Pure Punk Picks
Baby Let’s Twist – The Dictators
“We’ll she used to be lonely. But she ain’t anymore. She was a teenage Madonna. But now her clothes are all torn.”
That was an early, punk fashion attire. Safety pins holding suit jackets and t-shirts together, popularized in England but originated in New York by Richard Hell.
“She’s got red lips, red lips. She’s got blood on her fingertips. She’s got red lips, red lips. But they ain’t the kind you wanna kiss. Oh, no. Oh, no.”
Maybe I have a dirty mind, like Prince, but I think it alludes to the lips of a vagina, that is red from abrasion. Why wouldn’t you wanna kiss a pretty girl with red lipstick?
Or maybe I think this way because back then, I was in a new wave original band with a female singer. She was diagnosed with nymphomania and sometimes had to go to the hospital because her vagina was inflamed from overuse.
I don’t think this is funny, I think it’s tragic. But the last I heard of her she was healthy and fine.
“She looks for love where the sun never shines. She’s crying- “I’m so strange, I’m so strange.”
Then she says the title of this song which is “Baby Let’s Twist.”
There’s a solo album by David Johansen, lead singer of The New York Dolls, from his first self-titled album and one that I feel is equal to The Dolls two albums. And there’s a song on it called “Frenchette” with the line, “I can’t get the kind of love that I want or that I need- so let’s just dance.”
I always thought that line was so great as, a lot of us, can’t ever grasp that idealized love or, in my case, have a preference that doesn’t fit easily into the normal sexuality. But the invitation to just go and have fun and make the best of it seems wise and true to me.
So when the female protagonist of this song invites us just to dance- I feel that’s the best, the most fulfilling thing that the most of us are left to do.
“I need love- one, two, three- ’cause I can’t fit into society.”
This song is about an abused soul, about a women who’s been harmed and is probably wasted. And I’d like to think this song has some compassion for her and perhaps hints at a happy redemption. Because I feel this song’s lyrics are too real and honest to believe it sprung from imagination. I feel the writer had a personal connection with this song’s main character.
The depression, the disillusionment, the pain caused by physical or emotional harm are fully displayed in this song.
But the joy, the desperate desire, the living through it all- the moment you can escape your past and celebrate in the joy of surviving through it, is present here, also.
Chubby Checker once sang, “Let’s twist again, like we did last summer.” And maybe this song invites us all to dance our misery away.
Let’s twist until the pain we’ve experienced in life is forgotten.
Let’s twist till we forgive the participants of the pain we’ve felt.
Let’s twist till we can move, freely, along the dance floor and forgive and forget and come to a peaceful resolution, just not with those who have harmed us, but more so, within ourselves.
So baby let’s twist? Will you dance with me?
This is great band with one of their best songs and I don’t mind however you move your hips or how red your lips may be. But I hope you realize that there is hope and light within the darkest regions of your battles, in the deepest regions of your pain.
Life is hard. Life will always be that way, whether you believe it’s through nature, or the Gods, or the “powers that be.”
So baby let’s twist! Let’s dance through out the night until our legs give out, our hearts give out and we expire. But our souls and spirit continues to shine through, and dance outliving us with all our best emotions and ideas and feelings that are everlasting.
Life causes us to stumble drunk and confused into the night, like the girl in the song, like we all tumble and fall in our lives, usually more than once.
But the music of this song, I guess I haven’t mentioned that! Is pure and true and strong, just like you are and you are stronger than life if you believe in yourself and you are certainly better than life itself.
So can I once more more invite you, entice you, ask you out to the dance floor?
“Let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist. Let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist. Let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist. Let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist, let’s twist.”
(Slimedog)
