Saturday 15 May 2010

What's my name?

'Sympathy for the Devil' is a fine song. On my lastest listen I was struck my these lyrics above all:
Tell me baby, what's my name?
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name?
Tell me baby, what's my name?
I tell you one time, you're to blame ...

Oh, who
woo, who
Woo, who
Woo, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Oh, yeah

What's my name
Tell me, baby, what's my name
Tell me, sweetie, what's my name

Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Oh, yeah
Woo who
Woo who
I'm struck only belatedly that Richards' excellent hooting in the background actually articulates the song's key question 'who?' -- and surely all the most interesting way of taking this question is not the obvious assumption that the lyrics play peekaboo with one answer ('the Devil'), but rather that we take this question seriously as framed. The speaker doesn't know his own name.

I've previously blogged, here, about my sense that in a way the profoundest and most enduring line in Blade Runner is Deckard's: 'how can it not know what it is?' That touches on something profound and far reaching about our place in the cosmos. I'm minded to read this song as being another iteration of it.

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