'High time is no time for deciding if I should find a helping hand'

May 23, 2016 5:36 PM

A theory about what Duran Duran's song, "The Reflex", is about—isn't that bizarre?

"Once this is understood, the second verse is obvious to the point of comedy. 'I'm on a ride and I wanna get off' is about as straightforward as Simon LeBon is capable of being, and the bits about not slowing down the roundabout and not wanting to be around 'when this gets out' border on literality."

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (45 comments total)

What if we locked Duran Duran in a room with Robert Duran?
posted by jonmc at 5:48 PM on May 23, 2016

My parents were very, very concerned about me.

To be fair, given the scenario, this is the only sensible response. A dose of Ultravox might have saved the patient.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:52 PM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

As I recall from my heady days as a mad Duran Duran fan in the 80s, they had the music for this song, the album was late, and Simon kept fucking around on finishing the lyrics. He got sent to the studio to finish the album or else, and he made up nonsense lyrics on the spot, for the song that became The Reflex.

Union of the Snake, however, is totally about fucking.
posted by headspace at 5:56 PM on May 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

MoonOrb - "Daily Duranie" agrees (after considering a few possibilities).

I used to just like the beat you know whatever
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:56 PM on May 23, 2016

That's an interesting hypothesis; but at least half of all Duran Duran songs, including The Reflex, are about drugs.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:57 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is nothing sacred? Next thing you know, someone will come up with some sort of sexual double-meanings for innocuous '80s hits like She Bop or Relax.
posted by eschatfische at 6:02 PM on May 23, 2016 [31 favorites]

You've gone too far this time!
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:06 PM on May 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh man everything about Simon LeBon from that video is absolutely perfect and 13-year-old me will totally fight anybody who says otherwise.

I don't know if I thought this song was literally about sex when it came out, but it (and to be fair, most of their oeuvre) certainly made me think about sex.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 6:10 PM on May 23, 2016 [8 favorites]

The Mathmos has created this bubble to protect itself from your innocence.
posted by Artw at 6:11 PM on May 23, 2016

What if we locked Duran Duran in a room with Robert Duran?

you'd get Duran Duran Duran, obviously.
(NSFW art, also breakcore)
posted by drinkyclown at 6:18 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Related (?) Ask
posted by Mchelly at 6:24 PM on May 23, 2016

you'd get Duran Duran Duran, obviously.

No Mas, No Mas
posted by jonmc at 6:25 PM on May 23, 2016

I'm surprised that this is something that had to be discovered. I can remember when this song comes out, walking to junior high with my friend Gina. I showed her a picture of the band from one of those teen magazines (like Tiger Beat or something like that), and she told me the song was about masturbation. When I tried to show off by telling other kids this, they all seemed to already know it. Made sense to me then, makes sense to me now.
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:33 PM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Amazing what you can do with screencaptures.
posted by jeremias at 6:35 PM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Didn't, like, every New Wave band have a masturbation song?
posted by prize bull octorok at 6:51 PM on May 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is like the joke about the patient complaining about that horrible Rorschach tester who kept showing him pictures of his parents having sex.

All the horny teenagers in high school already knew these nonsense lyrics were about masturbation, you say?
posted by straight at 7:21 PM on May 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

All I know about this song is that I watched the video in the article which led to me looking up a couple of Duran Duran songs on youtube. It's now an hour later and I've just emerged from 80's music nostalgia land and the only reason I've stopped is that I have to get up early for work tomorrow.
posted by Jalliah at 7:57 PM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

For me, and this is very personal, Duran Duran is forever burned in my brain with Patrick Nagel paintings and blue balls from making out with a high school girlfriend who had better restraint than I did. So "The Reflex" really being about Le Bon Bon jerking off? Yeah, I got you buddy, and by that I mean in my girlfriend's parents' bathroom after it got to be too much. Did I mention she went through a phase of wanting everyone to call her Rio?

I like to think this experience is what made me queer.
posted by Nelson at 7:58 PM on May 23, 2016 [9 favorites]

Aha! I knew the author of this piece back in college. He discovered Bradley Cooper. (Sadly, I missed Brad's stage debut because I was studying abroad that semester.)
posted by candyland at 8:40 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pretty much 98% of d2 songs up to 1993 are about SLB's penis. Most of the songs after 1993, too.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 8:42 PM on May 23, 2016

Journey made the video for “Separate Ways,” which is possibly the most unintentionally funny thing ever created.

