at this exact moment, instead of doing something productive, i’m in the middle of falling down a youtube hole, watching old Def Leppard videos. (i guess i can use the excuse that i have a cold, but this doesn’t account for the fact that i’m writing my second blog post this afternoon.) this band was hugely popular when i was little, and i wore the fuck out of my cassette copy of Hysteria. i thought lead singer Joe Elliott’s mullett was pretty dope. (my own adolescent mullet never even hinted at such great heights.) it took a while for me to actually notice that drummer Rick Allen was missing an arm, and i was amazed by his drum kit after i realized why it looked like that.

one thing i never really took enough notice of when i was young was how fucking weird they were. superficially, they’re just a high-level 80s-style butt rock band, and that was certainly how i consumed them (and later condemned them) when i was young, but if you actually, like, listen to their lyrics, it’s really strange. for example, the song “Armageddon It,” with its call-and-response chorus: “Are you gettin’ it?” “Armageddon it!” (sounds like “i’m a-gettin’ it”- get it?) is, essentially, nonsense, but i guess it sounds cool, at least. in one of the song’s verses, Elliott tells the person being addressed that “your finger won’t trigger the gun,” which is an odd way of saying they won’t pull the trigger. later, he accuses him or her of “[jangling] your jewels while you shakin’ em.” i have no idea what that means. doesn’t jangling, in this context, = shakin’? so is he saying this person is shaking their jewels while, um, shaking them? maybe it’s referring to a ‘jangling’ sound? 🤷🏻‍♀️

however, these examples at least make sense in terms of a rhyme scheme, trying to preserve meter and rhythm. the song “Let’s Get Rocked,” however, has some truly inexplicable diction choices. the title, to start with, is odd on its own, though it does allow the song to begin with Elliott growling suggestively “Do you wanna get rocked?,” which, at least, asks for consent, rather than proceeding to just go ahead and rock you, which is probably what you would expect from the era’s phallocentric rockers. however, as strange as that question is, the lyrics become more surreal as the song continues. the first verse begins with an assertion that “I’m your average, ordinary everyday kid,” a claim which is quickly undercut when, in response to his father’s demands that he 1.) mow the lawn, 2.) walk the dog, 3.) take out the trash and 4.) tidy his room, he responds that these things are “not my style,” exclaiming “Let’s get the rock out of here!,” which is gibberish (and which my first girlfriend and i used as a catch-all nonsense phrase inside joke). like all of their weird phrases (and phrasings), it almost sounds like something that makes sense, but it doesn’t. like all their weird lyrical moments, it seems like a non-American’s (they are British) misguided approximation of (some kind of) hip, rock n’ roll speak.

“Let’s Get Rocked” is also great because it has the corniest fucking video in history. it’s a super primitive computer-animated joint starring this weird bug-eyed kid who, i’m pretty sure, gets a blowjob from his girlfriend while driving, but kicks her out of the car (i guess?) because, unfortunately, she tries to put classical music on the radio, which “[isn’t] rockin’ and rollin’ and it really [blows his] groove.”

also, the kid wears these super creepy shoes that resemble Chuck Taylors, but also have a toe box with grooves that look like an articulated cartoon cat’s paw. basically, it resembles a person’s foot in a roughly equivalent way to how Def Leppard’s flights of lyrical fancy recall american english.

on the other hand, maybe i’m being too hard on Def Leppard, considering i can’t offer any explanation for what the hell Poison’s problem was. (they’re american, after all.)