Guilty Pleasure Thursday - "The Time Warp" - The Rocky Horror Show
Dear Kind and Enthusiastic Readers:
Before I go into my "Guilty Pleasure" for the week, I first wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. Additionally, I very much enjoy reading your comments, feedback, and suggestions and would love to receive more. Please let me know what you like, don't like, agree with, disagree with, and most of all share your perceptions on the songs I've chosen to analyze. I do not want to write in a vacuum. We all have a common interest: the Broadway musical and why not have the intellectual and passionate discussions about this unique art form we share? Also...if you like what you are reading (or at least find it informative), please share "The Music That Makes Me Dance" blog with friends and fellow enthusiasts. Again, I thank you for your readership and your help.
So...here we are again. It's Guilty Pleasure Thursday. A reminder that I term a "guilty pleasure" any song that I am either just a little embarrassed to admit I dance around my house singing with abandon, even though the song is either corny or doesn't do much to further a musical's plot. These songs are for fun and I think we all agree that not all musical theatre needs to be cerebral or plot driven. Sometimes, we just need to let loose, smile, and embrace the corn. It's good for the soul.
Nothing can make people jump to their feet and begin dancing en masse quite like "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Show (immortalized in the film version The Rocky Horror Picture Show). The musical was an enormous hit on the London stage in 1973, running 2,960 performances, but didn't fare as well in New York, closing after 45 performances in 1975. It wasn't until the film was made and it achieved cult status through its interactive screenings that The Rocky Horror Show took off in the United States. In 2002, a Broadway revival of the piece would prove to be far more successful than its New York Stage predecessor, lasting 437 performances.
Let's face it - there isn't much of a plot here. Rocky Horror is just a tantalizing and titillating reason to camp it up to the hundredth power. It's about sex, gender fluidity, humor, with just a touch of the zany macabre. What makes "The Time Warp" perfect is that it is kooky and infectious, while seducing us into the madcap world of Dr. Frankenfurter. It's repetitive and comes complete with dance instructions built into the song, so we can immediately and literally get up and dance with it. The Glam Rock meets Hard Rock meets Broadway sound is just disjointed enough to give us the impression we are in the unchartered, uncertain territory of the deranged and debauched. How can we, the closet perverts that we are, not dive head first into this reason to let go? Guilty pleasures of orgasmic proportions.