I seriously love me some Duran Duran and would back them against Journey any day of the week. But that “Separate Ways” video is quite possibly the closest thing I've ever encountered to a time machine that can take you back to 1983.

Though I have to admit I'd forgotten that the "porn 'stache" was still a thing three years after the 70s ended.
posted by Slothrup at 8:46 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Uh yeah, the minute this song hit MTV the discussion at my school wasn't about what the song meant but whether it was about masturbation or Simon LeBon's erect dick in general. I can't believe anyone who grew up with this song somehow remained innocent of this topic! Greg obviously hung out with the wrong crowd...or the right one....
posted by Enemy of Joy at 8:56 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I always thought it was vaguely about masturbation, possibly drugs, possibly masturbation and drugs, but I think that about a lot of songs because so many of the great ones are.
posted by bongo_x at 8:58 PM on May 23, 2016

"In those days, EMI had to lock out the pressing plant for three days to create enough product for the stores by the scheduled release date, and it was therefore a big deal for them to make that booking. Well, we went through two deadlines, and by the time we were approaching the third one EMI said 'If you don't deliver on time, the record won't be released for Christmas, and that is not going to happen.'

Sound on Sound: Classic Tracks - The Reflex

I think they were just running out of time. But at least we know what LeBon's "Dance on the Eventide" is now.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:59 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I mean, look at the video -- at the "climax" of the song the band basically ejaculates all over the audience!
posted by Enemy of Joy at 9:02 PM on May 23, 2016

Didn't, like, every New Wave band have a masturbation song?

Did any New Wave band have any songs that weren't about masturbation?
posted by happyroach at 9:10 PM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's odd that he claims to be a big early Duran Duran fan, but he doesn't even know what genre they were (New Romantic, not New Wave). Then he makes odd assertions like "there is no such place as south Detroit", when every geographical area has a southmost bit. (Windsor, Ontario is not south Detroit, it is to the south of south Detroit.)

Divining the meaning of Duran Duran songs is the kind of pointless exercise I like. Simon Le Bon just wrote whatever couplets sounded cool without any plan for overall meaning. According to rumor, a lot of cocaine and champagne was involved. The songs were often great, but they don't really mean anything, so the the field is limitless.

Songs that however sound more masturbation-themed than The Reflex:
• Coming in the Air Tonight
• Get Into the Groove
• Shake Your Groove Thing
• Pearly Dewdrops Drops
posted by w0mbat at 9:10 PM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Thanks to Jimmy Swaggart railing against the evils of secular music, my dad assumed/told me that this band, and every other band, was singing about having (extramarital, extra-sinful) sex. Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, Prince, anyone else remotely androgynous was ALSO telling me to be a lesbian (or possibly a dude; or maybe just to hang out with gay people? it was never clear) thus my dad's freaking out when I wanted to get an asymmetrical haircut and wear pants to church.
posted by emjaybee at 10:53 PM on May 23, 2016

Didn't, like, every New Wave band have a masturbation song?

Duran Duran was New Romantic though.

Which was entirely masturbatory from the start.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:05 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Journey vs. Duran Duran.” I mean, that’s not remotely a fair fight.

He's right. Journey is a much better band. Well, the version with Perry, anyway.
posted by Beholder at 12:42 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's a shame he quit listening to Duran Duran 20-odd years ago, because they've done some great stuff since thing. I've been listening to their newest album Paper Gods nearly obsessively since it was released late last year.

Pressure Off (feat. Janelle Monáe and Nile Rogers) is the only actual video they have released from that album so far (much is the shame!), but check out the title track Paper Gods, which is entirely epic, or the Lindsay Lohan monologue in Dancephobia. Or, my personal favorite from the album, the closing track The Universe Alone, which goes so far beyond entirely epic that it redefines epic.
posted by hippybear at 12:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also, I think I read someplace that Duran Duran rejected being called New Romantic. They thought of themselves as an art project, and were surprised to be put into that category. I won't be able to find that quote easily, but I know I read that someplace.
posted by hippybear at 12:54 AM on May 24, 2016

