Before The Cream Sets Out Too Long

It's Saturday. I'm at work. It's dark and stormy out. Red House Painters is playing. Jeesums, this is depressing. Fortunately I have just remembered this morning's earworm and it was definitely not any musical incarnation of Mark Kozelek (did you guys know he was in Almost Famous and Shopgirl? Random factoid of the day delivered. De nada.) In fact you could pretty much call Devo the antithesis of any of his bands, wouldn't you agree? So yeah, today's little ray of sunshine is, in fact, Whip It. I can actually trace this one back to the fact that I watched the movie Whip It! last night (hey, there's our pal Har Mar!) and even though this song was not featured on the film's soundtrack, you can see the obvious connection here.

So, according to an unnamed source (because it sounds more mysterious that way,) the meaning behind the lyrics actually has nothing to do with "whipping it," in the wink-wink-nudge-nudge sense of the word. In fact it was written as an imitation of Thomas Pynchon's parodies of limericks in the book Gravity's Rainbow. Wha? I don't know if any of you folks have tried to read Pynchon before (I confess to only have tried and not succeeded) but that changes everything about this song for me! They aren't making fun of sadomasochism, they're just making fun of overly egotistical "you can do it" poetry! DUH! I knew it had to be about something more lofty than beating it.

The video, however, totally went with the public perception of the song and was apparently inspired by a true story found in a 1962 girlie mag called Dude. Of course! Hence we have the beer-drinking, coral-loving, sex-obsessed cowboys with whips tearing off women's clothing in a bull pen. While wearing upside down flowerpots on their heads. Obvs this predates the FCC setting any rules for MTV. Cause those flowerpots are down right offensive.