Ted, just admit it… is a song written and recorded by the band Jane’s Addiction. It is largely bout the crimes that Ted Bundy committed and the motives he gave for their commission. The song was written in 1987 and released in 1988; one year before Ted’s execution for his crimes in Florida by means of an electric chair. Ted had committed numerous rapes and murders throughout multiple states between 1974 and his apprehension in 1978. During trial Bundy was described as an intelligent and charming man who would often lure women into his VW Beatle under some false pretense. Near the end when Bundy was seeking a pardon through religious conversion, he stated that it was an addiction to violent pornography which drove him to commit his crimes. The song not only explores aspects of the Bundy case but also points out how desensitized we have become as a society to sex and violence in the media. The song was also remixed by Industrial artist Trent Reznor for Oliver Stone’s film Natural Born Killers, the film also being a scathing indictment of our modern society’s obsession with violence, sexuality, and the macabre.
Two of the readings from this semester correlate to this song in my mind. The first of which is Where are you going, where have you been? By Joyce Carol Oates. The story is about a teenage girl Connie, that feels like life in her small town with her boring family is tedious. She is pretty and very aware of it, unlike her sister, or her mother who was once pretty but not anymore. I would characterize Connie as a girl that would not be averse to talking some poor lovesick boy into doing anything she wanted. On one hot summer Sunday while the rest of the family is out, a stranger and his friend come to call on Connie in their beat-up jalopy. The talkative one’s name is Arnold Friend, and he seems anything but; there is a soft menacing that starts almost from his introduction and builds to a hypnotic crescendo. Arnold wants Connie to come for a ride in their car and she is uncertain what might happen to her if she complies. Eventually through coercion and manipulation the reader is led to believe that Arnold is in fact not a friend and intends serious harm to Connie. The author’s description of the antagonist and his car made me think of Bundy, imagining his and Arnold’s sickly-sweet smiles like a crocodile’s carrying dulcet words and malevolent intentions. Additionally, I like how the Oliver Stone memo to John Grisham solidly points out that our culture is obsessed with violence. In the memo Stone states, “A recent study showed that the average teenager spends 1500 hours a year watching television,”(Stone) according to this study most programs contained violence and fully half of these violent acts do not depict the victim’s injuries or pain.”
The scene between Connie and Arnold at her screen door is where is imagine this song. The song starts with a couple beats on a wood block which almost remind me of a jalopy cruising slowly down a bumpy dirt road. The music starts and the passage begins “After a while she heard a car coming up the drive. She sat up at once, startled, because it couldn't be her father so soon. The gravel kept crunching all the way in from the road—the driveway was long—and Connie ran to the window. It was a car she didn't know. It was an open jalopy, painted a bright gold that caught the sunlight opaquely”(Oates). The bass and guitar in the into have a dreamlike quality that you can’t discern immediately as comforting or sinister; much like Arnold Friend himself. The music continues and as they talk the beat of the music, the heat in the air, and her own reflection viewed in Arnold sunglasses begin to unsettle yet mesmerize her at the same time. This is his tactic, because he knows that with enough pressure pretty and insecure girls will do silly things; he just must be patient and calm. Interestingly the author based the character of Arnold on the real-life killer The Pied Pieper of Tucson who was similar in both appearance and tactics.(wiki)
The song’s poetry and meaning are provocative and at times disturbing. It deals with issues of violence and sex in the media, as well as the cause and effect of violent crime. As Mr. Stone writes in defense of his film, “Did Natural Born Killers have an impact on members of its audience? Undoubtedly. Did it move some to a heightened sensitivity to violence? It did, some. Does it reveal a truth about the media’s obsession with the senseless sensational?”(Stone) The song lyric, “Camera’s got them images, camera’s got them all nothing’s shocking”, is such a pertinent statement to the shape of media today, and what the public also wants to see; lets face it they wouldn’t bother showing it if they knew it wouldn’t get attention. It is that curiosity with the strange that Arnold is counting on with Connie, is she wants to know more about him, that is all he needs. That attention and a little time to wear her down. Because Oates hints at the fact that Arnold and his friend have done this before. We never quite find out what happened to “the Pettinger girl” but are left to assume that Arnold had something to do with it. And when Connie is questioned about it she thinks the girl was stupid. There is a point where in a way this becomes a type of cautionary tale about the hubris of youth and how everyone feels indestructible at seventeen.
