about
Most loners are born loners and stay loners, but sometimes a person is born gregarious but becomes a loner later in life by misfortune. So it is for the subject of "Blonde Bombshelter." She was a hot young thing, with everything going for her, living like there's no tomorrow, probably by virtue of her beauty, until some tragic series of events—unspecified—taught her to duck and cover.
I must have met someone like her in my time, but no one comes to mind, so perhaps this one is a bit artificial, a song of fancy. Still, from time to time I'll see some striking woman in middle age or older and think, "She must have been drop-dead gorgeous as a young woman...She looks hardened now...WTF?" It's not hard to imagine that a lifetime of being strip-mined by men for beauty could do that, invariably.
Some ladies have fond memories of such things, perhaps, but I think many more are blind-sided by it all. We all get toughened by living—or crumble. It's no bowl of cherries getting toughened on the way to being a man. I wouldn't trade it for growing up a beautiful girl, though, where one is fending off getting fucked left and right, all day every day, by every guy you meet. Surely that's enough to make a blonde bombshelter out of a blonde bombshell?
I guess this isn't a terribly original observation,—hot chicks don't got it so hot—but I like misusing all the Cold War metaphors, as I've done here. In the "Original Indiscression" version of this song, I sang over the interlude:
"...She had bodily artillery/She knew love was war/Now no man can/bunker-bust her/steel trapdoor/anymore..."
In this arrangement though, I left that stanza out. Too crowded. The lyrics needed some instrumental breathing room.
This song was another "original cover tune," and the lyrics were Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman."
lyrics
"Blonde Bombshelter"
(vonHummer)
See that woman? She used to be a blonde bombshell,
Now she's a blonde bombshelter, What the hell happened?
Who cares? When you're water runs dry, don't ask the well,
Was life a megaton too heavy?
Was it too thin, her shell?
Who cares? She's a blonde bombshelter,
but she used to be a blonde bombshell...
See that woman? She had a lilting siren song,
Now her siren wails an early warning at all missiles,
but if you'd rather duck and cover, she's where you belong,
Was life a megaton too heavy?
Was it too thin, her shell?
Who cares? She's a blonde bombshelter,
but she used to be a blonde bombshell...
Now she's a blonde bombshelter,
a pretty girl like a melody like "Helter Skelter,"
I'll say this for her, she knew when to say "later,"
unlike many a blonde bomshell
that wound up a blonde bomb crater...
See that woman with the civil defense, facing fallout?
She's smiling so sweetly, but she's not gonna budge
til enough time has passed
or she hears an "All Clear" called out,
Was life a megaton too heavy?
Was it too thin, her shell?
Who cares? She's a blonde bombshelter,
but she used to be a blonde bombshell...
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