Aural Analysis: "California Gurls" by Katy Perry

Katy, my lady. (Yeah?). Now listen here, baby. (Uh-huh!). I had to listen to your stupid song three times today on my way from O.C. down to S.D. After being assaulted in this manner, I felt compelled to mount a counter-attack in the only way I know how: exposing the idiocy of popular culture by means of the ripping, mean-spirited satire that is ever the domain of those who receive an inadequate amount of sex from the bubbly, beautiful people described in your song and your video.

Here's the video. Watch it, if you've not done so already, if for no other reason than to see a woman strapping cans of whipped cream to her impressive breasts and blasting out a moneyshot of whipped cream all over an army of evil gummi bears, and then to try to carry on with a normal human existence after having been exposed to such imagery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwE-SLnLkqY

So greetings, loved ones. Let's take a trip into the stupidity of "California Gurls." My responses to the original lyrics are in brackets.

I know a place
Where the grass is really greener

[Really? Where would that be? Surely not Southern California, where we have water rationing and many of the lawns die during the summer.

Are you in Paradise City? Axl Rose said that the grass is green there, but I still haven't seen it with my own eyes.]

Warm, wet and wild
There must be something in the water

[You mean the water we import from hundreds of miles inland and upstate? Or do you mean the water we plunder from the Colorado river, sloppy seconds water that has flowed through six other states before it gets to California? Either way, this is a poor claim for California Exceptionalism.]

Sippin' gin and juice
Laying underneath the palm trees

[I somehow doubt you or the professional models in your video have ever done anything so ghetto or high-calorie as to drink gin and juice. At 252 calories per serving, you and your girls aren't going to be able to pull off your Daisy Dukes for very long if you were to drink Snoop Juice. More likely, I can see you drinking reduced calorie pomegranatinis and then spending an hour purging afterwards. See also: your silly video.]

The boys
Break their necks
Try'na to creep a little sneak peek
(at us)

[This is weird on multiple levels. First of all, how is it "creep[ing] a little sneak peek" if you are clearly making a sexual display of yourself? But then there's this notion that the boys are "break[ing] their necks" just to look at you. What the fuck, Katy Perry? Are you suggesting that your sex is overpowering that it causes people to VIOLENTLY DIE? I'm sorry, but I'm not really seeing this as a good thing.

Oh no! I feel a mind-rapingly hooky pre-chorus coming on!]

You could travel the world

[Thank you for your permission!]

But nothing comes close
To the golden coast

[In what respect? Sluttiness? I hear Singapore beats us out in that regard.]

Once you party with us
You'll be falling in love

[That's as may be. It's hard to ignore the hormonal demand to fuck you when you're practically begging for it. But it's been my experience spending the whole of my lifetime among California Gurls that it's relatively rare that the kind of women who figure in this sex fantasy will never love you back unless you're a producer, a director, or somebody who otherwise has six figures to throw around. So there's that.]

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

[Congratulations. You know how to fake an orgasm into an autotuner. Your Pentecostal parents must be proud, Katy Perry. Tell me, does that Jesus tattoo on your wrist ever itch or turn weird colors when you're doing stuff like this?]

California girls
We're unforgettable

[Well, that's for fucking sure. I can't go anywhere without stumbling over this song. Its simple major harmonies and insipid beats stick in my brain like barbed fishhooks.]

Daisy Dukes
Bikinis on top

[So, you're saying California is special because its women employ a fashion made famous by a character who was supposed to be from Georgia?]

Sun-kissed skin
So hot
We'll melt your popsicle

[Is that...is that supposed to be a metaphor for ejaculation? I think it is, but it has got to take the prize for the weirdest and dumbest double entendre of all time. And again with the weird violence; I don't know about the rest of the Y-chromosome havers in the world, but thinking about my dick melting off doesn't make me feel all that comfortable.

You're into S&M, aren't you, Katy? I feel sorry for Russel Brand. But I guess you met him by chucking a bottle at his head, so he must like it when you hurt him.]

Oooooh Oh Oooooh

[Now I'm envisioning you achieving that fake orgasm by strapping on stilettos and stepping on live mice. I like this image; it makes me not want to bang you so bad.]

California girls
We're undeniable

[Do you deny that I have devoted all of this previous blog posting to denying you? Hah! DENIED!]

Fine, fresh, fierce
We got it on lock

[While I actually appreciate the attempt at alliteration here, these lines have a couple of problems. First, that "sun-kissed skin" does not look all that fresh. Once California Gurls get exposed to about 30 years of golden sunshine, they start to sag and wrinkle like mountain hags. Of course, they then get botox injections to compensate, which makes them look like the plastic dolls they really are. Nothing comes close to the Golden Coast when it comes to presentations of surgical sexuality, I do grant you that!

Except Singapore, I guess. I hear they have some pretty wild things going on over there.

Also, to say you "got it on lock" makes sex sound like some sort of Xbox achievement. Don't do that.]

West coast represent

[Which West Coast are we representing here? The illusory one drenched in sex and smiling, or the one that I inhabit, full of bourgeois affectation and soulless pop media layered over racism and grotesque economic discrepancies and disappointment?]

Now put your hands up

[Yay, grotesque economic discrepancies!]

Oooooh Oh Oooooh

Sex on a beach
We get sand in our stilletos

[Oh, come on. Even the alien clone women of L.A. who represent an evolutionary leap forward into artificial life don't wear stilettos to the goddamn beach.]

We freak
In my jeep

[The lyrics site I adapted this from misquoted the lyric as "We freak / And we're cheap." Ho ho ho. As if that would be the lyric for this song.]

