[MUSIC] Men Without Hats, "Pop Goes the World"

[rfmcdonald]

Whenever I hear of crises in the world, I think--inaccurately, given the subject matter--of the song "Pop Goes The World". What is it? I blogged last October about Canadian group Men Without Hats' hit 1982/1983 song "The Safety Dance." That was their biggest hit, arguably their only international hit of note. Their biggest Canadian (and, Wikipedia tells me, Austrian and Swedish and also Top 20 American) hit was the 1987 "Pop Goes the World". A low-resolution video courtesy of Unvevrsal Music is available at YouTube right here. The song alone is available below.

"RMR: Rick's Rant - Lest We Forget" (Watch on YouTube)

I'll be lazy and let Wikipedia tell a chunk of the song's story, available in full in the lyrics right here below.

The song very generally tells a story of "Johnny" and "Jenny," the two members of fluid musical group (both the members' instruments of choice and the band name appears to change throughout the song) on their quest for fame in the industry, though at one point the lyrics note that they come to the realization that they could make "more money on a movie screen." The lyrics imply that the fictional group's best-known single is, in fact, called Pop Goes the World.

Interjected in the narrative about Johnny and Jenny are more abstract (or less sensical) lyrics such as "One two three and four is five/Everybody here is a friend of mine/Whatever happened to the Duke of Earl?/Pop Goes The World".

It's at this point that the melancholy comes in to end the song.

And every time I wonder where the world went wrong,
End up lying on my face going ringy dingy ding dong

And every time I wonder if the world is right,
End up in some disco dancin' all night & day.

Johnny played guitar, Jenny played bass,
Name of the band is the human race.
Everybody tell me have you heard? Pop goes the world.

Johnny played guitar, Jenny played bass,
Ain't nobody couldnt take their place.
Everybody tell me have you heard? Pop goes the world.....

Maybe I'm not so wrong to associate this song with some sort of catastrophe in the world after all. Maybe I'm wrong only about the scale of said trauma.