Also also, DD has SO many songs they can play live that will send me out there when I see them in September (6th row center tickets, SO EXCITE I CANNOT CONTAIN MESELF), but The Reflex is basically at the top of the list. The moment in the video when the waterfall bursts out and cascades down onto the crowd TOTALLY BLEW MY MIND when I first saw it on MTV decades ago, and for months afterward I would turn on the channel praying to see that video again.
posted by hippybear at 12:57 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hmmmmm, ok, count me as one of those too naive back in the day to think this song was related to masturbation*. And I was a HUGE DD fan. Mind you, I was only about 10-12, so that shouldn't be terribly surprising. Saying that, my age didn't stop me from fantasising about marrying Nick or John T (depending on the day) and having their babies.

In any case, I can't say that I ever gave much thought to the meaning behind Simon's lyrics. I just sang along, with all my nascent lust.

*I still don't think it is about masturbation per se; well, no more about that than about nearly anything else.
posted by Halo in reverse at 1:35 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is literally half of the song lyrics due to repetition:

The reflex is a lonely child
Who's waiting by the park
The reflex is a door to finding
Treasure in the dark
And watching over lucky clover
Isn't that bizarre
Every little thing the reflex does
Must be answered with a question mark

Leans more toward the 'bunch of stuff made up on cocaine' theory. Unless we are Finbarr Saunders, in which case everything is a double entendre!
posted by asok at 2:33 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Then he makes odd assertions like "there is no such place as south Detroit", when every geographical area has a southmost bit. (Windsor, Ontario is not south Detroit, it is to the south of south Detroit)

Convention matters here, as a type of shibboleth. I'm not from Detroit, but if someone said they were from South Toronto, I would know they were full of shit. Nobody from the city would refer to any part of it as South. From context I assume it's the same with Detroit.
posted by rodlymight at 3:04 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Duran Duran was my first favorite band, and a big part of that was because of LeBon's lyrics. I thought they were poetic and impressionist. When I read his favorite poet was Wilfred Owen, I was all over that - only to discover Owen is ... very different from LeBon.

I always thought The Reflex was about the unknown - some unseen force that you can't identify or define, but is nonetheless controlling your life. Could have been projecting, though; I was in the eye of the adolescent storm at the time.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:06 AM on May 24, 2016

The reflex is a lonely child - sad peen

Who's waiting by the park - sad, horny peen

The reflex is a door to finding - seeking a hole

Treasure in the dark - hole

And watching over lucky clover - pubic hair? Concentrating on things? Who knows.
Isn't that bizarre - weirdy things you think of to not orgasm.

Every little thing the reflex does
Must be answered with a question mark - genitals are not known for good decision making skills.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 7:24 AM on May 24, 2016

I maintain that I was shocked (SHOCKED!) that Nick Rhodes was straight. The video still does not dissuade me and my 14 year old self.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:38 AM on May 24, 2016

When I was 14, there were no actual gay people, they were all boogeymen made up to scare children. I was, however, quite impressed with Nick Rhodes' dedication to the color pink.
posted by hippybear at 7:42 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I mean, that’s not remotely a fair fight. That’s my daughter’s teeball team against the Yankees. Or the Mets against the Yankees.

Tell ya what, dere, buddy, whyntcha go fuck yaself?

OK, back to your previously scheduled analysis of Duran Duran.
posted by languagehat at 8:35 AM on May 24, 2016

Native Detroiter here. There is no such thing as "South Detroit". No native would ever use that distinction. In fact, we would make fun of that line whenever we heard, "Don't Stop Believin'".

Also, as a somewhat naive teenage Duran Duran obsessive, I never even thought this song was about masturbation. I always assumed it was drugs. If you read any older interviews, you can see that Simon and Nick were always into esoteric stuff, so the convoluted and enigmatic lyrics are not surprising.
posted by nikitabot at 9:49 AM on May 24, 2016

"The Reflex" (itself) is drug-seeking compulsive behaviors.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 9:55 AM on May 24, 2016

Metafilter: A Duran Duran post with 46 comments
posted by Cosine at 10:36 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

w0mbat: "Songs that however sound more masturbation-themed than The Reflex:
• Pearly Dewdrops Drops"

Well, that one's just a complete give-away. I mean, just listen to the lyrics. How much clearer could they be?
posted by Bugbread at 6:36 PM on June 15, 2016