This Shit is B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Hey, remember that Twilight Zone episode where this guy slips into a strange reality where everybody else would speak English, but the words wouldn't mean the same? The protagonist--a dictionary salesman, if I remember right--starts noticing that everyone around him would say strange things like, "It rained hard today, and I didn't have a dinosaur with me," or maybe, "I don't like the shoes they serve at McDonald's." This happens more and more, until finally, he can't understand anything anyone says at all, and he has to relearn the language from his daughter's nursery storybooks.

Well, I tuned in to Myx this morning (which helpfully lists the lyrics to all their videos), caught Gwen Stefani's new video for "Hollaback Girl," and thought that I had slipped into the Twilight Zone. "A few times I’ve been around that track/ So it’s not just gonna happen like that/ 'Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl/ I ain’t no hollaback girl/ Oooh, this my shit, this my shit, this my shit, this my shit..." the normally lovely Ms. Stefani-Rossdale chanted to the accompaniment of her now ever-present backup Asians. It was scary, especially when she hit the line, "Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas/ B-A-N-A-N-A-S." I thought I had lost my normally very literate mind.

Thankfully, I found out that I was neither going crazy nor going deeper into Rod Serling territory: this article in a publication called The OC Weekly dissects the lyrics to that selfsame song, and explains it to us holla-illiterate folk what it all means. "Gwen Stefani’s 'Hollaback Girl' is one of the most baffling pieces of music of the modern age," the writer declares. "It’s got something to do with cheerleaders—-that much is clear, judging from the chanting and the marching band that’s honking and tooting in the background. Beyond that, good luck deciphering the song’s ambiguities. We were so vexed by the mystery that is 'Hollaback Girl' that we have devoted countless hours to its study. Our conclusions are below. The first thing you should know, though, is that Gwen is not singing 'I ain’t no Harlem fat girl'--at least, we don’t think she is."

Writing is HARD! RAHWR! Heh heh. Even gorgeous pop stars married to gorgeous rock stars aren't immune. This shit is bananas.