Might as well stay in the Swingin’ ’60s this week. And what a contrast to this week’s Alpha Anthem, not just in the color of the pills, but the talent of the bands.

I find it deeply embarrassing that this band went by the name of “American Breed.” I hope they flew Old Glory at half-mast the day this song hit the charts. The gist of the lyrics is some thirsty beta orbiter is whining to the girl on his pedestal: “I’m so pussywhupped already–aren’t you impressed? Won’t you have sex with me now?”

This kind of desperation would be revolting to even the blue pill crowd…if it weren’t put to music. But music can sell the most ridiculous ideas (and dialog) like no other medium. Which is saying a lot, because TV and movies have sold our culture a whole bill of goods.

The lyrics speak for themselves. Here they are:

You are all the woman I need, and baby you know it,
You can make this beggar a king, a clown or a poet.
I’ll give you all that I own.
You got me standing in line
Out in the cold,
pay me some mind.
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me,
Long as you love me, it’s all right
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me,
You got the power to turn on the light.
Everybody tells me I’m wrong to want you so badly,
But there’s a force driving me on, I follow it gladly.
So let them laugh I don’t care,
Cause I got nothing to hide,
All that I want is you by my side.
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me,
Long as you love me, it’s all right
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me,
You got the power to turn on the light.
Bend me shape me anyway you want me…

The Stones were not only slopping over with talent, they were also quite prolific.  It’s hard to think of another band (as opposed to a single artist) who can compare when it comes to volume of quality work. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin come to mind–both groups were also uber-talented and versatile; but neither were cranking out music for as many years.

As noted in Fast Cars and Rock & Roll, most bands remembered as great recorded at least two-to-three killer tunes. Few of them did better than that. But the Stones cranked out albumfulls of songs which stand the test of time, with very few turkeys in between. Their work in the 1960s, in particular, was phenomenal. Their golden years, I would call it.

You wouldn’t expect guys who look like they did to come up with an alpha anthem. In fact, somebody in the manosphere should post about the evolving standards of sexual marketplace value (SMV) some time. It’s puzzling to look at the appearance of hippie rockers (and the hair bands they inspired) and imagine that females of the time perceived them as masculine. But apparently they did. Or they were just tripping too far out on acid to notice who they were giving out all that free love to.

This particular song is one I never used to think about much, but it has fresh relevance now. The lyrics tell of the triumphant transition of a young man from blue pill to red pill.

The former supplicating beta’s girlfriend once had him down; pushed him around. But he’s turned her into “the sweetest pet in the world.” She’s changed her ways and now “does just what she’s told.” She’s dressing differently (more feminine, I’d guess) and now “talks when she’s spoken to.”

Any wonder why the bra-burning feminists hated this song?

Take it easy, babe. The change has come.

If you grew up with uncut Warner Brothers cartoons, maybe you remember that “Merry Melodies” outnumbered “Looney Toons.” Well, there’s a similar disparity in my Two-Fisted musical reviews.

Only because there’s a whole lot more songs written by or about(or from the perspective of) blue pill supplicating simps than anything else. Easily 75% of all popular music ever produced falls under the “love song” umbrella; and of course most of that is about elevating some precious snowflake to her rightful pedestal.

So in the vast wasteland of Mangina Melodies, I have to spread out the Alpha Anthems as best I can. Here’s the first one:

“Speedo” was recorded by The Cadilacs long before that word came into household use, and has nothing to do with Euro-stylish swimwear.

Speedo is the alpha dog’s nickname, derived allegedly from how fast he bumps, pumps and dumps. Locate’s ’em, loves ’em, leaves ’em. Finds ’em, feels ’em…you get the idea, I hope.

Although this is doo-wop, the lyrics borrow the A, A, B format of the blues.

Whether the lyricists of such songs truly were such big league pick up artists, or simply aspired to be (or cleverly marketed music to those who so aspired) I can’t say. But the hero of this song brags about how he games women and breezily overcomes their last minute resistance (“I’ve known some pretty women and have caused them to change their mind”). Also, the “I already have a boyfriend” defense is weak and easily brushed aside by this Don Juan (his reputation is for “takin’ other folks’s girls”).

What have we learned here, fellahs? I guess it comes down simply to “Don’t mess around with Speedo; he don’t ever take it slow.”

