The interweb tells me than an idiom is "a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words". I'm not sure I agree with that - you often can figure out the meaning of an idiom if you sit and think about it.
"Raining cats and dogs"?
It's belting down; the rain is so heavy it's like small domesticated animals falling out of the sky.
"Sit on the fence"?
There's one field of opinion to the left, one field of opinion to the right - you can't decide which you agree with (or don't want to upset either field owner) so you sit on the fence in-between.
Regardless, having taught English to students of other languages, I will say that the preponderance of idioms in our language is one of many things that makes it so bloody difficult to learn (or to teach, at least).
All this is an introduction to a lazy new feature where I pick a random idiom and see how many songwriters have decided to steal it to make a tune from.
We begin... by going Nowhere Fast. And I guess we have to start with this one, a fine example of why (latter day crimes not withstanding) Morrissey should still be considered the greatest lyricist of his generation.
And when I'm lying in my bed
I think about life
And I think about death
And neither one particularly appeals to me
Girls At Our Best! (exclamation mark theirs) came from Leeds in 1979. They self-financed their debut single on their own Record Records label and it reached #9 in the UK Indie chart. It was later covered by The Wedding Present.
Girls At Our Best! - Going Nowhere Fast
A little bit of cowpunk next from Jason Ringenberg and his hot backing band...
Jason & The Scorchers - Gettin' Nowhere Fast
Still on the country side of town, here's a Fabulously Superlative singer...
Marty Stuart - Goin' Nowhere Fast
Some shiny new country next. A bit too polished for some of you hard-bitten cowpokes, but I like this kind of stuff in small doses...
And here's a gentleman who sounds like he should be in a country band - or the Waltons. It's Jim Bob...
Meanwhile, in New York City...
Joey Ramone - Going Nowhere Fast
Shoes were an American power pop band from Zion, Illinois. They were one of the first bands to be played on MTV... presumably before anyone started watching it.
Capital Cities come from LA. Hmpf. They should come from Washington DC.
Capital Cities - Patience Gets Us Nowhere Fast
And now, a little German beat music from the 90s...
Johnny No And The No-Men - Going Nowhere Fast
I did find a band called Nowhere Fast as well. They released a solitary album in 1982. That's the record cover at the top of this page. You can listen to all of it on the tube of you. I'm guessing they went...
You can finish that sentence yourself, I'm sure.
The phrase Nowhere Fast is an oxymoron, so it was bound to appeal to Jim Steinman who loves contradiction as much as he does hyperbole. This was one of only two Steinman compositions on the fourth Meat Loaf album, Bad Attitude, and naturally it's one of the best two songs on that record. It was originally recorded by Fire Inc. for the soundtrack of the rock n roll movie Streets Of Fire starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis and Willem Dafoe. The movie was an expensive flop, but it's got a pretty decent soundtrack.
Girls At Our Best! is one of the best singles ever made
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
DeleteSome good ones there and Old Dominion.
Touché.
DeleteAs an english teacher, don't you have your own way of defining an idiom?
ReplyDeleteI try not to take my work home.
DeleteI have a sabbatical post scheduled for June comparing the Girls At Our Best! original with the Wedding Present cover. I may have to go an edit it now, to add their exclamation mark!
ReplyDeleteBest to keep them happy.
Delete