Moxy Fruvous :: Music Musical Essays

Moxy FruvousFrom their earliest gigs as buskers (street performers) in downtown Toronto, the Canadian pop band Moxy Fruvous has attracted attention with an energetic blend of plastered harmonies and witty social commentary (Bush). The bands first album, 1994s Bargainville, highlights both these qualities, casting a skewed glance at topics ranging from delineation stores to the Gulf War. One of the discs highlights, Darlington Darling, examines blue-collar love and tells a tale of frustration, both economic and romantic.The first verse introduces the songs speaker, who works on an assembly line in an auto plant, where he slaps on plugs and distributor caps for Mercuries (1-2). However, we quickly discover that the speaker is unable n sensationtheless to afford the cars he helps to build, noting that I can drive. . . but this cars made for you (4). This point is underscored by the chorus. As the speaker says that hed like to buy a car or cars for his love, his wishes are countered by the economic realities of his situationId like to buy her one (Where you gonna get the money, son?). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .An Id like to buy her moreThan this blue collar can afford (5-6, 11-12).In the second verse, the speakers situation is contrasted with the case of a co-worker who is doing a pocketable better. Chipper down the line sycophantically plies his boss with egg nog at the company Christmas party (13-14). In return, Chipper gets a raise, which he social functions to ante up for a vacation cottage/love nest on Lake Scugog (a quite a unprepossessing man-made lake near Toronto)(Lake Scugog). Although Chipper is willing to let his coworker use the cabin for a weekend, the speakers girlfriend is working for more or less the entire weekend (16). Once again, the economic realities of the working class (weekend shifts) intermeddle with dreams of leisure and love.Also worth noting here is that, during the solo that follows the second chorus, the attende e can here a voice berating Chipper, telling him to shake back to work, you greaseball Apparently, flat toadying for the boss only goes so far, and even the better-paid workers are subject to verbal abuse.After the solo and another resort of the chorus, a final fractional-verse focuses on the speakers love. We learn that she lives half a mile from the cooling towers of the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, a nuclear causality plant near Toronto (Darlington).