The “childishly dirty” 1981 song Stephen King would listen to forever: “I never tire”
Having almost lost his marriage to a song about the more scintillating pleasures in life, Stephen King was a bold man to admit that he’d listen to another track with similarly suggestive lyrics on repeat.
Thanks to his obsession with Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No 5’, the one-hit-wonder’s 1999 song all about how much he loves the company of various beautiful women, King’s spouse threatened to divorce him if she ever heard him blasting the track in their house ever again, and he took the ultimatum to heart.
Presumably, she doesn’t have the same sort of issues with classic rock, the author’s genre of choice. As if it wasn’t clear enough, drafting in AC/DC to contribute to the soundtrack of his one and only feature-length directorial endeavour, Maximum Overdrive, should have made his fondness for licks and riffs perfectly clear.
The movie is a steaming pile of shite, right enough, but it’s got a few decent tunes, at least. Metallica, the Rolling Stones, The Ramones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival are also usually found on heavy rotation in the King household, but not Led Zeppelin, because that’s one legendary rock band he can’t stand.
Despite the band claiming that the lyrics are “good, clean fun,” as they wrote in the liner notes to their greatest hits, does anybody really believe ZZ Top when they said 1981’s ‘Tube Snake Boogie’ is not, in fact, about shagging? Even King disagrees, and he makes it sound like he’s listened to the song more than most.
“It’s rude, childishly dirty, and simple to the point of stupidity, but I never tire of those tight, fuzzed-out guitars,” he reminisced. “I could listen all day, and as you can see, some days I almost have.” According to the band themselves, it’s about a surfboard, but nobody’s buying it, and you can see why.
“I got a girl, she lives on the hill, she won’t do it, but her sister will,” isn’t interpreted by many as a verse about one sibling’s resistance to boogie-boarding being acted upon by their sister, and if ZZ Top are trying to convince anyone that “boogie-woogie all night long” is about surfing and not shagging, then you wouldn’t be inclined to believe them.
Repeating the line, “Blow your top,” three times over doesn’t do them any favours, either, since most listeners are thinking the same thing about what it means, and it’s got fuck all to do with cresting a wave. Maybe it does, to be fair, but only if you’re really into your euphemisms.
As they were keen to point out, “tube snake is gnarly lingo for a surfboard,” but we shouldn’t have to explain what it’s also gnarly lingo for, especially within the context of the lyrics. Whether it’s about surfing or sex, it doesn’t really matter; ‘Tube Snake Boogie’ will be on King’s playlist until the end of time.
