This Boy – Andy Burri

July 14, 2010 in Meet the Beatles, Podcast

Recorded on May 17, 2010, original version recorded on October 17, 1963.

Andy Burri: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

About the Song

The most dangerous chemical on earth is not plutonium. Or oil. Or crack.

It’s testosterone.

It’s what makes boys such dicks. Selfish, aggressive, lying, stealing, horny dicks.

I hate dudes. Especially all the young dudes. They are scary and useless. But I also hate men my own age. Especially lying stealing cowards my age. And I also hate older guys. In fact, I’m great at hate. I am naturally great at hate because I’m high as a kite on testosterone. Like every other boy on earth. This is what we do. We hate shit, and kill it.

So don’t fuck with us.

For example: regardless of their gender, the most violent prisoners have higher levels of testosterone than their less violent peers. Yet scientists hypothesize that this violence is just one manifestation of the much more biologically and reproductively salient goal of dominance.

Put two boys together and one will try to dominate. In all situations, at all times.

Rock bands are just another form of Baboon Troop, or High School Locker Room.
They are just as susceptible to the scourges of testosterone as any other group.

The Beatles did beautiful things, and changed the world much for the better, but they also acted very basely and badly at times. They were fully human.

Human boys.

This Boy appears on the surface to be a song for the girls, that’s the point of it being so achingly pretty. The 3-part harmony is tricky, it takes a lot of cooperation to pull off, and girls love displays of harmonious cooperation. I’m sure it took quite a while around the piano with George Martin before they got it right. On another obvious level, This Boy is part of a seduction routine, step one of a long campaign to talk, cuddle, and kiss a girl out of her clothes. But This Boy is not about girls at all.

Lennon had a lot of nerve. By nerve I mean testosterone. He meant to dominate, he had to dominate, and he did, because he was a natural. Driven chemically, it was in his very balls. Over time, and with the help of many substances, he mellowed out. But this is an early song; just the 10th one released by The Beatles, and John was still in full hunger. And even in this slightest tidbit of light verse Lennon again cannot help but reveal himself completely.

He does not want the girl for the pleasure of it. And not even to beat the other guy. His goal is to be seen by the whole world taking whatever the other guy has from him. Because he’s a dick, and that’s what dicks do. They dominate.

Functionally, This Boy is The Slow Dance. Actual touching occurs during the slow dance. Tits are pressed against chests. Boners are jabbed haplessly. Skirts are clumsily assaulted.

The Slow Dance is where the action is. It is the last step before making out.

6/8 is the great slow dance meter. When I was a kid the slow dance in 6/8 was Colour My World by Chicago. Colour My World begins on an arpeggio of the chord F major 7. F/A/C/E.

To this day my favorite chord is F major 7. And my favorite meter is 6/8. Which makes me a pussy.

Lately I’ve been asking this rhetorical question to strangers I meet at dinner parties and meetings. This is what I do instead of small talk.

“Are there any people, and if so how many people in your life, who if they showed up at your door at three in the morning with a bloody knife or a smoking gun, saying they had done something terrible and they needed $10,000 in cash and your car and a few days head start, would you help them?”

The answers have been quite revealing. And they have followed a noticeable divide.

That is, nearly every woman I’ve posed this question to said they would not help, they would try to get the person to turn themselves in, and they often bring up how the entire situation would make them feel threatened themselves. One exception to this was an older woman, who said she would help, because in her experience, there is no such thing as justice, there is only what powerful people say is justice and what the violent young men in their employ are willing to enforce. Her objection was a matter of philosophical technicality, not an issue of loyalty.

Meanwhile, the men, to a man, have said, yes, I’ve got five, maybe six of my boys I’d do it for. Quite a few have volunteered “Would I have to help get rid of the body?” It got me to wondering, and this is my theory.

All men have this vicious Vitamin T coursing through their bodies. And every man not only lusts constantly in his heart, but has also mentally murdered many many times. I know for myself, that there have been at least a dozen times in my life that if I could have killed an enemy if had had the certain knowledge that I could get away with it. First on the list would have been my father’s divorce attorney, Mr. Sandground. And the list never stops growing.

And I think all men understand that. They know that honestly, in their own minds, that they are killers, and can easily imagine situations where they might have to defend themselves or friends and loved ones or be unable to control themselves and commit a crime of passion. Or just get wasted and do something stupid. Or been soldiers or cops. And men, in life, and combat, form bonds of loyalty that women never do.

So in your hour of need, don’t go running to your mommy. She’s gonna give you a lecture and call the cops. Come to me brother.

This Boy’s got your back.