FugaziIn On the Kill Taker
I tried so hard to count the beats in this one to figure out where, exactly, it was 23 beats off. I figured that maybe it was at the end of the song where the feedback comes and the only "normal" music sound you hear is the snare. That's not it. So, for years, I figured the title came from "lazy band syndrome" where they just rearranged a previous title. Here, it would have been Two Beats Off from Repeater.
Then the interwebs came along. And I ignored it. Then the tubes got bigger, and I got an email address. Soon, the "net" was all encompassing, and even noted technophobic bands who all live in a house without electricity and eat only raw rice had their own websites. So did Fugazi. Every band that had ever sold more than 200 records also had a tribute site. It was here that I found a page where fans could give their interpretations of Fugazi's obtuse lyrics. Here I saw, for the first time, the Holy Grail of interpretations.
Y'see, Ian was talking about Magic Johnson (heh, it's a johnson that's magic) contracting AIDS, ostensibly from putting his peener in an infected roadwhore. Michael Jordan, number 23 himself, kept away from the hoo-ers by beating off in his hotel room while on the road. Get it? Further, it was consensus opinion on the site that this was correct.
The lyrics in question:
a name
i recognize that name
it was at the center of some ticker tape parade the lead story,
a fine example
a name,
a name
a name i recognize that name
it was at the center of some magnifying glass the lead story,
a fine example
a name,
a name
he used to pretend he was fighting some war somewhere
now everything depends on fighting some war
he never thought he'd be an exclamation point
a demonstration of his disease
a punctuation mark
a household name with hiv
still, it's just still sound
Yeah, I see that.
Okay, given the timing, I can buy the whole Magic Johnson (heh) angle, but I don't get the Jordan angle. Sure, 23 is his number, but so what? It also belonged to John Williamson, who's dead now. Why can't it be about him? Hell, JW had even had his number retired by this point. This could go on, but I'll end here with a little bit of posturing. Learn the lyrics, sure, but leave the interpretation alone. 'Cuz when you're wrong, you ruin it for everybody and lend the Colbert air of truthiness to the proceedings.
Bonus fun factoid from Wikipedia: IOTKT was the first Fugazi album to chart on Billboard, at 153.
