I was blathering to the spouse about inappropriate 80s song lyrics, and I mentioned Oingo Boingo’s “Liittle Girls” as one example of many songs (going back at least as far as The Beatles’s “I Saw Her Standing There”). And while songs like The Knack’s “My Sharona”, Motley Crue’s “All In the Name Of…”, and Ted Nugent’s “Jailbait” appear to be serious in their lust for the underaged, Oingo Boingo seems to be satirical.
Okay, but.
I have no doubt that Danny Elfman was being satirical. Regarding that song and his “Only a Lad”-era lyrics in general, he says he was taking on a variety of points of view and deliberately trying to be shocking. But… does he succeed? Yes, “Little Girls” presents a vile point of view, but how shocking is it compared to Ted Nugent’s earlier “Jailbait” or “Dance with Me” by The Lords of the New Church (especially the video)?
Another cut on “Only a Lad” is “On the Outside”, a song that resonates with me as an Autistic person trying to fit in: “I’m just an alien through and through, trying to make believe I’m you.” And while Elfman claims that “Only a Lad” features a variety of points of view that may or may not reflect his own world perspective, this song seems more personal than “Little Girls”. Elfman himself has discussed his own neurodivergence in later interviews, suggesting ADHD and OCD for himself but also having hints of Autism.
While I can’t speak to Elfman’s goals in trying to be shocking, I can speak to my own.
I’ve been going through my old writings. One of them was a long story I wrote in serial form on a chatboard I was active on at the time (late 1990s) called Iron Rose. This was a BDSM-focused board that I was fairly active on. At the time, I was also trying to revive my writing habits, and so I decided to write a story, published in short posts on the board.
I had several competing goals. The first was just to get some writing out there. The second was an admitted cry for support, because I was in a really dark place at the time. The third was to fit in with a community that I ultimately didn’t belong in.
And here was the problem: I kept making the story darker and darker. I started at SA and it just went downhill from there, including a dream about a child and the protagonist being buried alive by his mother. Every time I added something darker, I remembered thinking this would be the point at which someone would reel me in, would take me aside and offer to talk about the darkness inside. Instead, they kept asking for more, for darker. I simply couldn’t shock the readers enough.
I don’t know if Elfman was trying too hard to be shocking with “Little Girls”, but I definitely know I was trying way too hard with that story. It still exists, it’s on my hard drive, but I don’t know if I’ll ever share it again.
It was a dark mask for the darkest time of my life, and I still didn’t really fit in. I just slid farther down the pit while people cheered me on. Oingo Boingo again (“Who Do You Want To Be” from “Good For Your Soul”): “I’ve been reborn so many times, I can’t remember them all.”