Remember

Today's jam is "Remember". This one has a little more going on than what we've heard already, and is based on John's experiences in primal therapy (as I've mentioned previously). While the beat is quicker, the vocals are slower to arrive, creating a kind of dissonance within the song. It even induced a little anxiety in me while I was listening to it, because I had to wait for John to sing the next couple of words each time. Maybe I'm just impatient?

In the song, Lennon references the Fifth of November, a British holiday also known as Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night. Some people (myself included, at one point) assume that the purpose of the often-raucous holiday, celebrated with fireworks and huge bonfires, is to praise Fawkes as a hero, for nearly blowing up the House of Lords in 1605. However, people often burn effigies of Fawkes (and the Pope, in the past) as part of the event--the actual celebration is the fact that the king, James I, escaped the Gunpowder Plot with his life, and Fawkes was caught and hanged as a traitor to the crown. Unfortunately the holiday has been used in the past to persecute Catholics, a tradition that has luckily all but discontinued, but which still leaves its mark on many places in England.

Now, what all this has to do with the point of the song... that's beyond me. The only similarity I can see is the refrain, "Remember, remember", which are the first two words of the poem commemorating the night of the original attempted crime. The words sometimes vary here and there, but the version from V for Vendetta is essentially the same and possibly even slightly more poetic:

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

It's kind of a lot of explanation for what amounts to a passing reference at the end of the song, but it's an interesting historical tidbit nonetheless. Overall I'm neutral toward the song; I enjoy the beat and the music, but the delivery of the lyrics is somewhat taxing, and the lyrics themselves make a little less sense than I normally enjoy. It seems to be a general encouragement towards the listener to remember the past, but not get hung up on it.

In the end, I'm actually much more bothered by the fact Lennon got the second line wrong. The past tense of hang, as in "to hang a person" rather than to hang, say, a picture, is hanged. The person was hanged; the picture was hung. Grammar, people!

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Heard It Tally: 0

Songs Completed: 6