{"id":28625,"date":"2015-07-08T14:18:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T18:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=28625"},"modified":"2015-07-08T14:18:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T18:18:31","slug":"i-cant-escape-the-pina-colada-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/07\/08\/i-cant-escape-the-pina-colada-song\/","title":{"rendered":"(I can’t) Escape (The Pina Colada Song)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There\u2019s a lot to like in the 1970s channel they sometimes play at the Big Box. But then there\u2019s also \u201cEscape (The Pi\u00f1a Colada Song)<\/a>,\u201d which I do not care for. At all. Not even Peter Quill can make me like this song.<\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder if being forced to listen to this song twice a night at work doesn\u2019t violate some sort of OSHA regulation.<\/p>\n

\"Holmes\"<\/a>But I also have to admire Rupert Holmes\u2019 craft and achievement in writing this song. He created two characters who produce a strong emotional response. They become like real people \u2014 real, and really awful, shallow, narcissistic, horrible people. When they are reunited by their mutual betrayal at the end of Holmes\u2019 story-song it strikes me less as a happy ending than as a case of the punishment fitting the crime. These two awful people \u2014 the narrator and his \u201cold lady\u201d \u2014 deserve<\/em> one another.<\/p>\n

The story \u2014 if you are somehow blessedly unfamiliar with it \u2014 is like an uber-\u201970s inversion of O. Henry\u2019s \u201cThe Gift of the Magi.\u201d But where Henry\u2019s tale is about selfless love, Holmes\u2019 is about loveless selfishness.<\/p>\n

This provides us with an excellent case study for all of those lit-crit questions about authorial intent. Would it change my appreciation\/opinion of this song if I knew that Holmes\u2019 shared my dislike for\u00a0its protagonists? Should<\/em> that influence my response? Does it matter to the song itself whether its composer approved or disapproved of these characters?<\/p>\n

Consider the sheer cheese-factor of the music here. Is this a pitch-perfect satire of precisely the sort of music that someone like the song\u2019s protagonist would listen to? Or is this arrangement just the result of Holmes composing this song in 1979? If the former, does that make it in any way more listenable?<\/p>\n