Incidentally, some scholars think that the actual lyric is "Soul on the right side," but that just shows you that they didn't truly analyze the lyrics. Of course, in terms of genre, this music is clearly soulful, but it isn't so much "soul" that's on the right side here, given recent events, but "things in general." True, you could say that soul in a sense is ALWAYS on the right side, even by definition in the '70s, whether in Montego Bay or elsewhere, but such a theoretical lyric would still be a non-sequitur in this context and therefore unworthy the pen of such a consummate wordsmith as Bobby Bloom.
Okay, now, here's where the going gets rough, right? You see, the name Gillian conventionally denotes the female of the species, and yet the simile refers to the masculine "brother" of African-American usage.
Whoo! It sounds like we're about to have a Deconstructionist field day speculating about the lyricist's gender issues, right? (Some of you ALREADY have those tell-tale wry smiles on your faces: Aye, I see you guys out there!)
Well, I hate to disappoint you folks, but this lyric is simply transcribed incorrectly. (Everyone's like phooey! I know: I MYSELF was like phooey after I realized what was actually going on here.) I included this bogus lyric merely to make a point: You can't trust Internet lyrics sites. It turns out that every lyric site featuring "Montego Bay" has this line rendered in the same incorrect way, apparently because they each cut-and-paste the text from the same originally erroneous source!
How is it that I alone know that this line has been misheard? Well, aside from the fact that I'm a prestigious old professor who is paid to know such things (thank you very much, ahem, ahem!), it just so happens that I was alive during the initial success of the record in question, and I personally (personally, mind you) "moved to its groove," as 'twere, in the early '70s. Just ask my toes: they've been tapping to its beat since childhood! In other words, if I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times, and I assure you that the correct lyric at the point under discussion is:
And Gillian will meet me like a woman would.
Like a WOMAN would, not like a brother would!
What's more, there's nothing ambiguous about Bloom's enunciation at this point, making it clear that the various posters of these lyrics never bothered to actually listen to the song itself.
Anyway, trust me, the word is "woman," right? (I mean, jeepers!) "Like a brother would," indeed! Hah! Why would Gillian meet Bobby like a brother would?!!! Give us all a break here, all right?
So now, onward and upward.
And Gillian will meet me like a woman would.
I think I remember but it's twice as good.
Isn't that funny, how remembrance sometimes improves one's experiences? One thinks of the petite madeleine of Proust in this regard. I'm sure the pastry was a wonderful treat for the author as a child in Combray (indeed, one can hear Proust now: "Miam, mere, Miam ! J'en veux d'autres encore ! Oui, donne-la moi, mere ! Donne-la moi !" -- deserved a good whupping, did Proust, I shouldn't wonder, for such untoward importunity! Humph! As in, "Spare the rod, spoil the Proust"!) but the true ecstasy occasioned by the cookie-like treat was a function of the author's mature remembrance years later, when that fatal (so to speak) spoonful of crumb-filled tea came in contact (luckily for French literature) with the Proustian palate.
Of course, Bobby Bloom's reminiscences didn't involve anything half so quaint as a French pastry, as we discover in the next two lines of our song:
Like how cool the rum is from a silver tray.
I thirst to be thirsty in Montego Bay.
Can somebody say "wordsmith"? I don't know about you, but I can almost taste the rum (hmm, tastes like Demerara to me... probably 1975).
And what mind-blowing irony in the subsequent line: the lyricist "thirsts to be thirsty." This is not to say that "thirst" is to be regarded as the composer's Kantian summa bonum, for who in their right mind would ever literally want to be thirsty? Instead, the word "thirst" here does double duty, implying not just the condition of want but of its subsequent satisfaction through the drinking process itself. Notice, however, that the poet wisely avoids referring to "satiety" itself as the ultimate good, for when it comes to Satisfaction writ-large, it's all about the journey. Satiety itself (as every couch potato knows) is boring. One thinks in this connection of a few lines from a minor Hollies hit of the early '70s entitled "All I Need is the Air that I Breathe," which features the wistful reflections of a chap who (to hear him tell it, anyway) is, at that very moment, completely satisfied with life in every possible way:
"If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass,
Can't think of anything I need."
Is it any wonder that this latter song floundered so miserably on the Billboard Top 30? Let's face it: Satiety is boring! (The audience is like: So you're satisfied: So what?)
Ooh, look at the time.
Quick! Let's look at the last stanza.
I laid on the Lalo till I'm lobster red.
For those of you who regard me as an officious Mr. Know-It-All (aye, tell the truth and shame the devil, folks) you'll be glad to know that I have no idea what a lalo is in this (or indeed in any other) connection.
Hm, there's another topic for a term paper, by the way...
