Expert: Joe - 2/20/2002

Question
Hi!  I'm doing a school project on Gavin Rossdale (I know...lucky me!)and i was wondering if you could answer some questions for me.

1. How is Rossdale pronounced?  Is it just "Ross - Dale" or is the Ross part pronounced differently?  I've heard it a few different ways.

2. We're supposed to analyze the lyrics of a song for the project.  I'm doing "Hurricane" and it's not hard to analyze except for one part.  What do you think the deeper meaning is of the part that goes "Win some ground but lose you/It's never explained how to make it through/ No rope no cash - no serpentine/ All love buried on a bonfire"?  The first part, about winning some ground contradicts the rest of the song because during the rest of the song he says he's going to sacrifice things for her just to make things work, but this line talks about losing her.  And how would he win some ground if he was sacrificing so much?  I also understand the next 2 lines, but what do you think “all love is buried on a bonfire” means?  Sometimes his metaphors are so ambiguous!

3. We have to do a 10-minute presentation along with a paper.  This is for English class and it's all about poetry.  Do you have any suggestions for the oral presentation part?  I was thinking of talking about how he has matured over the years and how it is evident in his writing.  

Thank you so much!


Answer
>> 1. How is Rossdale pronounced? Is it just "Ross - Dale"
>> or is the Ross part pronounced differently? I've
>> heard it a few different ways.


As far as I know it is Ross - Dale but you sort of add a slight ZZZZ sound in there.  I could be wrong, never actually met the guy to ask him personally (yet.)  Nor have I heard interviews where he corrected people, or where other band members used his last name.

>> 2. We're supposed to analyze the lyrics of a song
>> for the project. I'm doing "Hurricane"

The questions you ask about the metaphor's actually have a rather simple answer.  For the most part, Gavin's looking for stuff that rhymes.  Seriously.  I know we'd all like to say he's being deep and profound, but I'd say that 50% of the time he needs to rhyme and the other 50% he is being profound.  He writes very surreal lyrics and poetry (if you don't know what surreal is, be sure to look it up, you can go for hours in a presentation talking about surrealisim and linking it to other great rock music such as the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour.)

To answer your points directly...  all love burried on a bond fire great line meaning most likely love is sitting right in front of you, but you can't get it because you'd burn yourself... wait for the flames to die down...  one of many intrepretations.

Honestly, I wouldn't do Hurricane.  I would do Machinehead, and bring in Gavin's line "I saw the best minds of my generation starving hysterical and naked... dragging themselves through the streets..."  This line is a quote from Alan Ginsburg (Ginsberg?) -- a very great poet from the 1960's...  Much of Gavin's work is inspired by this man's poetry.  So if you want to impress your teacher, look up the poem "Howl" by that poet and draw links to Gavin's writing with that.  :-)

Win some ground but loose you...  well it refers to a battle most likely.  For example, in World War I, people would sit in trenches for days trying to win a few yards (literally.)  It took months to put the lines back a mile or two...  and in the end, LITERALLY to win some ground, you had to loose so many men...  Gavin brings this into a love relationship -- he comes further at something?? but he pushes the ultimate goal out of the way...

But that's just one of a billion different ways you could think of the song...

For the oral presentation part... I would definately show your class where Gavin gets his inspiration from.  Read a few works by Ginsberg and you will see where a lot of the dark dreary references come from... and the mood overall.  I promise you your teacher will be blown away if you can talk about that man's poetry in your class... that's 300 level english college material.  :)

Any more questions or if I can be of help just let me know.
-Joe
joe@deconstructed.org
http://www.deconstructed.org/