The Songs - Godzilla
This is another entry in my ongoing “Songs That Visited Me and Decided They Wanted to Stay” series. If you’ve enjoyed these reflections, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber. Just $5 a month — less than a pint of Guinness — helps me keep telling these stories, and I’d be deeply grateful for your support.
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OH NO
there goes Tokyo
Go Go Godzilla
Godzilla - Blue Öyster Cult
It’s only the greatest rhyme in rock and roll history. Those of us who write songs have been pissed off that we didn’t write this since the day we heard it. So clean. So economical. Dylan has spent decades chasing this rhyme, and despite his Nobel Prize, he NEVER found it on any of his cue cards. This is a lyric so important it required TWO lead singers to get it across. If the immortal riff to the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” has a lyrical equivalent, it is “oh no, there goes Tokyo”. Keith Richards would have woken up and written those words down, bro. These words distilled an entire decade, and if you don’t agree with me it means you’ve never sat glued in front of the TV during the Dialing for Dollars movie, awaiting the wanton destruction (and the gerbil races).
(I’m referring to the live version of the song here. It’s playing as I write this. The one from the record with the Grim Reaper on the cover riding a horse through what looked like a Star Trek backdrop. I bought this record when I was in 6th grade, and I assumed my life would always be as uncomplicated as Blue Öyster Cult made it out to be.)
