Nothing wrong in liking a hit song with violent lyrics

A few weeks ago, while working out with my fitness trainer I heard a song on the radio for the first time this year called "Pumped Up Kicks" by the American pop group, Foster the People.

Granted, I am not much into what the younger than 40 generation listens to today, but I thought the hit song had a good beat to it and was the kind of tune people might dance to at a nightclub.

“’Pumped Up Kicks’ is one of those songs that blends something really familiar with something that’s very modern,” said the band's vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Mark Foster in an interview with Billboard magazine on www.songfacts.com. “It’s a song where you could lay on the couch and listen to it or you can get up and dance around the room to it.”

Like Amy Winehouse’s Rehab whose opening line “They tried to me go to rehab I said, “no, no, no” I could not get out of my head for a few days after she passed away in July, I soon found myself singing the chorus lyrics of Pumped Up Kicks and I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it although I am sure some of you might find the lyrics disturbing which go like this.

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Even as I write this column, I can’t stop singing those lines to myself.

If I had shed any disgust over the song's lyrics my reaction would have been the equivalent of that scene in "Easy A" (2010) where despite calling Natasha Bedingfield’s "A Pocket Full of Sunshine" “the worst song ever!”, Olive (Emma Stone) winds up singing it to herself several times one weekend while doing her nails and taking a shower.

When my trainer told me about the lyrics from "Pumped Up Kicks" had to do with a mall shooting that happened a while back, my only question to him was, “Which shooting?” If there was any controversy surrounding this song, I know I would have heard about it much like the controversy that plagued rock artist Marilyn Manson after Eric Harris' and Dylan Klebold’s killing spree at Columbine High School in April 1999 that left 13 dead, and 21 others wounded before the two killed themselves. It was argued that Manson’s music along with violent movies influenced the two shooters.

Trouble is I couldn’t find much proof while searching the Internet that the lyrics of "Pumped Up Kicks" had any connection to nor did I find it to be about the December 2007 Westroads Mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska where 19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed nine people including himself.

The only connection I can find with this song is the person’s name mentioned in the lyrics with plans of going postal is “Robert.”

"'Pumped Up Kicks' is about a kid that basically is losing his mind and is plotting revenge,” Foster told Spinner UK in a quote on songfacts.com. “He's an outcast. I feel like the youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated. It's kind of an epidemic. Instead of writing about victims and some tragedy, I wanted to get into the killer's mind, like Truman Capote did in In Cold Blood. I love to write about characters. That's my style. I really like to get inside the heads of other people and try to walk in their shoes."

I suppose I would have felt differently if the 2011 music video of the song, which boasts 24 million hits on YouTube's VEVO channel, actually told a four-minute story about a kid plotting revenge. What is shown, however, are clips of the band members having fun in and out of the recording studio.

The difference in the way I listen to music and what others might do is I listen to songs in hopes of being entertained. I don’t look up the lyrics from various bands to see if they are referencing drug use, sex and violence and then decide whether or not those songs are appropriate to listen to.

Hearing people analyzing a hit song’s supposedly dark lyrics makes me want to repeat the comment that Nick, the cynical drug dealing character William Hurt played in "The Big Chill" (1983) said to his college buddy, Sam (Tom Berenger), while watching a movie.

“You’re so analytical,” Nick says. “Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you.”

Songs like "Pumped Up Kicks" are not going to influence some disturbed individual to go on a killing spree. Chances are the person harboring those thoughts was already screwed up mentally long before they ever heard the lyrics.

To quote one woman’s comment I read on the Pumped Up Kicks Facebook page, which has over 11,000 likes on whether or not listening to this song will cause her to go off the deep end she wrote, “I love it! No change in behavior yet :p."

©9/29/11

Needless movie remakes NEVER replace the originals

If the release date of "Footloose" and "The Thing" fell on Friday the 13th instead of Friday Oct. 14, I would warmly welcome that day of bad luck in hopes both these movies flop at the box office.