The lead singer and founding member of the band was Perry Farrell, originally born Peretz Bernstein to Jewish parents in Queens, New York. After graduating from high school, Farrell moved to California in the early 1980s, where he met Eric Avery, the bassist and co-song writer for Jane’s Addiction. Around this time “Bernstein” changed his name to Perry Farrell, apparently a play on the word peripheral. The two discovered that they shared a passion for similar artists, including Joy Division, The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, and David Bowie. Steve Perkins and Dave Navarro would join the band playing drums and guitar respectively, to round out the roster. The band quickly developed a cult following in the L.A. area and was offered a contract with Warner Brothers music. Interestingly they were able to set terms in their contract with Warner Brothers which allowed the band to independently release a live album before any of their studio work for the record company was completed. The band enjoyed both critical and commercial success with their second album, Ritual de lo Habitual. By this point the band was starting to experience internal tensions. This was in part due to Farrells heroin addiction and demands for increasing percentages of album profits. The band broke up in 1991 after releasing only two studio albums, one of which Farrell says he does not even remember recording due to his drug use at the time. They would go on to reunite several times over the following years, perhaps most importantly for the second annual Coachella music festival, which at the time was struggling to find an audience. The band’s reunion concert not only helped to invigorate the Coachella festival but also established the Coachella tradition of at least one of the musical acts being a reunion of some type.
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Ted, just admit it… |
Where are you going, where have you been? |
A movie made me do it. |
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“Camera’s got them images, camera’s got them all nothing’s shocking” |
“A recent study showed that the average teenager spends 1500 hours a year watching television,” according to this study most programs contained violence and fully half of these violent acts do not depict the victim’s injuries or pain.” |
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The song opens with a small drum roll and a syncopated woodblock which reminds me of a car on a dirt road. |
“After a while she heard a car coming up the drive. She sat up at once, startled, because it couldn't be her father so soon. The gravel kept crunching all the way in from the road—the driveway was long—and Connie ran to the window. It was a car she didn't know. It was an open jalopy, painted a bright gold that caught the sunlight opaquely” |
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As the two talk the music builds with a hypnotic baseline that is both soothing and menacing at the same time; like a viper “mesmerizing and toying with its prey before it strikes.” Arnold is doing his best to charm her but he can’t completely hide his malignant intentions. |
"You wanta come for a ride?" he said. Connie smirked and let her hair fall loose over one shoulder. "Don'tcha like my car? New paint job," he said. "Hey." "What?" "You're cute." She pretended to fidget, chasing flies away from the door. "Don'tcha believe me, or what?" he said. "Look, I don't even know who you are," Connie said in disgust. |
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I I can’t help but wonder if Bundy read this story, and somehow identified with Arnold Friend or Charles Shmid. |
The killer in this story is based on “The Pied Piper of Tuscon”, Charles Schmid active in 1966 |
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“Well, it’s just like the show before Now the news is Just another show With sex and violence… Sex is violent…” |
Did Natural Born Killers have an impact on members of its audience? Undoubtedly. Did it move some to a heightened sensitivity to violence? It did, some. Does it reveal a truth about the media’s obsession |
Ultimately, I think that humans have always been drawn to the violent and macabre. Ther was a time when families gathered to picnic and watch executions, so have we really changed that much? We are now able to get access to both real and imagined content like this with simply a few keystrokes. I know that art imitates life and vice versa but I can’t help but wonder if Bundy read this story either before or during or after committing his murders. He was a college student and intellectual at the time of the story’s publication, so it is possible, but I have found no definitive information either way. What is really interesting to me though is how as a culture we seem to hold a grim fascination with violent people and their actions. The question of does watching or reading about violent acts makes one more prone to them is not a recent one. Societies have tried to control imagery and art for thousands of years and the conversation about censorship is a contentious one. In reality what is more important that curtailing artistic expression is ensuring that our society is producing well adjusted people with access to appropriate mental health care if needed.
Works cited:
“Charles Schmid.” Wikipedia, 17 May 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Schmid.
“Jane’s Addiction.” Wikipedia, 12 May 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%27s_Addiction.
Oates, Joyce C. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” JOYCE CAROL OATES: WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/CreativeWriting/323/WhereAreYouGoing.htm.
“Perry Farrell.” Wikipedia, 16 Mar. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Farrell.
“Ted Bundy.” Encyclopædia Britannica, www.britannica.com/biography/Ted-Bundy. Accessed 22 May 2023.
“Ted, Just Admit It...” Janesaddiction.Org, 29 Mar. 2019, janesaddiction.org/songs/janes-addiction/ted-just-admit-it/.