Most scholars assume the Lalo is a beach: you know, Montego Bay's answer to the Lido in Venice. Such critics suppose that Bobby Bloom is merely referring to his clumsy efforts to get a sun tan (noting here that Bobby, despite the obvious soul influence behind his gravelly blues, is surprisingly fair of skin, perhaps even "white," if we are forced to adopt the stinting nomenclature of today's divisively binary vocabulary for such human differences).
Henry Fiddleman of Oxford recently wrote a very interesting paper suggesting that "the Lalo" is actually a boat! (Only imagine.)
One prominent scholar has even suggested that Lalo is a person -- but we're not even going to go there today. Suffice it to say that such a risqué interpretation flies in the fun-loving face of the song as a whole, and if accepted, would throw the whole composition out of what we professors like to call "aesthetic kilter."
Yet another scholar argues that a "lalo" is a kind of lawn chair.
But I digress.
*A team of American etymologists at the University of California has subsequently come up with what appears to be the definitive explanation for the term "lalo" as it appears in the lyrics of the song "Montego Bay." The researchers were recently poring over an old British slang dictionary when they discovered the term "lilo," meaning an inflatable raft. From this, they developed the theory that the word "lalo" is simply Bobby Bloom's "quaint pronunciation" (as they call it) of the word "lilo." According to lead researcher Moe Howard, "The answer was right under our noses all this time. As in, ah-choo, babe, you know what I'm saying?!" Henry Fiddleman however continues to stand by his "boat" hypothesis, insisting (rather peevishly, by most accounts) that "Trust me, the man is saying 'lalo' okay? As in 'Lalo' with a friggin' A!")
I still feel the motion here at home in bed.
Ah! Maybe Henry Fiddleman has a point. Surely, Bobby Bloom wouldn't "feel the motion" if he had originally been laying on a mere beach (unless of course there were an earthquake, which must be rarer than hen's teeth in Jamaica). Maybe he got that sunburn of his on a boat after all, aboard the Good Ship "Lalo"? (Unfortunately, this latter line has also been used to argue in favor of the "Lalo as person" theory, but unless you've got some new evidence to show me, you'd better not write me any term papers on that subject, because like most modern-day eggheads, I'm simply not buying the arguments that have so far been floated. For starters, this hypothetical "Lalo" person must have been suffocated by the time the sun-burned Bobby Bloom finally stood up! Moreover, the proposition of laying "on" a person scarcely sounds very romantic. Laying "with," yes; laying "on," no.)
I tell you it's hard for me to stay away.
You ain't been till you been high in Montego Bay.
I should imagine it WOULD be hard for Bobby to stay away, with such friends as Vernon and Gillian. Mind you, he'd better get some aloe vera on that back of his toute de suite. And the next time he lays on a Lalo (what or whoever that is), he'd better set an alarm clock so that he doesn't overdo it.
Nevertheless, the conclusion is clear: Bobby signs off wholeheartedly on the whole idea of Montego Bay. (In other words, mom and dad: Bring the kids, all right?) In fact, one might say that the singer has driven the point home in the very MG provided by our friend Vernon in line one. Remember? Good Vernon? nice Vernon? GENEROUS Vernon?
Of course, in the '80s and '90s, scholars were particularly critical of the word "high" in the final line, cynically taking it to be a drug reference and upbraiding Bobby for (as researchers Biddlebaum and Finsley notoriously put it) "this gratuitous plug for nihilism." Then again, in the '80s and '90s, scholars were particularly critical of everything. There was simply no living with most of them, in fact. As for the "nihilism" business, that's just plain poppycock. Since there is no other line (indeed, no other WORD) in the entire song that supports this jaundiced interpretation, we are obliged (if only by the philosophical dictum of Occam's Razor) to prefer the simplest explanation available, namely that this word "high" should be taken to convey a generic ecstasy whose "content" is nothing more nor less than the feelings previously evoked by the song itself, which, in the words of philosophers Ren and Stimpy, is nothing more nor less than "happy, happy, joy, joy!"
The end!
Whoo! Eat your heart out, Jacques Derrida!
Of course, this all assumes that the word (or name) "Lalo" doesn't have some sinister hidden meaning that essentially gainsays my whole cheery analysis.
But until such time as a certified authority (or at least somebody with a really big dictionary) weighs in on this subject, I think we can give this Bobby Bloom classic a big (if provisional) thumbs up!
Questions?
Right, off you go.
Oh, and next week we deconstruct the Carl Douglas classic "Kung Fu Fighting." (Remember? Oh-ho-ho-ho....! Hah!) There's no homework this week, but I do want you to prepare by merely contemplating the following question: Who exactly WERE "funky Billy Chin" and "little Sammy Chung"? (The answer might surprise you!)
c.2010
Brian Quass, Alexandria, VA USA
