By Dr. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, Professor Emeritus, Huxley University
I have made it my life’s work to document and critique American culture’s efforts to weave relevant, poetic lyricism within a rich musical tapestry to communicate with peers who may be of disparate backgrounds. Music has the power to bridge the gaps between us in the American melting pot. We have seen, since the days of the first American folk songs, reels and jigs the use of words and music to inform and enlighten their contemporary audience. These works have taken on subjects banal and sublime. Political reform and great shifts in the societal paradigm have been signaled by these poet/minstrels, the canaries in the coal mine, if you will.
This tradition continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries with artists from Stephen Foster to Bob Dylan portraying and commenting on the Great American Parade in their words and music. I have recently encountered perhaps the greatest example of the marriage of these two art forms while I was mindlessly flipping through, of all things, the television channels. I instinctively stopped on the broadcast, attracted first by the splash of color. Then the sounds of genius washed o’er me and I was blissfully transported to a magical place by the words and music I heard. The song, a jaunty sea shanty with its roots deeply embedded in 18th-century folk tradition. The words, paraphrased here as I heard them, went like this:
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!
Yellow, absorbent and porous is he!
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!
If nautical nonsense is something you wish,
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!
Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish!
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS, SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
SPONGE-BOB-SQUARE-PANTS!
(Brief piccolo coda)
I sat, stunned. Transfixed. I had to hear the song again! Fortunately, the network transmitting this heavenly aria broadcast the theme to the show every 15 minutes for hours and hours. I sat down immediately and began to dissect this master work in hopes of fully grasping its meaning. All I knew for sure was that this seemingly innocuous ditty held great insight into understanding not only American culture but also the human condition. Let’s take the song’s lyrics line by line and try to unravel their mystery.
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Indeed. Who? Are there pineapples at the bottom of the sea? This prospect is highly doubtful. If there are pineapple under the sea, who (or what) could live under one? A creature able to withstand the deep sea pressure as well as one capable of finding life under a pineapple comfortable. Does such a creature exist? I looked on Wikipedia and could find nothing, so I’ll say no such creature as yet been discovered by humankind.
So, is this question an allegory? An obtuse code? Let’s think about it. What is a pineapple, after all? A fruit with a coarse, prickly, hard outer shell that is sweet and juicy on the inside. What else is hard on the outside and sweet on the inside? I believe the answer lies in another branch of American artistic endeavor: film. I believe the song refers to a person who is hard on the outside but turns out to be tender and sweet on the inside. Ernest Borgnine.
I can back up this statement by pointing out that Ernest Borgnine, the character actor whose gruff exterior hid a compassion for humanity, was a central character in the classic Poseidon Adventure. The film ended with Borgnine, and other passengers, ending up on the bottom of the sea. Coincidence? I think not.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! This line seems to indicate the answer to the previous question, but its obvious surrealistic timbre belies such a conclusion. Much like the French poets of the early 20th century, Appollinaire, Rimbaud and Cocteau, the wordsmith here offers a nonsensical series of syllables both pleasingly melodic to the ear while subtlely piquing the mind’s interest by challenging its notion of reality. The theme is to recur throughout the song.
Yellow, absorbent and porous is he. Now we get to the meat of the song, clues to the attributes of the story’s central character. In American usage, the word “yellow” can be used in place of the word “chicken.” Is the character a chicken? Again, I referred to Wikipedia, and the repository of human knowledge cites no evidence of chickens ever having lived under pineapples. We have, however, heard through Madison Avenue (a true bellwether of American culture) of a “chicken of the sea.” This “chicken of the sea” was known as “Charlie Tuna” and appeared as an animated character on American television commercials. Now, the cultural references abound. “Charlie Tuna” was the nom de plume of a popular L.A. rock and roll radio disc jockey (who shot his wife, I think), but I believe that is the poet’s ruse to obscure the real meaning of the line. The animated “Charlie Tuna” of TV fame was voiced by, that’s right, none other than one Ernest Borgnine.
We find our hero also referred to as “absorbent.” This is where the song’s lyricist attempts to show us that this “chicken of the sea” actually has the redemptive power to “absorb” our society’s ills, thus freeing us from the yoke of bad eggs and shared karmic guilt. The fact that he is also “porous” means that it is through this sieve that we attain redemption and our collective sins are filtered and absorbed and we are cleansed. It also holds the double-entendre of phonetically saying “poor us”— an obvious statement on our culture’s condition before being released by this Spongebob Squarepants, a notion of reality turned topsy-turvy by absurdity. It’s like Narnia… with Spongebob taking the place of the Christlike lion (a far more palatable series of events to my way of thinking).
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! The phrase now takes on the role of a repetitive mantra. An aid in coming to the realization that through Ernest Borgnine and Spongebob Squarepants one can attain Nirvana (the state, not the band, you can pick up Nirvana downloads for 99 cents on iTunes, what kind of redemptive value is that?).
If nautical nonsense is something you wish, Now who isn’t up for a little “nautical nonsense”? Again, the surreal quality of “nautical nonsense” lends itself well to the overall flavor of the song. The fact that it is “nautical” seems to point to the current state of our culture being adrift, and “out to sea.”
Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish! The soul’s redemption and the enlightenment of sentient beings does not come to us without our own personal effort. One must prostrate oneself on earth’s deck and be humbled by the acceptance of Spongebob into one’s life. Flopping like a fish is only required by a few Squarepantsian sects found in tents throughout Arkansas. Still, the inclusiory tone indicates that all are welcome within the undersea pineapple of enlightenment.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! SPONGE…BOB…SQUARE…PANTS!!! If there is any residual doubt within the listener, the closing lines emphatically shout the answer to life’s riddles. One need only listen.
Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff is a guest contributor to A News Café.
