ADVENT CALENDAR OF FILTH
9. FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD – The Power Of Love
A close runner-up to Jona Lewie in the pledging-things-that-are-not-strictly-neccessary-now-are-they stakes, this. Holly Johnson’s love, unlike his voice, is strong and to prove it he will protect you from the Hooded Claw. Now, while there is an obvious parallel to be drawn between the Ant Hill Mob (useless) and Frankie Goes To Hollywood (useless) , this is still not a promise likely to impress anyone save Penelope Pitstop. The Hooded Claw is a man in a cartoon: he cannot come out and harm you and even a four-year old would not think otherwise. So what Holly’s ‘protection’ would boil down to is him standing in front of your television (probably with Ped and ‘Nasher’ as back-up) and stopping you seeing it in case the unconvincing cowled villain came on.
Thankfully Holly’s skill set runs to more than just protecting you from animated threats. He will also keep the vampires from your door.
Which is easy, really, seeing as they don’t exist. Had he pledged to keep the Goths from my door, we could maybe have worked out a deal, or in fact if he’d just agreed never to darken my door again with his bombastic hi-NRG arse. But no, vampires it is. I’d tell you about the rest of the song, dear reader, but I’ve never made it past that opening growl.
(“Claw”/”Door” of course was only one in a string of piss-weak Frankie rhyme crimes. In fact, rubbish couplets were something of a trademark for the lovable Scouse provocateurs. “When two tribes go to war / A point is all that you can score.”, in Eurovision perhaps, or maybe they were talking about the somewhat trite political ‘point’ made by dressing up two fat has-been actors in tatty rubber masks. And as for “Relax”! “Don’t do it / When you want to suck and chew it”. Is ‘it’ by any chance an Opal Fruit?? Now, I cannot speak for Holly Johnson, but I hailed a passing gay man and and was told that were chewing on the cards he would indeed say “Don’t do it”, relaxed or otherwise. Also it doesn’t scan. Shakespeare always managed to scan, and he didn’t even have Paul Morley to help with the words, did he?)