the atomic punk

I heard the song “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” yesterday. Ever since then it’s been running through my head. Which — as you know — is awesome. Hey even if you don’t like the tune or the lyrics you must at least appreciate the effort it took to construct a City entirely out of a musical genre? It’s a Civil Engineering Marvel!

The Hoopla is Not Shown Here But Suffice to Say They Are Poised to Get Knee Deep In It

In any event, “We Built This City” has gotten dissed over the past few years. Blender ranked it the worst song of all time. Fine. But then, a few months ago, the coup-de-grace: Grace Slick went on a radio show and called it the “stupidest song ever written.”

Sorry Grace but that’s bullshit. I was about ten when this song came out and, let me tell you, we got knee deep in the hoopla motherfucker. For crying out loud it hit number one! That means either we were all idiots (uh, not bloody likely you ingrate) or Grace Slick is a coward. (That was a rhetorical choice, the answer is Slick is a coward). When the song was out she was knee deep — hell thigh deep even — in the hoopla. Now she’s like “I always thought that song sucked.” Lame.

If you read this page at all you will have deduced there are two things I like: Awesome Songs and Rad Shirts. And since this is an “Awesome Song” I’m gonna made a “Rad Shirt” to bring back the Hoopla love and, if possible, make Slickey look like a moron in the process.

First off, it’s pretty clear that if she hated the song this much she didn’t partake in the Building of the City via Rock and Roll. That means she left it up to her bandmates to Build the City By Utilizing Rock and Roll. And, if I were them, I’d be mighty pissed she’s been stealing cred for all these years. Thus:

The problem is this isn’t forceful enough. If you Built a City on Rock and Roll then you had to watch Grace Slick come along, toss in that “Knee Deep in the Hoopla” line, then rip your efforts twenty years later, you’d be angry. Real angry. I have to imagine that’s a dull ax that “You Barely Even Helped” isn’t going to grind. So let’s try a little more passion:

That takes care of Slick. Booyah! But what about all the other naysayers? The “critics” who stand on the sidelines, watch you construct this City entirely via Rock and Roll, write a killer song about it, then mock you? They should be proud, not embarrassed!

So I made this little design:

Okay, done.

Except…that last line kind of raises a question doesn’t it? What City was it? They sang this song in a LOT of cities and I’m nearly certain they didn’t build all them all. Frankly I’m 100% sure they built “THIS” City — Seattle — since that’s what they said when they played here. But if they go to New York or somewhere bigger they’ll probably want to make clear that by “This City” they mean a different, smaller City:

But this downplays the accomplishment doesn’t it? I mean they DID build a City for crying out loud. And evidently the only tool at their disposal was “Rock and Roll!” Guy like you couldn’t build a City on Jazz, Rap, Opera, Classical, and Mambo COMBINED! They did it with Rock motherfucker, no other genres required!

So what City was it? A little Interweb research indicates the City wasn’t MY City (Seattle). Apparently a non-musically inclined feller named Chief Sealth did that. Hmmm.

Well I’m not happy about this but that’s cool. Artistic license, I get it. In any event I feel obliged to make sure people don’t keep getting the wrong impression so here goes…

Okay I have attempted to be cool but this is pissing me off. I stood on the fucking 300 deck of the Kingdome and listened to them falsely claim they had built THIS City on Rock and Roll. I was like “Fuck Yeah, Seattle is the awesomest City in the World! It was built solely through the manipulation of Rock and Roll! No tools required!!!!”

Another cherished childhood memory destroyed. It was all a lie.

At this point I have no clue what fucking City Starship CLAIMS to have built solely by utilizing the musical genre popularly known as Rock and Roll but if they’re construction and planning skills are anywhere near as bad as their “honesty skills” you can bet it sucks I’ll tell you that.

Okay. It’s two days later and, after some rather extensive research into exactly What City Built on Rock and Roll was constructed by Starship, I have concluded that I don’t think they built a City at all. It was a lie.

Fucking assholes.

In the interest of full disclosure however I did confirm they were, in fact, “Knee Deep in the Hoopla.”

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UPDATE: The kids are getting knee deep I tell you what!