"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Music Tuesday: “Back on the Chain Gang” by The Pretenders

I came across this article where Chrissie Hynde of the rock group The Pretenders calls current young female pop stars, “sex workers.”   From the UK’s Daily Mail

She provoked fierce debate by saying it was her own fault for being sexually assaulted at 21.

And now Chrissie Hynde has waded into another contentious area – the overly sexualised nature of modern pop music.

In an obvious reference to scantily-clad stars such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna, the former Pretenders lead singer branded them ‘sex workers’ for selling music by ‘bumping and grinding’ in their underwear. The 64-year-old also accused them of doing ‘a great deal of damage’ to women with their risque performances.

Miss Hynde launched the scathing attack during a tense interview on BBC’s Woman’s Hour yesterday. She suggested that today’s provocatively-dressed stars are sending the wrong message about how people should view sex.

Miss Hynde added: ‘I don’t think sexual assault is a gender issue as such, I think it’s very much it’s all around us now.

‘It’s provoked by this pornography culture, it’s provoked by pop stars who call themselves feminists. Maybe they’re feminists on behalf of prostitutes – but they are no feminists on behalf of music, if they are selling their music by bumping and grinding and wearing their underwear in videos.

‘That’s a kind of feminism – but, you know, you’re a sex worker is what you are.


As I think about it, I don’t recall ever seeing Hynde dressed in a provocative outfit.  For a rock singer, she’s definitely on the modest side.  But she is absolute right.  I can’t stand what these female pop stars are doing.  Frankly I don’t even think they are that musically gifted.  If you have to expose yourself to get popularity, it ain’t because of the music. 

One place I do disagree with Hynde is on blaming women for being sexually assaulted by their dress.  There is never justification for forcing oneself on a woman, no matter what her condition. 

You can read the rest of the article for more details.  But I did want to post the closing paragraph.

 Miss Hynde, who moved to England in 1973, also said she regrets her hard partying ways and how they damaged her relationship with her parents. The singer has given up drugs, alcohol and cigarettes and now embraces a clean-living lifestyle.

Good for her. 

Let me take this opportunity to post my favorite of The Pretenders’ songs, “Back on the Chain Gang.”  I’ll also post the lyrics.  I’m going to ask a question on the meaning of the chorus section of the song.  I want to get some opinions.

Here are the lyrics:

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh
What hijacked my world that night
To a place in the past
We've been cast out of? Oh oh oh oh
Now we're back in the fight
We're back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang

A circumstance beyond our control, oh oh oh oh
The phone, the TV and the news of the world
Got in the house like a pigeon from hell, oh oh oh oh
Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies
Put us back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang

The powers that be
That force us to live like we do
Bring me to my knees
When i see what they've done to you
But i'll die as i stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart
They'll fall to ruin one day
For making us part

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh
Those were the happiest days of my life
Like a break in the battle was your part, oh oh oh oh
In the wretched life of a lonely heart
Now we're back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang

And here is the song.



While the Wikipedia entry on this song says it’s about the death from a drug overdose of the Pretender’s founding member and lead guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott, ostensibly the song seems to be about the memory of a failed relationship.  Nowhere could I find was it said that Chrissie Hynde and James Honeyman-Scott had a romantic relationship.  It doesn’t appear to be.  The lyrics are cryptic enough to blur both a romantic relationship and a friendship.

What do the chorus lines “Now we’re back on the train/Back on the chain gang” refer?  For the thirty-something years I’ve heard this song, for some reason I thought “Back on the chain-gang” referred to being remarried: wedding rings being links in a chain.  Suddenly yesterday while listening to the song I questioned myself and realized she means just what it means, a euphemism for convicts.  But then how does that fit into the song?  And what does being “back on the train” have to do with chain gangs?  It’s quite odd, and like the stanzas very cryptic.  I can’t seem to crack it.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

But what a great song this is.  The melody is so memorable, and melancholic.  It seems to capture a sadness with an angry undertone.  And the phrases are just superb, despite their opaqueness.   That first stanza in one succinct sentence captures the situation.  The verbs “hijacked” and “cast out” suggest powerlessness to forces beyond their control.  And the outside world entering their “house like a pigeon from hell” is superb.  And this stanza just captures the anger and bitterness: “But I'll die as I stand here today/Knowing that deep in my heart/They'll fall to ruin one day/For making us part.”  

6 comments:

  1. Yeah, she's awesome. I like Chain Gang and I'll Stand By You.

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    1. Glad you liked it. She's got quite a few songs that are top notch.

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  2. I remember her for singing "Smelly Cat" in the TV series Friends.

    God bless.

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    1. Ha, I just looked that up on youtube. That was funny.

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  3. No doubt you long ago found the answer to this question, but for the edification of those who like myself have stumbled across this page, the song was written during the troubled relationship that Chrissie Hynde had with Ray Davies (of the Kinks) and was recorded when she was about 3 months pregnant with their daughter. Their on-and-off relationship ended half a year later.

    At that time, the Kinks were at the height of the fame, and the Pretenders were achieving international success. There is little doubt that the “Chain Gang” is a reference to Hynde’s frustration over the unrelenting demands placed on her by the recording industry to keep producing records, the cognitive dissonance resulting from the capitalism of the her success versus her punk rock origins, and her despair over the corrosive effects that all this likely had on her life and personal relationships (including the disintegrating relationship with Ray Davies.)

    In a 2009 interview series “In The Studio with Redbeard” Hynde said:

    “In the early days we were full of enthusiasm and we wanted the same things … and everything was going well… i got pregnant … it seemed too easy ,,, I was with someone I was in love with …”

    She goes on to describe working on Back on the Chain Gang with James Honeyman-Scott. Then just a month before the song was recorded, the Pretenders fired bass player, Pete Farndon. Then lead guitarist, Honeyman-Scott, died of an accidental drug overdose.

    “… two days later jimmy’s dead … really suddenly, it went from everything to nothing … I was traumatized at the loss of my two best friends … I had to get on with replacing two members of the band … to replace my best friends …”

    Back on the Chain Gang took on even deeper meaning for Hynde, with the tragic deaths of her two friends and the urgent pressure to find new band members to complete the upcoming album.

    “I dedicated [the song] to [Jimmy] in some ways … Jimmy was a big admirer of Billy Bremner … when we had to record Back on The Chain Gang, well I knew that Billy was who Jimmy would have wanted to get in, so I didn’t need to think about it.”

    Ultimately, the song is perhaps not about a single person or event, but rather may be the emotional expression of a complex and turbulent time in Hynde’s life.

    http://www.inthestudio.net/online-on-demand/pretenders-learning-crawl/

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