This week’s theme for the Old School Friday meme is ‘Too Hot For Radio’. If you never listened closely to the lyrics of my pick for the day you wouldn’t have realized that the Police classic, Roxanne, was a song about a prostitute. The refrain, “you don’t have to put on the red light” refers to the way legalized prostitution is done in Northern Europe.
Sting and the boys would, no doubt, have walked through the red light districts in certain countries, at least out of curiosity, and noticed how the ladies of the night would pose in brothel display windows – yeah, like human manequins in a department store display – and turn on their red light in the window to indicate that they were ready for business.
Unfortunately the group known as polydorclassics who is apparently responsible for all of the Police’s YouTube material has disabled the embed feature so click on this YouTube link to listen to Sting try to convince Roxanne to give up her career of selling her body to the night.
Check out Villager, Mrs. Grapevine and others to see what they chose to carry you into the weekend. Click on her OSF MEME button on her menu bar across the top in case you’d like to see the rules for joining in the meme. Enjoy.
Did you get the participants list to work for you? Nice pick btw, in college we used to play a drinking game where you took a sip each time they said “red light”
I peeped the “get the code” link on Mrs. Grapevine’s site and I’m waiting for Mr. Linky to finish registering me. Thanks for checking and for commenting.
You’re right. You’ve got to listen to Sting lyrics. “Roxanne” is about a hooker and “Every Breath You Take” is about a stalker.
Yes, I’m a Police to Sting fan. Enjoyed your post.
Marty – thanks for stopping by The PopArtDiva Blog and commenting on my Smothers Brothers/Pete Seeger pick for the Too Hot For Radio theme.
Your pick was a great choice for this week – I did click over to YouTube to listen to the video though it’s a shame they disabled the embedding.
Happy OSF to you!
I knew what the song was about, but I didn’t realize it was so political. I just thought he was talking about one particular girl, not a whole movememnt.
@ Verite:
It sounds like a stalker song to me. That song was always kind of haunting, but it’ so good.
I knew Roxanne was about a prostitute, but didn’t know Every Breath You Take was about a stalker…I learned something new today!
I used to be quite fond of the Police…very nice choice…
The Police – classic. I still love them to this day. Saw them during their tour and wow Sting and the boys did the damn thing!
Happy OSF.
Verite:
I never listened to Every Breath You Take that closely. Didn’t know it was about a stalker. I thought it was a shy guy too scared to talk to a girl. Now I’m going to have to find a lyrics link to see what was going on with dude (LOL).
PAD:
I read your post the other day, I’m going to check out the video link today. Glad you clicked over the Police link. I’m beginning to find a lot of my old YouTube embed code disabled or videos removed completely. I guess the industry is getting more serious about us bloggers and our video post features.
TC:
Did they do it up for real?!
Marvalous and Grapevine:
Me too on the stalker lyrics. Those dudes had smoothe groove and jammin’ beats though.