The first in an ongoing series, unless I change my mind and don't do any more
I've got less than a year and a half before joining the creaky ranks of the thirty-and-over crowd, so now is a good time to reflect back on some things I've learned in the past decade.
For example, while there very well may be someone named Annie Cavanagh somewhere on this planet, she is not mentioned by name in the J. Geils' song Love Stinks. For the first twenty-odd years of my existence, I'd thought Annie Cavanagh was someone who'd spurned Peter Wolf, and calling her out by name was some sort of revenge. Take that, Annie! You got served in a top 40 radio staple!
The other idea was that maybe Annie Cavanagh was a noted romance or etiquette guru with a weekly advice column/radio show, like Dear Abby or Dr. Joyce Brothers. I'd never heard of her, but lots of songs name-drop people who were famous when the song came out, but lose their relevance as time goes on, like Sir Edward Heath in Taxman, or the little-known fifth verse of America the Beautiful that praises James Henderson Blount's plan to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii. So the idea that Annie Cavanagh was a well-known talking head in the late seventies/early eighties that has since drifted from the public's consciousness is not unheard of.
But alas, there was no Annie Cavanagh. Turns out the line is actually "I don't care what any Casanova thinks". Even so, I still think Annie Cavanagh sounds better. That Casanova line sounds like it's missing a syllable. Cas'nova. And really, who cares what Annie Cavanagh thinks?
Labels: songs
