Tone-deaf Europe makes American music something to be appreciated

Published: Monday, September 28, 1998

Monday, September 28, 1998

COLUMN: Foreign idea of song, dance jarringly clashes with

its breathtaking surroundings

A passionate, life-affirming madness surges through the cobblestone streets of Barcelona, pulses beyond the aching blue shores of Mykenos and jolts the icy fog that hovers in the valleys just below the Swiss Alps. This rich European energy finds fuel in the red wine of France, sharp Schnapps shots of Austria and hearty Weiss beer of Prague. It tears through the souls of travelers touring from afar, shredding their very senses in such a way that leaves many to vow never to return to their native shores again.

Until they turn on the radio.

If I have to hear "So Horny; horny, horny, horny" while dancing next to some sweat-drenched Spanish guy twice my age in pants three times as tight as my own one more time, I will give birth to a heifer. And, no, the conundrum, "What's it Gonna Take For Me to Turn You On?" wasn't really coursing through my mind as I nursed a Pilsner alongside a red-nosed barkeep at an oak-furnished dive in Prague.

But the cake-taking musical memory of my entire dreamy overseas adventure came in Greece. Here, at 4 o'clock in the morning, a meaty Italian guy "wooed" me with the World Cup theme song, "Here We Go; Ole, Ole, Ole" as I held onto his chest from the back of a moped while attempting to locate my hotel room.

Zipping up and down Grecian hills in the warm morning air, he repeated the brash, poppy chorus. Again and again. In his not-so-romantic Italian accent that hacked the grating melody in two.

And, being a manly, open-white-linen-shirted stud, he felt the need to bounce up and down on the motor bike, looking back at me for reassurance with a grin every time oncoming traffic barreled down the hill toward us, warping his unending World Cup serenade beyond all bearability.

And again the chorus would be repeated.

"Here we go, Ole, Ole, Ole" were to him the most expressive words in the English language. They apparently could be used to mean everything from "hello" to "good morning" to "would you like to have sex with me at Paradise Beach and watch the sun rise since we can't find your hotel room in the dark, silly drunken lost American girl?"

Perhaps I'd heard "So Horny" one too many times.

Moving on, I received more than my fair share of cow bell-playing, beer hall waitresses dancing alongside German men in liederhosen and Greek men in tights bellowing out "Hey! Hey! Hey hey hey!" while jumping into each others' arms, as the back-up band crammed accordion music down my ear canals and demanded that I join the congo line snaking through the restaurant table aisles.

Though I must say, I sort of dug the whole thing. After six weeks, you get the abrasive dance-party beats clogged in your racing bloodstream alongside the traditional tunes (handed down from one generation to the next solely to milk visitors for foreign currency). This potpourri of artistically lacking material lodges itself so far into your inner consciousness and is so a part of the overall mind-blowing experience - of viewing historical ruins, roaming the spectacular countryside and bonding with life-lusting individuals - that it can be difficult to separate the physical and cultural impressiveness of Europe from its disappointing musical homefront.

After all, how can one not love to hear the bass line of a hollow electronica remix that samples the voice of David Hasselhoff, pounding out of some stern-looking young Austrian's car in Vienna?

Or the harshly vocalized lines to a lesser-known German techno piece which goes (ahem), "I like to watch you dance, dance/ I like the way you bounce, bounce/ I want to see you move, groove/ Ya, ya/ Move, groove/ Ya, ya."

"Whoa, dude. This," you tell yourself, "is Germany. That's just how they do it here. Let's lick dry a plate of pork knuckles."

Hey, I was singing along to the Spice Girls by the end of the first week.

But on cold days in Switzerland I would yearn to hear just one blistered track off Radiohead's "OK Computer." And passing through France, looking out the train window after two sleepless, showerless nights, travelling from the Czech Republic to Spain, all I craved was the steady comfortingly lonely voice of Bob Dylan to keep me rolling on.

"Where are these crazy honkys' souls?" I would demand, as though repressed by the abundance of discoteques scattered throughout Europe. "These people do not share the genes of my ancestors. They're a mutant race of prancing Homo sapiens who have driven my forefathers from the homeland in order to spread musical moronicness into the minds of the easily controllable meat-and-cheese eating masses!"

Well, except for the guy in Prague who played me Neil Young's soundtrack to a Jim Jarmusch movie. And the street guitarists in Florence who broke my heart wailing by the riverside. And the almost painfully stark sounds of a female musician whose recorded voice haunted a Viennese modern art museum.

But because I thrive on scrawling, offensive blanket statements, never mind all of these few and far between moments of European musical magic.

The bottom line? Europe would do better if they began importing American radio commercial jingles. (You think it's a good song and it turns out to be a Hyundai ad. Damn those tricky corporate geniuses!)

Meanwhile, as I dreaded returning home to bleach-brained L.A. shmucks who "hit the beach," nibbling on tofu and getting carded even when I'm with my mom, the one thing pulling me back home from foreign soil wasn't my two cats. Or my family up north. Or my friends down here. (Though I missed them all).

It was the promise of music that makes you glad to be lonely.

So I guess that means in some strange way, I came back for the Daily Bruin, to propagate the melodic seeds of a healthy musical environment throughout Los Angeles, and then, the world.

Or it could be that I had one year left to graduate, an old man back home to front the bill, and not one red cent to my name otherwise.

"Why, hello Express Mart employees! May I please show you a plastic card with my photo and some numbers on it along with $3.99 in exchange for 12 cans full of yellowish water that will have me behaving very immaturely in about an hour and a half? Why, thank you, kind sirs, and have a fabulously sunny day!"

It's good to be home.

VanderZanden, a fourth-year English student and this year's music editor, floats.

Vanessa VanderZanden

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