[dalinian]

Inspired by Emzi's excellent The Smiths critiques BB, I'm tilting at the windmill of the Thin White Duke, who has made much of his cut-up technique for assembling lyrics – so I hope he'll forgive my reverse engineering the process to create lyrical comments upon BB7, beginning with the 'Heroes' of yesterday's chip paper wrappings.

On the slime-ball Sleazer:

• "Fame, makes a man take things over / Fame, lets him loose, hard to swallow / Fame, puts you there where things are hollow"
• "So you train by shadow boxing, search for the truth / But it's all, but it's all used up"
• "A broken nosed mogul are you / One of the new wave boys / Same old thing in brand new drag / As ugly as a teenage millionaire / Pretending it's a whizz kid world"
• "I feel like a group of one, no-no / They can't do this to me / I'm not some piece of teenage wildlife"
• "You'll get chilly receptions everywhere you go / Blinded with desire – guess the season is on"

On the villainess disGrace:

• "And isn't it me, putting pain in a stranger? / Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash / If you want it, boys, get it here, thing / 'Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
• "In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch / Sashay on the boardwalk, scurry to the Ditch / Just another future song, lonely little kitsch / (There's gonna be sorrow) try and wake up tomorrow"
• "Something kind of hit me today / I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way / People will hold us to blame / It hit me today, it hit me today"

On Plastic coupledom – Imogen and Sleazer, disGrace and Mikey:

• "My-my / Smile at least / You can't say no to the Beauty and the Beast"
• "Sits like a man but he smiles like a reptile / She loves him, she loves him but just for a short while"
• "I, I will be king / And you, you will be queen / Though nothing will drive them away / We can be Heroes, just for one day"
• "We're nothing, and nothing will help us / Maybe we're lying, then you better not stay"

On disGrace 'saving' herself for Mikey:

• "I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years / Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years"
• "I shall always watch you until my love runs dry"

On Lisa's romantic predation of Pete:

• "I feel a-tragic like I'm Marlon Brando / When I look at my china girl"
• "And when I get excited / My little China girl says 'Oh baby just you shut your [f*ckin] mouth' "

On the disintegrating Plastics:

• "Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said / We are the dead"
• "Oh You Pretty Things / Don't you know you're driving your Mamas and Papas insane"
• "I found you out before you grow old / The pretty things are going to hell"
• "Fashion! Turn to the left / Fashion! Turn to the right / Oooh, fashion! / We are the goon squad and we're coming to town / Beep-beep!"
• "The Diamond Dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees / Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal / Beware of the Diamond Dogs"

On the lame-brained Imogen:

• "There's no sign of life / It's just the power to charm"
• "When I looked in her eyes they were blue but nobody home"
• "I am bored from the event / I really don't understand the situation / And it's no game"

On the mumblings of Mikey:

• "There's a brand new talk, but it's not very clear / That people from good homes are talking this year / It's loud and tasteless and I've heard it before"

On the melodramas of Thikki:

• "I'm in your way, and I'll steal every moment"
• "Now she's stupid in the street and she can't socialise / Well I love the little girl and I'll love her till the day she dies"
• "She began to wail jealousies scream / Waiting at the [diary room] light know what I mean / Scary monsters, super creeps / Keep me running, running scared"
• "There is a happy land where only children live / You've had your chance and now the doors are closed sir, Mr. Grownup / Go away sir / Boo, de boo, de boo, de boo dup"

On the sordid sorrows of Lea:

• "I've come on a few years from my Hollywood Highs / The best of the last, the cleanest star they ever had / I'm stiff on my legend, the films that I made / Forget that I'm fifty cause you just got paid"
• "You never do what you know you oughta / Something tells me you're a Devil's daughter / You're out there playing your high class games of sorrow / Sorrow"
• "See these tears so blue / An ageless heart that can never mend / These tears can never dry / A judgement made can never bend / You wouldn't believe what I've been through / And I've been putting out fire with gasoline"
• "Wear your wound with honour, make someone proud / Someone like you should not be allowed / To start any fires"
• "Fear's just in your Head / Only in your Head / So Forget your Head / And you'll be free"
• "Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car"

On the 'faith' of Aisleyne:

• "I'm tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien / Can't take my eyes from the great salvation / Of bullshit faith"
• "Prayers they hide the saddest view (Believing the strangest things, loving the alien)"

On Thikki, Lea and Aisleyne fancying Pete:

• "Oh, beautiful baby / My burning desire started on Sunday / Give me your heart and I'll love you till Tuesday / Da da da dum / Well, I might stretch it till Wednesday"

On the gyrations of Glyn:

• "Let's dance for fear your grace should fall / Let's dance for fear tonight is all"
• "There's a brand new dance but I don't know its name / That people from bad homes do again and again"

On the emptyness of Susie:

• "I never done good things / I never done bad things / I never did anything out of the blue"
• "Fame, what you like is in the limo / Fame, what you get is no tomorrow / Fame, what you need you have to borrow"

On the peregrinations Richard:

