Mark Foster's "Pumped Up Kicks" has been getting a lot of radio airplay - primarily on WXPN in Philly, the University of Penn station, and now its on the juke box and getting more widespread attention.
Foster originally called his band Foster & the People but the people got it wrong and called them Foster the People, and that stuck, and the girls seem to have having a hard time figuring out the lyrics so they can sing and whistle along.
So here they are:
Robert’s got a quick hand.
He’ll look around the room, he won’t tell you his plan.
He’s got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth he’s a cowboy kid.
Yeah he found a six shooter gun.
In his dads closet hidden in a box of fun things, and I don’t even know what.
But he’s coming for you, yeah he’s coming for you.
[Chorus]
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
Daddy works a long day.
He be coming home late, yeah he’s coming home late.
And he’s bringing me a surprise.
‘Cause dinner’s in the kitchen and it’s packed in ice.
I’ve waited for a long time.
Yeah the sleight of hand is now a quick pull trigger,
I reason with my cigarette,
And say your hair’s on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah.
[Chorus]
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
[whistling]
[Chorus]
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun…”
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”
While the upbeat rhythm belies the violent theme of the song, MTV removed the words "gun" and "bullet" from the chorus, which sparked a NY Daily News reporter to write:
There was a moment recently on MTVU, MTV's network targeted at college students, when the censorship of a music video totally bamboozled my 11-year-old daughter.
As we were watching MTVU one evening last week, up popped the music video for Foster the People's Billboard-charted hit "Pumped Up Kicks," a neat alternative rock song that happens to be a favorite of my daughter and me. (I'll pause to give some folks time to alert the Parents Television Council that I exposed this impressionable child to programming geared above her age level.)
Yes, there still are places to see music videos. MTVU is one. But it's not the best place to see them, according to my daughter.
Soon this audiovisual experience was wrecked when she noticed some of the lyrics had been wiped clean. The song, which is arguably about some form of retaliation, includes the lines, "You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun" and "You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet."
However, when the video aired on MTVU, "gun" and "bullet" were digitally blanked out. They weren't bleeped - the audio just went silent, albeit briefly. The video is mostly a concert performance and there is no acting out of lyrics and certainly no guns.
My daughter, quite quickly, was stunned.
"Dad, they cut that out?" she said after the second round of the digitally damaged chorus. "Why did they do that?"
I'm fairly confident she would have dropped a what-the-F-bomb had she been a little older.
Heck, I would, too.
What she had noticed, very quickly, was the quirkiness - silliness, perhaps, of the MTV censorship gods, who decide what to take out and what to leave in.
Reached yesterday, an MTVU spokeswoman said, "Our standards department reviews the content on our air and makes determinations on a case-by-case basis."
In this case, they might have been a little fast on the trigger.
Not complaining, mind you, but Rihanna sings about sex and how chains and whips excite her and that's just fine with the censor gods. Yet Foster the People's gun references get shot down.
In the middle of the day, the main MTV channel airs commercials for Trojan condoms - during a telecast of "16 and Pregnant," of course - and that's okay.
MTV's biggest show is "The Jersey Shore," where - well, you get the picture.
Foster the People's lyrics get dinged while airing on a channel for college students at night. Think about that for a second. Someone there believes the lyrics of that song are not appropriate for the future leaders of the world.
There are countless examples of conflicting messages within the MTV family of networks, no doubt.
When the video aired, though, I tried to be a good parent and make a moment that would leave Oprah proud. I figured I'd turn our shared viewing experience into a teachable moment. Based on past interactions with MTV staffers in the past, I tried to explain why I though MTV may have trimmed the gun reference.
She looked at me and paused.
"That's just stupid," she said.
This time, she was so right.
rhuff@nydailynews.com
Formed in LA in 2009 by Foster(vocals, keyboards, piano, synthesizers, guitar, programming, percussion), Mark Pontius (drums and extra percussion), and Cubbie Fink (bass and backing vocals.
Two live musicians, Sean Cimino (guitar, keyboard, synthesizer, and backing vocals) and Isom Innis (keyboard, piano, and backing vocals), also tour with the band.
When "Pumped Up Kicks" was first recorded, frontman Mark Foster played all of the song's instruments for what he thought was going to be just a demo, but the version he recorded ended up as the final version on Torches.[1]The song is about a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thoughts. Foster said, "I was trying to get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid."[1] He stated in an interview with KROQ-FM that the lyrics were written to "bring awareness" to the issue of gun violence amongst youth, which he feels is an epidemic perpetuated by "lack of family, lack of love, and isolation".
No comments:
Post a Comment