LO4

Chosen Song Meaning/Deconstruction

The Offspring – Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

The song ridicules a "wannabe gangsta" who is immersed in hip-hop culture not because he truly loves or understands it, but because it is trendy, makes him feel tough and makes it seem that he can get all the girls ("and all the girls say I'm pretty fly - for a white guy"). The song openly mocks the middle-class suburban youths who listen to rap music for this reason.

The structure of the song fundamentally follows the conventions of most other songs. It confirms to the mainstream formula of verse-chorus-second verse-repeat chorus and so forth. The language and style of the lyrics used work well to fit in with the irony of the music video. There is lots of ‘gangsta’ slang words used which stereotypically don’t look right coming from the ‘white guy’ in the video. The lyrics tell the story of the day from a third person perspective of the ‘white guy’. For example ‘So he bought Vanilla Ice’ and ‘Now he's getting a tattoo’. As a song it’s very upbeat and happy. The catchy lyrics and guitar tunes allow the song to become recognisable from almost any point of the song. Also the comedy and humour of the lyrics make it a fun song to listen; it works well in several contexts and has done since its release in 1998. The tone of the singers voice in the band is very iconic, during this song he uses a tone that is quite aggressive but adds to the comedy of the song. Words like ‘Hey Hey!’ and ‘Give it to me baby!’ are emphasized the most during the song, these lyrics are sung just before the chorus starts, making the build up for it more exciting.