• "Watch that man! Oh honey, watch that man / He talks like a jerk but he could eat you with a fork and spoon / Watch that man! Oh honey, watch that man / He walks like a jerk but he's only taking care of the room / Must be in tune"

On the divinity latent within Pete:

• "I believe in the Power of Good / I Believe in the State of Love / I Will Fight For the Right to be Right"
• "Just remember / Lovers never lose / 'Cause they are free of thoughts unpure / And of thoughts unkind / Gentleness clears the soul / Love cleans the mind / And makes it Free!!"
• "He's so divine, his soul shines / His ever loving face smiles on the whole human race / He's got his eye on your soul, his hand on your heart / He says 'Don't hurry, baby / Somebody up there likes me' "

On the culture of back-stabbing:

• "Screw Up Your Brother or He'll Get You In the End"
• "Who to diss? Who to trust? Who to listen to? Who to suss?"
• "Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats / And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes"
• "I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people / Spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up"

On the BB experience from the inside:

• "All the nightmares came today / And it looks as though they're here to stay"
• "Time – He's waiting in the wings / He speaks of senseless things / His script is you and me boys"
• "We're today's scrambled creatures, locked in tomorrow's double feature / Heaven's on the pillow, its silence competes with hell / It's a twenty-four hour service, guaranteed to make you tell"
• "Don't set me free, I'm as heavy as can be / 'Cause I'd rather stay here / With all the madmen / Than perish with the sadmen roaming free"
• "Now your smile is wearing thin / Seems you're trying not to lose / Since I'm not supposed to win / All you've got to do is win"

On the BB experience from the outside:

• "Silhouettes and shadows watch the revolution / No more free steps to heaven"
• "I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision / And I will sing, waiting for the gift of sound and vision / Drifting into my solitude, over my head"
• "Was a way when we were young, that / Any man was judged by what he'd done / But now you pick them on the screen / (What they look like) where they've been"
• "Some make you sing and some make you scream / One makes you wish that [they'd] never been seen"
• "Where can the horizon lie / When a nation hides / Its organic minds in a cellar...dark and grim / They must be very dim"
• "The sniper in the brain, regurgitating drain / Incestuous and vain, and many other last names / I look at my watch it says 9:25 and I think, 'Oh God I'm still alive' "
• "Should I kiss the viper's fang / Or herald loud the death of Man / I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought / And I ain't got the power anymore"

And, in summary:

"He'll build a glass asylum
With just a hint of mayhem
He'll build a better whirlpool
We'll be living from sin,
then we can really begin

Please saviour, saviour, show us
Hear me, I'm graphically yours

[CHORUS]
Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo
Someone to fool us, someone like you
We want you Big Brother, Big Brother"

Companion threads also available:

• Oscar Wilde comments upon BB
• Albert Einstein comments upon BB
• George Bernard Shaw critiques BB
• Maya Angelou examines BB
• George Orwell vivisects BB
• and also The Smiths critiques BB by Emzi

[Electra]

Originally Posted by dalinian

On Lisa's romantic predation of Pete:

• "I feel a-tragic like I'm Marlon Brando / When I look at my china girl"
• "And when I get excited / My little China girl says 'Oh baby just you shut your [f*ckin] mouth' "

Hate to nitpick after all your hard work but it was actually Iggy Pop who wrote the lyrics to China Girl. Bowie wrote the music

[fleet]

Wow, you obviously have a lot of time on your hands.

[PC_Steve]

Did you know Bowie owned the land the original House was on in Bow.

[trinsk]

Very good... some could have been written for them! Love the vacuous Imogen one!

[man teef]

On Nikki:

"Ha ha ha, Hee hee, hee,
I'm the crying gnome,
Please don't vote for me..."

[winenroses]

Originally Posted by fleet

Wow, you obviously have a lot of time on your hands.

And if that's the case, hasn't the OP made brilliant use of it?

[winenroses]

Originally Posted by man teef

On Nikki:

"Ha ha ha, Hee hee, hee,
I'm the crying gnome,
Please don't vote for me..."

That's her I shall think of her like this from now on.

[Keyser Soze]

Excellent

[JTW]

Brilliant David Bowie is a star

[dalinian]

With the encouragement of a couple of FMs, I have persuaded one of the USA's most caustic wits to cast an eye over BB7: Dorothy Parker castigates BB.

[dalinian]

Should you tire of Russell Brand's low-brow lampoonary, and rather delight in pondering upon a more philosophical view of the Big Brother phenomenon, you're welcome to peruse Bertrand Russell analyses BB.

[Bobbity-boo]

Originally Posted by fleet

Wow, you obviously have a lot of time on your hands.

Wow, aren't you mean-spirited!!!

[rubberband]

"He's so divine, his soul shines / His ever loving face smiles on the whole human race / He's got his eye on your soul, his hand on your heart / He says 'Don't hurry, baby / Somebody up there likes me' "

I like this one on Pete.

[dalinian]

Originally Posted by fleet

Wow, you obviously have a lot of time on your hands.

Yes, thank you, I do. And from the latest in this series, Bertrand Russell analyses BB:

On compiling [GeniusName] [verb]s BB threads:

• "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
• "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."