20th Century music by the male of the species is loaded with wimpy blue pill sentiments. No doubt it provided subconscious reinforcement to the message drilled into us from parents, sisters, and the culture overall.

So why am I picking on the King of the Slide Guitar today? Especially with so many more blatant examples to choose from. Well, you could accuse me of just wanting to hear that Delta slide one more time, and you’d be partially right. But there’s something to be learned from identifying such blue pill wussery in a musical genre that gave the world such over-the-top paragons of machismo as Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.

What we have in these lyrics is a self-deluded beta orbiter, pissing his life away waiting to graduate from the Friend Zone while the object of his one-itus serves as a willing doormat for some alpha dog out sowing his oats.

What this guy has done is become the emotional dishrag for the slut on his pedestal. He cleans up the messes made by the alpha dog, and once her emotional wounds are healed, her hypergamy leads her right back to the player’s harem. And she “loves him more” every time he wrecks her self esteem.

This song reminds me of a depressing ’80s titty flick called The Last American Virgin. Classic alpha fux/beta bux story.

Y’know what’s even more depressing? The slut might finally marry this frustrated chump one day. That’s when his heartache will really begin.

I’ve never liked country music, but there’s an old forgotten genre that most people mistake for country, and I like listening to it now and then. It’s mostly old cowboy ballads, from artists like the Sons of the Pioneers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter…and the western swing of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. If I’m writing a western, sometimes these songs help me keep the right mindset.

I call it “western music,” figuring maybe it’s what mixed in with the mama-died-on-Christmas stuff to form “country & western.” However you classify it, I liked it enough to compile a CD, which one family member liked so much, I’ve recently fulfilled a request for another.

You can listen to a song for years, and even sing along with it, without really considering the lyrics. At least I have. Such is the case with “El Paso” by Marty Robbins, a cowboy ballad with beautiful Tex-Mex guitar accompaniment. Only on my last listen did I really think about the story the song tells.

Here’s the gist of it as crooned by Robbins:

A cowboy has a raging case of one-itus for a Mexican bar girl who sounds like an eight or nine. He’s convinced she’s a special snowflake and he’s partially right: she is flaky. Obviously she’s still riding the carousel because one night he catches her all up on the juevos of a “wild young cowboy.”

Our hero confronts the pick up artist in a jealous rage, and the cowboy goes for his gun. But the narrator is quick on the draw and shoots him dead. Now, knowing he’ll be hanged for murder, he makes a run for it, and holes up in the badlands of New Mexico.

But the boy’s got it bad. By “it” I mean codependent disorder or something, ’cause he just can’t bear being separated from Felina any longer (probably haunted by visions of her on the carousel) and rides back for El Paso.

He knows he’s a wanted man, so this decision was stupid enough. But maybe he thinks they might not be looking for him to return. That notion is put to rest when he’s intercepted by a posse shouting and shooting…and yet he keeps riding for the saloon! Clearly he’s delusional or just plumb loco.

One of the posse scores a hit, but he’s just gotta make it to Rose’s Cantina, so he plunges onward into the hail of lead.

Why, you idiot?

Sure enough, somebody in the posse scores a center-mass hit. The bullet goes deep in his chest. The dumbass dies right there outside Rose’s cantina…but at least he gets a kiss goodbye on the cheek from the slut Felina as his soul floats away to the last round-up.

This song was a tremendous hit back in the day, from what I’ve been told.  Yech. The Ballad of a Blue Pill Beta is what this should be called.

By 1959 when this song debuted, the cowboy was the icon of American masculinity. Young boys used to play “cowboys & Indians.” Back then about half the programming on TV was made up of westerns. Even inner city black kids with no interest in history and no appreciation for the great outdoors dreamed of playing football for the team with a cowboy as its mascot.

Was this song instrumental in toppling the icon? Did Marty Robbins’ artsy-fartsy ballad push the he-man symbol of rugged individualism off the alpha pinnacle of devil-may-care masculinity and send him tumbling down (with the tumbleweeds) the slippery slope of feminized pop culture, to finally land, decades later, at the foot of Brokeback Mountain?

The hero of this ballad should have nexted Felina and gamed a quality senorita from a nearby hacienda to cook him frijoles and squeeze out little vaqueros while he built his spread into a cattle empire.

Now there’s a ballad worthy of the music, and lyrics worth singing.