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three months pass...
eight years pass...
OK, here we go. I used to be in the military in 1979, I also played guitar and did drugs back then and I went overseas to the Philippines. My father served in WWII like most people my age so I can
somewhat relate to this song and I heard it quite a lot back then. So while I'm not Rick Neilson (The guitarist for Cheap Trick) I do think I get the meaning of this song and I did a little checking
on a couple of things.
"Mother told me yes she told me I'd meet girls like you
She also told me stay away, you'll never know what you'll catch"
This was a very common thing that parents would tell their boys (my parents told it to me) "Stay away from loose women or you'll catch the clap". I'm surprised some don't know this, it seemed quite obvious to me.
It was also echoed many times, much stronger, and even with old black & white movie projector films when I was in the military. "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?" was the name of one of them I think. STDs were quite rampant.
"Just the other day I heard a soldier falling off
Some Indonesian junk that's going round."
That first line is wrong, it is actually "Just the other day I heard of soldiers falling out". To fall out is to fall out of muster. Muster is like roll call when all the soldiers form up in lines and rows and are counted.
This happens on base every morning and when your company is reporting somewhere for duty. To fall out the way the song refers to means these soldiers were missing because they were sick. Why? because "Some Indonesian Junk was going round" Junk was a term used to describe heroin back then. So these soldiers were either high or suffering withdrawal symptoms from heroin. Indonesia was a big producer of cheap heroin back then. When you need a fix of heroin it makes you so physically sick you throw up so either way these guys were in no shape for duty and let me tell you, back then this was a big problem and in 1981 the military started a campaign to crack down on drug abuse. Many in the military were either sentenced to long prison terms and given dishonorable discharges if they were caught trafficking, or for lesser offenses they were given other than honorable discharges and lost all benefits.
"Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away"
Here is the chorus. The first line he is telling himself that mommy and daddy are all right because he's never seen therm like this before. They are acting weird and he's not used to seeing them this way. (because they are high)
The second line is 2 parts - Surrender, Surrender, means give into the fact that they are not the perfect examples of parents and although they tell you not to use drugs, they are hypocrites and use them themselves. The second part "but don't give yourself away" means don't let on that you know this and don't let them know that you do drugs yourself because you know that it won't go good for you anyways.
Father says your mother's right, she's really up on things
Before we married, Mommy served in the WACs in the Philippines
Now, I had heard the WACs recruited old maids for the war*
But mommy isn't one of those I've known her all these years
Thev WACs were the Womens Army Corp and the military would readily recruit people from the Philippines because they were a big help to the U.S. during WWII. The Philippine government allowed the U.S. to build a major naval base
allowing the U.S. to be within striking range of Japan. In the 70s when I was there in the Philippines there were hookers by the thousands because that was easy money and at the time 1 U.S. dollar was worth 8 pesos. That means our dollars were worth 8 of theirs. So getting a job in the military would mean striking it rich to their families without having to degrade yourself. The 3rd line was originally *"Now I had heard the WACS recruited old maids, dykes and whores." But it was censored and they took out dykes, and whores. Yes back then that was a big no no on the radio. So all you heard was "old maids" which really didn't make much sense because why would some guy want to start a family with an old maid or even a dyke for that matter? That leaves only a whore which again supports the first part of the song where "she also told me stay away you'll never know what you'll catch".
Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year?**
Everytime I got to thinking where'd they disappear?
When I woke up, Mom and Dad are rolling on the couch
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out
The first line was again censored. The original was "Whatever happened to all this season's murderers and queers?". As you can see these lyrics were not LGBT friendly and it was really a good thing these lines were censored or
this entire song would have been pulled and Cheap Trick would have suffered some backlash for sure. Here I think the kid is looking for some kind of distraction from all of the stuff going on at home. Something in the news he can
focus on and point to and say how messed up that is so he doesn't have to face his own parents. The second line is all too familiar. I myself used the phrase "Let's roll some numbers and figure it out" as a way to let my buddies know I had some weed and we could go roll a joint to get stoned while in the presence of strait people so they wouldn't catch on. Rolling numbers is rolling a joint, a number is another word for joint or if you are that out of it, yes a marijuana cigarette. Coincidentally, my generation was far from the first to use this kind of nomenclature. The next part "Rocking and rolling" was from the preceding generation that referred to sex as Rocking and Rolling, HA! Yes that's right, old blues songs that had lines like "rocking all nite long" were not talking about just listening to music. Rocking and Rolling was dubbed from a ship's movement on the ocean, get the picture? Then we come to the part where his parents "got my kiss records out". Now most of you might think "So what"? Well let me tell you something, back then a record collection was quite personal and for your parents to pull out YOUR records and start playing them, well that was sacrilege. To wake up and find your parents stoned and playing your records (which were your symbol of teenage rebellion) it would have just blown your mind. So the chorus "Surrender..." he's basically trying not to freak out. Just give it up already because you can't rebel against these people, you can't do anything to come close to freaking them out. They are just too hardcore.
And that is my take on this song. Hope you enjoyed it and learned something along the way.
― Zagan, Monday, 1 August 2016 15:11 (seven years ago) link