should listen to your parents and tell them that you love them, even if you grew up rebelling against all their rules. In a second and the final version of the pre-chorus, Murph sings, “And tell your father you won’t lock him out again”, which makes it sound like the girl comes from a broken home and her parents are divorced. I’m not entirely sure what “I will be your Freudian slip” means: Freudian slips are accidental slips of the tongue, and since he’s refusing to take her on permanently as a girlfriend (he has admitted he’s every bit of a screw-up as she is, so he can’t handle the responsibility), maybe he means they’re okay as accidental lovers?

And flowers might wilt when we walk past
And self-help might help when it makes us laugh
Only finding questions in answers
You and I are just walking disasters

The chorus strikes me as extremely witty, as does the later bridge. They’re going through life extremely jaded about what is up ahead for them (“flowers might wilt when we walk past”) and self-help is a joke (it “might” only “help when it makes us laugh”). Those are pretty immature, childish ways of thinking. But “only finding questions in answers, you and I are just walking disasters” allows the narrator to come to some conclusion, even if it’s not a perfect one. And I think that’s exactly the point: we are not perfect. As Morrissey sang in ‘The Youngest Was the Most Loved’, “there is no such thing as normal”. Questioning the answers and not just questioning authority (teenage rebellion) indicates personal growth and maturity.

In verse 2, more lyric confusion. Is it “She only finds her love in a downtown score”, as in getting drugs and getting high, or “She only finds her love in a downtown store”, she’s an incurable shopaholic? The next lines, “Consumption makes her stronger / She’s the sweetest anaconda”, seem to suggest the former. Even the use of the word ‘anaconda’ is very telling that another reason he can’t be with her is that she can be a snake at times. Ha!

As sharp as a knife and as blunt as a wheel
You be my calm, I’ll be your pneumatic drill
And what we’ll never want, we’ll always need
Right now we need some pop psychology
To keep us upbeat

The bridge is the other height of Murph’s droll humour here. “As sharp as a knife and as blunt as a wheel / You be my calm, I’ll be your pneumatic drill”: they are complete opposites, and even more confusingly, he’s given her the role of being the calm one while he’s the one wreaking havoc, which is the opposite of what we assumed he was at the start of the song: the voice of reason watching his friend get into trouble yet again on a bad night. “And what we’ll never want, we’ll always need” is a classic refrain from psychologists who bemoan modern society’s desires for things when they’re not needed, but lesser evolved humans can’t control their willpower and can’t tell the difference. “Right now we need some pop psychology / To keep us upbeat” is like saying to go turn on MTV and get all excited watching some stupid top 40 video that means absolutely nothing. He knows that is not the cure-all, even if when we were younger we certainly were encouraged to believe that by our peers and even by society itself.

A simple pop song? Hardly.

Lastly, the song, in stream form, as the song was never released as a single.