If you don’t know already Footloose is an update of the 1984 dance movie that starred Kevin Bacon. "The Thing," on the other hand, is being called a “prequel” to director John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi, horror classic. Watching "The Thing" trailer, however, the film seems to have the word I most dread hearing these days, “remake” written all over it from the flamethrowers the characters use to battle the alien to the scene of the dogs being taken over by “The Thing” which was similar to a shot done in Carpenter’s earlier work.

If there is any difference between this one and the 82’ version, other than perhaps the filmmakers’ feeble attempts to out gross the other with computer generated visual effects is that this update features two female characters.

I don’t want to hear how excited young audiences might be about the "Footloose" remake featuring Kenny Wormald in the Bacon role as the young outsider who stirs up trouble for a farming community that has outlawed dancing and rock music and has his sights set on the daughter (Julianne Hough) of the town’s bible preacher played by Dennis Quaid.



Like "The Thing" trailer, I found the Footloose preview to be nothing more than an uninspired replica of the original’s characters played by Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer and John Lithgow. All right there is one difference between this update and the 1984 movie. The yellow Volkswagen beetle Wormald’s Ren McCormack drives has a black stripe painted on the side.

If there is any reason why I no longer get much joy out of reviewing, in many cases, it’s usually trashing movies, it’s that I have had all I can take of being subjected to 3D, franchise comic book movies ("Thor", "X-Men: First Class"), movies based on toys and games (Transformers and next Summer’s Battleship) predictable so-called real life stories that never happened that are shot “Paranormal Activity” style ("Apollo 18") and needless remakes of old films, many of which were already perfect to begin with.

Like Congress and President Obama who exhibit no redeeming thought processes on how to handle the country’s mounting debt, “Hollyweird” is in a deep dark creative slump they have no idea how to get out of. Like the nation’s rising debt, the number of unnecessary remakes “Hollyweird” has lined up is increasing.

Already being prepared are remakes of "The Black Hole" (1979), "Blade Runner" (1982), "The Bodyguard" (1992) "Carrie" (1976), "Dirty Dancing" (1987), "Firestarter" (1984), "Hellraiser" (1987), "Logan’s Run" (1976), "The Osterman Weekend" (1983), "Point Break" (1991), "Red Dawn" (1984 – already completed), "Total Recall" (1990), "Wargames" (1983) and what is clearly a huge slap in the face to director Sam Peckinpah, "The Wild Bunch" (1969).

This growing list makes me want to yell out the one-word Darth Vader uttered at the end of "Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" (2005) after being told he killed his wife that made Star Wars fans, depending on who you talk to, cringe.

“Nooooooooooooooo!”

There really should be some rules in place when it comes to remaking movies like waiting 40 years or more, if at all, before revamping a classic to make spending one’s money to see it justified. Look no further than the impressive remakes of "Casino Royale" (2006), "King Kong" (2005), "Ocean’s Eleven" (2001) "Scarface" (1983) and "True Grit" (2010) for examples.

Today’s remakes are nothing more than curiosity pieces where a majority of them are barely worthy of a total makeover. In a perfect world, I hope "The Thing" and Footloose suffer the same box office fates that befell this year’s remakes of "Arthur" (1981), "Fright Night" (1985) and the "Conan the Barbarian" (1982) reboot where audiences were smart enough to stay home. I was one of them.

Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening on opening weekend. I predict both movies will be successful because as P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute” and so long as there are young audiences stupid enough to waste their hard-earned money to see a redo, there will always be remakes.

So excuse me if instead of uttering the words Bacon’s Ren McCormack shouted out at the end of the 84’ movie at the senior prom, “Let’s dance!”, I’d much rather yell out “Fire!” inside a dark theater.

When it comes to movie remakes, I am reminded of a quote I came across on IMDB.com that Orson Welles once said should his black and white film, Citizen Kane (1941), be colorized by media mogul, Ted Turner.

“Keep Ted Turner and his goddamned Crayola's away from my movie,” Welles said.

If I made a movie as great as "Citizen Kane" (1941) today in a filmmaking world flooded with unnecessary remakes and an astounding lack of fresh ideas, my comment to the studios would be similar and I wouldn’t give a damn who I offend.

“Keep Hollyweird and their money grubbing hands off remaking my f-----g movie and come up with something original for a change damn it!”

©9/16/11