As with many in the entertainment industry, 2020 has been mostly a quiet year for perennial popsters King Luan who, presumably, have been locked down in their sensory deprivation tanks awaiting either a COVID-19 vaccine, or herd immunity, or for Bill Gates to assume his rightful role as New World Order bossy boots.
But, as the year no one wants to remember comes to a merciful close, the King has started making brief appearances from his royal balcony to metaphorically Zoom-wave at the befuddled masses. First, in mid-November, the King got a nod from Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in a segment called “Do Not Play” for their early hit “There Are No Gnomes in Sweden” (spoiler: yes, there are!). And now He has given his loyal subjects a taste of possible tunes to come (a 2021 album?) with “Plastic Bat”, a boppy piece that vacillates between a biology lesson on those nocturnal mammalian cave-dwellers, and a primer on the Aussie summer time-filler sport called “cricket”. Although the premise might sound a little sloppy, this piece ain’t no guano!
Driven by a head-nodding bass riff continuo and synths so bright and shiny they could be referred to as the second Great Conjunction of 2020, the King’s lead warbler kicks off his biology lesson, his voice all royal affectation with rolling “rrrr”s aplenty. Thankfully, the biology doesn’t get too cerebral and, before the lyrics might get mired in batty caca, the chorus switches subjects and talks cricket instead: “Life plays hardball so often / I am the Plastic Bat / Life throws a googly so softly / I am the Plastic Bat”. Cricket as metaphor for life...or perhaps as a summary of the whole 2020 thing? This past year has certainly had more than its fair share of “googlys” and “wrong’uns”!
Read between the lines, though, and you might leave the batcave and the cricket pitch and find yourself down a more conspiratorial rabbit hole. How/where/why did the pandemic begin? Who’s responsible? Where is it all leading us? This is not the first time His Royal Luanness has dipped his toe in the moat of global intrigue. Although the title, “Plastic Bat”, is a clear reference to the mainstream narrative that the pandemic originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China (naturally, all things plastic come from China, and the bat...well, say no more); but other lyrics suggest alternative narratives. “Lava glow-worm in the cavern, what will he become? / Firefly or fungus gnat, a life of glowing done”. Is hazardous cave-life a stand-in for how pandemic misinformation is keeping us all in the dark? Are we peons merely glow-worms and the bats technocrats ready to devour or enslave us? Who knows—it’s all pretty heady stuff. Perhaps I should go back to pondering the existence of gnomes in Sweden or vampires in Romania.
- Bartok
But, as the year no one wants to remember comes to a merciful close, the King has started making brief appearances from his royal balcony to metaphorically Zoom-wave at the befuddled masses. First, in mid-November, the King got a nod from Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in a segment called “Do Not Play” for their early hit “There Are No Gnomes in Sweden” (spoiler: yes, there are!). And now He has given his loyal subjects a taste of possible tunes to come (a 2021 album?) with “Plastic Bat”, a boppy piece that vacillates between a biology lesson on those nocturnal mammalian cave-dwellers, and a primer on the Aussie summer time-filler sport called “cricket”. Although the premise might sound a little sloppy, this piece ain’t no guano!
Driven by a head-nodding bass riff continuo and synths so bright and shiny they could be referred to as the second Great Conjunction of 2020, the King’s lead warbler kicks off his biology lesson, his voice all royal affectation with rolling “rrrr”s aplenty. Thankfully, the biology doesn’t get too cerebral and, before the lyrics might get mired in batty caca, the chorus switches subjects and talks cricket instead: “Life plays hardball so often / I am the Plastic Bat / Life throws a googly so softly / I am the Plastic Bat”. Cricket as metaphor for life...or perhaps as a summary of the whole 2020 thing? This past year has certainly had more than its fair share of “googlys” and “wrong’uns”!
Read between the lines, though, and you might leave the batcave and the cricket pitch and find yourself down a more conspiratorial rabbit hole. How/where/why did the pandemic begin? Who’s responsible? Where is it all leading us? This is not the first time His Royal Luanness has dipped his toe in the moat of global intrigue. Although the title, “Plastic Bat”, is a clear reference to the mainstream narrative that the pandemic originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China (naturally, all things plastic come from China, and the bat...well, say no more); but other lyrics suggest alternative narratives. “Lava glow-worm in the cavern, what will he become? / Firefly or fungus gnat, a life of glowing done”. Is hazardous cave-life a stand-in for how pandemic misinformation is keeping us all in the dark? Are we peons merely glow-worms and the bats technocrats ready to devour or enslave us? Who knows—it’s all pretty heady stuff. Perhaps I should go back to pondering the existence of gnomes in Sweden or vampires in Romania.
- Bartok
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