Tuesday, September 14, 2010

On the poor, dead Reynolds Girls

On the poor, dead Reynolds Girls

Pic shamelessly stolen from NeonbubbleHi! I'm pop music's Dr Fox, genuine doctor of popology. You may have heard of my identical twin brother - also Dr Fox - who is the current Secretary of State for Defence. When we get together, life's a BOMB!

Today, I am investigating one of pop music's most enduring mysteries. What happened to the most popular one hit wonders of the 1980s? I refer, of course, to:

The Reynolds Girls

OR WERE THEY?

The dynamic duo burst onto the world of pop in 1989 with their hit "I'd Rather Jack".

"I'd rather Jack," they sang, "than Fleetwood Mac". And fair play to producer and music mogul Pete Stock-Aitken-and-Waterman for shoehorning that reference to filthy sex in there, the "Fleetwood Mac" being much the same deviant practice as the legendary Cleveland Steamer, only with orange food dye. Hence the term "Tango in the Night."

Let us consider the song itself.

"I'd Rather Jack", by which they mean perfecting the Acts of Onan instead of engaging in the aforementioned "Fleetwood Mac". And who -frankly - would blame them?

But: To "jack" in the masturbatory context is the masculine term. We all know - if we had been listening in class - that the feminine is to "Jill".

Therefore, the title of the smash hit song should strictly have been "I'd Rather Jill", with the not-quite rhyming couplet "I'd rather Jill than spend the night in the Vatican with a priest called Phil".

Unless, of course, The Reynolds Girls were The Reynolds Boys.

The Reynolds Ladyboys, even.

Another of pop's mysteries solved.

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