Sunday, March 30, 2008

No Easy Street

Hey hey! I found an overtly asexual Psychedelic Furs song! Ever noticed how you know the A-sides of records (or the first half of albums) so much better than the B-sides? Maybe it's just me, but this song had been hidden in plain sight. Not as anthemic as "Love My Way", but intriguing nonetheless. Here are the lyrics, with the pertinent sections in bold, for you busy folk:

"No Easy Street"
by The Psychedelic Furs (From Forever Now, 1982)

9-9-9
the police don't come
here on easy street
all the boys in their blue suits
are lying in the heat
you got no reaction
coming down my hall
you had no attraction
for anyone at all
all the dogs are out today
running in the sun
back in the litter
the morning never comes
you got no reaction
knocking on my door
you had no attraction
for anyone at all
the day goes at the factory
i should be happy look at me
it's definitely no easy street
you got no reaction
coming through my door
you had no attraction
for anyone at all
i can see you in the plastic town
that an actor sees
i can see you stuck inside of this cage with me
you'll cry like a baby
you cry like a bird
you cry like a lady
you cry like a girl
on easy street
you'll cry like a baby
you cry like a bird
you cry like a lady
you cry like a girl
on easy street

Thanks to Urban Dictionary, I found out that 9-9-9 is the equivalent of 911 in England. I still don't know what the heck it means to "cry like a bird", although we all know that Prince was also able to view this activity.

As creepy as this will sound, an internet search turned up nothing on the band's sexual proclivities. Some individuals seemed to think Richard Butler, the Furs' frontman, is gay, but I couldn't find any evidence of that (as far as you can find evidence for someone's orientation on the internet). There wasn't anything about his sexuality on Wikipedia, although the W did say that he was married at one point and had a kid. So anyway, kudos to the Furs for being ambiguous. Perhaps the band just knew an asexual person and decided to write a song about her. Stranger things have happened...

3 comments:

Queers United said...

hey thanks for adding us to your bloglist, I will do the same =)

http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com

Ily said...

Thanks for stopping by, Q_U!

Lichen said...

Although it's more lack of feeling in the alexithymic sense than true asexuality, I can't knock a great song. Even better live!