Walk Like an Egyptian, Or Else!
As the famous quote goes—to paraphrase—is writing about music a nonsensical act equivalent to dancing about architecture? We should be so lucky. Perhaps in our future some choreographer will be so inspired to create a ballet about Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd Wright. Now that sounds interesting. Until then I say pshaw to the naysaying wits–one can write about absolutely anything effectively, and since music is one of the most ineffable of all arts, why not attempt to make sense of it and the world around us?
Take, for instance, “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles. This is one of those tracks known world-wide–not an obscure pick familiar perhaps only to the cognoscenti. Talk about saturation: in 1988 this song was everywhere, on the radio seemingly every hour. I heard it so often I blocked it out, could barely listen to it one more time. It was just a catchy song that annoyed me and compelled me to turn the dial, despite the fact that I liked the Bangles and even saw them in concert that summer. I simply heard it too many times. The song was just a kind of novelty bit–a light, tongue-in-cheek ditty perfect for MTV. It had world-wide appeal, as indicated in its fun and inclusive (culturally appropriating? Perhaps stereotype busting?) lyrics. Cops, waitresses, punks and the Japanese are all connected by the fact that they too walk like an Egyptian.
But I have been reflecting recently on the nagging price of conformity and it struck me recently that this is really the subject of “Walk Like an Egyptian.” On the surface this song is really just about a mindless trend, a kind of balancing stride similar to that ancient Egyptians used to do–at least as indicated by ancient Egyptian art. It is a song about doing the wah watusi, essentially. Get to it! “Walk Like an Egyptian” plays off a certain expected stereotype–not so much cultural as aesthetic. We all walk like an Egyptian because we have seen so many images of it. So we do as told and repeat. Liam Sternberg’s lyrics suggest as much early on in the song with the reference to seeing such walking represented in tomb images.
Over the past few years, especially since the pandemic, the issue of unquestioned copycat behavior has leapt to the forefront of my mind. More and more it seems we may do or believe something simply because others on social media do or believe something and tell us we should do it. The ice bucket challenge pops to mind, on the innocuous side of the scale. More recently, politics has taken a kind of herd mentality to the point where if we question certain popularly held premises we might be seen as ignorant at best, a monster at worst (at least within our two-party system). We must all, now, “Walk Like an Egyptian,” as if there is no other choice. In 2023 there is a kind of familiarity bias at work, often hysterical. “Walk Like an Egyptian” is just the shinier smiling version of “Another Brick in the Wall.” We must all fall in line, and pronto.
For decades we perhaps forgot about mass conformity, the kind so common to mid-century classics by existentialist writers like Gabriel Marcel and Ortega Y Gasset. Man Against Mass Society and Revolt of the Masses, anyone? But now, as we enter the era of media/Internet-fueled corporate neo-fascism what was old has become new again. Entertaining Ourselves to Death is no longer a pie-in-the-sky fear but a way of life (Netflix “binge watching”). You are not a full 21st Century person without a smartphone (nor can you log onto your just-about-anything). Racism, which in the later half of the 20th Century was dismissed outright in common discourse, has now become acceptable again in certain right wing circles. We don’t need to worry about women “becoming objectified”--some objectify themselves on Instagram every minute of the day.
Let’s all do that Egyptian walk, ya’ll. One foot in front of the other. The song was ahead of its time. Ok, Computer follows in its footsteps.