A Case for Song: "Pretty Words"

[Jack of All Parades]

"Pretty Words"

I ask you nicely
Get my face slapped under wraps
What's going on precisely
Is there something wrong perhaps?

Surprise, surprise (surprise, surprise)
It's more like a booby trap than a booby prize
Civil disobedience from a soldier with a dirty rifle
You're loosening all the screws that hold the hinges of my life
Fat cats and army brats
Hep cats and dog tags pawing over girly mags

Pretty words don't mean much anymore
I don't mean to be mean much anymore
All I see are snapshots, big shots, tender spots
Mug shots, machine slots
Till you don't know what's what
You don't know what you got

Curious women running after curious men
Curiosity didn't kill the cat
It was a poisoned pen
But there's not much choice (it's Hobson's choice)
Between a cruel mouth and a jealous voice

Got back to London
Picked a paper from the mat
No words of consolation
Just cartoons and chitter chatter
Well well, fancy that
Millions murdered for a kiss me quick hat
No backbone, blood and guts
Better keep your big mouth shut

Pretty words don't mean much anymore
I don't mean to be mean much anymore
All I see are snapshots, big shots, tender spots
Machine slots, mug shots
Till you don't know what's what
You don't know what you got

As the father of three grown daughters I walk a very fine line these days- I can no longer guard them from the cruel vagaries of this world or the deliberate cruelties they may encounter as they live their independent lives outside of my household shelter but I cannot at the same time ignore them or quell my desire to protect them. One of my girls has an on again off again relationship with a young man that keeps this song front and center in my mind.

Its tone of disillusion and of menace is disheartening and frightening to this late middle aged father who at the time this song first appeared immediately felt the sting of its words as a young man dealing with women. I try to explain to my daughter that she has more than a Hobson's choice as she deals with men. Words as weapons, cruelty and misogyny, are not acceptable behaviors. The propulsive nature of the words in the lyric with their staccato alliterative m's with their menace only heightens my sensitivity to such behavior.

As I have aged and taken on parenthood this song has grown more pertinent to my emotional health. It, along with the album with which it plays a pivotal role, has become a primer for me about the traps of adulthood and the mutual dealings of the sexes. I have tried to introduce it to my daughters as a road map for their relationships with men. Respect is not a Hobson's choice.

[Poor Deportee]

Some poignant reflections, Chris. (It has always been a mystery to me why so many women put up with guys who are manifestly jerks. Perhaps this is one of the fringe-benefits - for men - of patriarchal narratives that condition girls to be insecure and under-valued).

As for the song itself, I fear that it brings only the following banal reflections from me:

1. Like many on Trust, it's got a very fine melody, with strong singing and playing. I always listened to it mainly as a pop confection and, frankly, never gave the lyrics all that much thought. Your post has forced me to rectify this mistake.

2. Notwithstanding your interpretation and your own confidence in it, now that I see them on the screen I'm not sure I really understand what the lyrics are about. The undertone of menace seems ultimately to derive from the recurring military references (culminating in 'millions murdered for a kiss-me-quick,' presumably invoking the cynical manipulation of war and death of short-term political gain). Seen this way, a good deal of the song may concern our collective inability to see past the propaganda ('cartoons and chitter-chatter'...'pretty words' such that 'you don't know what's what'). Personal relationships seem also to be part of this package, but if anything they're slightly underplayed here, at least to my ear/eye. I might even hazard a guess that the song is effectively about comparing the failure of the narrator's personal rhetoric ('I ask you nicely, get my face slapped') with the success of political propaganda. A theme straight out of Armed Forces if ever there was.

[Jack of All Parades]

This album has always had a particular and powerful hold on my imagination and came at a time in my life, when like the protagonist in many of the album's songs[and conceivably like the songwriter], I was drowning emotionally. Though not as sodden and demeaning as the character in some of Trust's songs, I was at an equal point where I was not happy with the way my life was going and how my relationships with the opposite sex usually evolved. This album helped to point me in a more positive direction emotionally. As such it was a primer. It helped to lead me to my wife and my life's best friend. And the pivotal song that did that was this one- it helped to pull the album together for me- that line:

Till you don't know what's what
You don't know what you got

was an eye opener. To this day I do not think EC was more honest, than in the material that made the core of this album, about how men, and women, treat one another. I will always contend that he is the best songwriter of the last part of the twentieth century and early twenty first century to deal with the foibles, fables, farces and fanticism of love. I remain convinced that this record was an epiphany for EC just as it was for me. Its brutal confrontation with human emotions is most bracing. It takes a strong stomach to really listen to it.

[Jackson Monk]

I haven't looked at the lyrics since I bought 'The Singing Dictionary' in the mid 80s and it's amusing how much I'd got wrong. I always assumed that he sang

But there's not much choice (there's not much choice (repeated)
Between a cruel man and a jealous boy

However, in my opinion one of my mistakes sounds better to me:

Furious women running after curious men......