Snoop Doggy Dogg on the stereo

[Yeah, I'm sure you listen to "Murder Was the Case" and "Deez Nuuuts" on a daily basis.]

You could travel the world
But nothing comes close
To the golden coast
Once you party with us
You'll be falling in love
Oooooh Oh Oooooh

[Just one verse before the chorus now? Yeah, I know. Writing words is hard. Showing boobs and smiling like a naughty girl is much easier. And a much more effective way of selling records.]

California girls
We're unforgettable
Daisy Dukes
Bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin
So hot
We'll melt your popsicle
Oooooh Oh Oooooh

[The more I think about my dick melting off, the less sexy this song becomes. But again, anything that helps me not want to get blasted by whip cream from Katy Perry's tits is a valuable asset in my fight to not have my sexuality hijacked by Hollywood.]

(Snoop Dogg)

[Hey, Snoop Dogg! I haven't really been following your career since _The Chronic_, one of the finest examples of West Coast Hip-Hop of all time! How have you been, Mr. D. O. Double G?]

Toned, Tan
Fit and ready
Turn it up cause its gettin' heavy
Wild wild west coast
These are the girls I love the most
I mean the ones
I mean like shes the one
Kiss her
Touch her
Squeeze her buns

[Oh, I see. That's how you've been.]

The girl's a freak
She drives a jeep
And lives on the beach

[Didn't Katy rhyme "freak" and "jeep" and "beach" a few verses ago? You know, Snoop, I never took you for the sharpest of wordsmiths. Your style was always more contingent upon your smooth delivery and your creative use of the letter "z" more than intricate wordplay. Even so, I would think you would have a little more self-respect, as a veteran rapper, than to take your rhymes from a twenty-six-year-old white girl.]

I'm okay
I wont play

[You'd better not. I saw _Get Him to the Greek_. That Russel Brand is scary when he gets a few (thousand) drugs in him.]

I love the bait
Just like I love LA
Venice beach
And Palm Springs
Summer time is everything

[I hate summer in Southern California. Everything is hot, dry, and slathered in U.V. radiation and inaccessible sex. I guess that's not all Katy Perry's fault. But it is partially.]

Homeboys
Hangin' out
All that ass
Hangin' out

[Lyricism at its finest, folks.]

Bikinis, zucchinis, martinis
No weenies

[Did you just rhyme "zucchinis" with "weenies," Mr. Dogg? I struggle to come up with a coherent response to that.

Except that I might observe that, while according to the most recent data gathered in 1996, California did place second in national summer squash production (being edged out by Florida), and that fresh zucchinis are indeed available here during the summer months, the presence of zucchinis would hardly seem to be a defining feature for California. Zucchini tends not to factor strongly into local cuisine, being far more prominent in the dishes of Mediterranean countries and Mexico. I grant you that, according to Wikipedia, California was the most likely place where zucchini production was introduced into the U.S. (the squash having been taken from the new world, hybridized and selectively bred in Italy, and then brought westward back over the pond). Were you reading up on agricultural history while composing your lyrics, Mr. Dogg?

Or were you just coming up with a ricockulous rhyme for "bikinis"?

And what's with the "No Weenies" injunction? No weenies other than your own, I take it, the better to leave you with your sexual pick of all these fine, fresh, fierce females. But I am thinking that the nature of the "California Gurls" video engenders a response that will involve a lot of weenies, even if those weenies are only being used for masturbatory purposes.

Because it's PORN.]

Just a king
And a queen-ie

[Ugh. No comment.]

Katy my lady
(Yeah)
Now lookie here, baby
(Uh huh)
I'm all up on you
'Cause you representin' California
(Ohhh yeahh)

[Hey, Mr. Dogg, I'm representin' California, too. The underside of California; the after-image of glamor, what's left when the lights fade. Does that mean you'll be gettin' "all up on" me, too? I'd best bust out my Daisy Dukes.

Now bring that chorus back! It's like sugar being directly injected into your brain!]

California gurls
We're unforgettable
Daisy Dukes
Bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin
So hot
We'll melt your Popsicle
Oooooh oh oooooh

California gurls
We're undeniable
Fine, fresh, fierce
We got it on lock
Westcoast represent
(Westcoast, Westcoast)
Now put your hands up
Oooooh oh oooooh

Snoop Dogg:
(Californiaaa, Californiaaa)
California girls man
I wish they all could be
California girls
(Californiaaa)
I really wish
You all could be
California girls
(Californiaaa, girls)

Yeah, so that's "California Gurls." No matter how you might criticize it, at least it's not "I Gotta Feeling." It's got that much going for it.

Here are some other links to songs that, in my humble estimation, represent the Southern California experience in a far more musically adroit and psychologically realistic manner.

"Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwlogyj7nFE

"Californication" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlUKcNNmywk

"Parallel Universe" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fPYyoY49Bc

"Down Rodeo" by Rage Against the Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KEKL8fcvzY

"Like a Stone" by Audioslave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QU1nvuxaMA

"L.A. Woman" by The Doors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMVnEGcMsFs

"Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkPb4s0-QcI

"What I Got" by Sublime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc3ZrmhDN4

"Aenema" by Tool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCEeAn6_QJo

(Every time you listen to "AEnema," with lyrics like "Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA / The only way to fix it is to flush it all away. / Any fucking time. Any fucking day," a pop star goes to Hell! So put it on repeat.)

There are many more I might pick, but these will serve as a primer for quality Southern California music.

Also notable: this pitch-perfect gay tribute to "California Gurls." Gin and Juicy Juice! This is camp at is absolute finest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kelUCEcdO8M