Of Clowns & Babylon.

I have been resisting the siren song of the Blog for many years now, but I finally decided to stop being a jerk-off about it, so here we are. I'm not interested in introductory posts or anything like that, so let's just get right into this. I’m forced to listen to the young country station at work so I’ve decided to make the best of it by writing about some of the songs I hear. Here’s the first of what will hopefully be many more.

Zac Brown Band, “Goodbye In Her Eyes”

Apparently this is a pretty famous country band. They’ve won some awards and been nominated for many more. They are ALL OVER new country radio. Zac Brown looks like he could have just as easily taken the Fleet Foxes route, but he decided to go “Southern-fried” country rock instead. I’m not going to pretend like I know anything about any of his music. I’m solely interested in the shitty lyrics to a song that has been getting some pretty heavy rotation for the past few months, “Goodbye In Her Eyes.”

As you may have been able to guess from the title, this is a song about a woman who is no longer interested in the narrator. The lyrics are pretty average in their shittiness until we get to the second verse, which is opened with the following line:

“Sometimes I feel like a clown
Who can't wash off his make-up.”

So he feels like a person who is paid to entertain people who can’t remove the materials that are enabling the entertainment. The sentiment registers as fair enough, but the thing is how unbelievably earnest he is about comparing himself to a clown. But not just any clown. A horrifying clown who can’t wash his own make-up off. Under what circumstances would make-up be literally stuck to one’s face? The only scenario I can imagine is someone switching out the clown’s usual make-up with some kind of fucked up, altered non-removable make-up. Or if this same person (or some other person, whoever) snuck into his home and tattooed the make-up on his face while he was sleeping.

After thinking about this line for so long, all I can imagine is a sad little man whose only solace is the knowledge that he isn’t just a clown but also a human being trying to remove his clown make-up and finding himself unable to. He furiously scrubs his face but the make-up stays. He wails and howls and claws at himself. Frenzied, he tries to rip his face off altogether but only just manages to bleed a little. His whole body racked in sobs, he stops fighting and breathes deep and heavy. His face pulsates in agony. He has no idea what is happening and somehow knows he never will.

Then again, maybe the clown image is apt after all.

I wish Mr. Show was still around just so we could get a young country parody out of them, but it’s probably not even necessary considering the fact that this song (among many others) already exists.

But wait, there’s more. What I hadn’t really noticed before in the five hundred and eight times I’ve heard this song is the rest of the damn verse, which is completely incomprehensible to me. Either I’m entirely misunderstanding the reference or no one else has seemed to notice that this is weird. When I do a search on the particular line, all I seem to find are lyrics pages, Biblical articles that have nothing to do with the song, or Twitter/Tumblr posts of the lyrics by fans.

But anyway. On with the verse. After he waxes philosophical regarding the clown business, he apologizes for not being Prince Charming (what an oblique reference), but then he says he would trade a thousand Babylons to be in her arms. What the fuck does that mean!? (The verse wraps up with her love being like a tide. The most boring and easy metaphor for the motion of love, ever, but never even mind that.)

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY TRADING A THOUSAND BABYLONS FOR HER LOVE IS SUPPOSED TO BE IMPRESSIVE.

The actual line goes,

“But I would trade a thousand Babylons
To be in her arms tomorrow.”

WHAT THE FUCK? I can only conjure two likely meanings to Babylon here, either the Biblical city of sin or just a large city in general, and how the fuck does trading a thousand evil cities or a thousand regular cities to be with her tomorrow mean anything at all? When you say, “I’d give my right arm for Animorphs 48-51, plus a couple others, to complete my collection” that only means something because of how much you value your right arm. Is Zac Brown actually the most subversive country musician ever by suggesting that he values Babylon almost as much (but not quite) as the girl in question? How is this notion even remotely romantic? There is nothing personal about it, either, unless Zac Brown is the mayor of Babylon.

The structure of ridiculous image (clown), followed by trite, easy image (Prince Charming) being repeated with Babylon against tide almost actually seems intended, but that’s just another example of how much this song comes off as a parody of itself.

I just checked out the official video and I’m a little surprised to find out that there’s actually a circus theme to it, and there’s even a shot of a clown removing his make-up when that particular line is sung (or maybe he's supposed to be failing to remove it, it's hard to ascertain), but the video is completely irony-free (as far as I can tell) and the Babylon discrepancy is not addressed.

There’s nothing else of note in this song, but if you want to get depressed, check out some of the Youtube comments left by people who can relate to this heartfelt tune.