Cary Grant's Wedding

(1)

(I said shut up!)
Everybody go Cary Grant's wedding
Everybody go Cary Grant's wedding

Champagne hip hip hooray
Thank you folks for coming today
How much was the price on the door?
Sure it's worth a whole lot more

I said go to Cary Grant's wedding
All you folks and fools  (2)
Cary Grant's Wedding

All you folks and fools
Have been invited to 
A new-wave personality 
Stumbles out of the ruins  
Cos he's been invited to 
Cary Grant's wedding  (3)

Buster Keaton he turned up
He wasn't an old woman 
He didn't take hallucigens (4)

A poor mate for Cary Grant
Slaughterer of innocents  (5)
Add on 30 years 
And you've got Jake Burns  (6)
Joe Strummer

All you're going to
Cary Grant's wedding
A new-wave Hollywood
Where everybody's good
But not great

Cary Grant's wedding

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1. According to Reformation, "Cary Grant was married five times, in 1935, 1942, 1949. 1965 and, most interesting for pre-cog specialists, on April 11 1981, about 18 months after the song was first played in concert." According to Raging Ostler, "The last lines are the key to this song. It's having a go at the post punk British music scene devolving into a sub-Hollywood star system, that kind of thing. Musicians falling back into the old thing of behaving like stars. Not sure of the relevance of Cary Grant, except as a chance to refer to LSD."

Grant famously experimented with LSD (see note 4). In fact, the title may be an oblique way of referring to an acid trip, as Mac comments:

"I watched a Cary Grant documentary a few weeks ago. A thought occurred that the 'Wedding' referred to might be an Alchemical Wedding. Those hippy 60's guys often compared taking acid to an Alchemical experience. Pre-that "New Age" stuff The Alchemical Wedding most referred to was taken from the 'Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,' Johann Valentin Andreae. (1459). In that wedding all sorts of characters are invited and stumble upon it. Just a thought given MES's broad, un-childish bloody reading habits."

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2. Dan: "There's an old blues song by Funny Papa Smith called "Fool's Blues", which has the lines: 'Some people tell me that god takes care of old folks and fools But since I been born they must 'ta have changed his rules.'"

This may not have anything to do with the lyrics here, but it's a darn good line anyway, isn't it?

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3. Martin identifies the following lines in the 1980/11/5 reading of the song (somewhere in London):

"Yoko Ono stumbles out of the ruins; save your anger for the publishing wolverines; keep it for the K- Tel marines...A new wave personality stumbles out of the ruins...a tenth rate Pole man and here he is, the man and his cronies... OK, maybe a [?] bit more bars [?]. And if I have a preference for Cary Grant, slaughterer of innocents. Add on thirty years and you've got Mark E Smith."

Here we have the earliest, so far, identified instance of a Wolverine reference. Adapted from my notes to "Arid Al's Dream":

Wolverines also figure in "Bury 1+3," "Service," "Clasp Hands," and "Session Musician," in each case somewhat opaquely. The wolverine is sort of a mini-theme, then, one that has persisted at a low level of intensity for 30 or more years. It isn't clear to me what is going on with wolverines. Wolverine is one of the X-Men in the Marvel series of the same name, a mutant with superpowers who fights evil criminals. At times this Wolverine, or anyway someone called "Wolverine," could possibly be intended, as in "Bury 1+3," when MES proclaims "I'm Wolverine." The reference in "Arid Al's Dream" is less clear. On the one hand, while it would be unusual to drop an indefinite article, it must be observed that MES drops the definite article as much as any native Russian speaker who is starting to learn English ("Behind tormentor was wolverine," so the usage would be parallel, as the definite article preceding "tormentor" has also been ditched). And in some instances, for instance "Service" ("Time of the wolverines"), it seems relatively clear that the word is not being used as a name. It is simplest to assume that MES uses it to mean roughly the same thing each time he sings it, either the animal or someone named after the animal, which makes Marvel's Wolverine somewhat unlikely to be the answer to our question, but the possibility cannot be completely dismissed based on the current evidence.

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4.  The second line of the stanza is possibly "He was an old woman." Dr. X O'Skeleton suggests this could be a taunt that is directed at Keaton due to his avoidance of LSD. However, existing versions seem to corroborate "wasn't an old woman," according to our correspondent (Martin). 

Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton lived on Buster Keaton's former estate in Beverly Hills (Dan). Grant was really into LSD, which he said brought him inner peace.

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5. The phrase "Slaughter (or 'Massacre') of the Innocents" usually refers to the story in the Bible that relates that Herod had all the male children in the Jerusalam area killed to avoid losing his kingdom to a prophesied King of the Jews who was about to be born. It's not entirely clear whether Grant or his "mate" Buster Keaton is the slaughterer in this context, but see note 3 above where it seems to be Grant.

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6. Burns was the guitarist and singer of Stiff Little Fingers, and Strummer performed the same functions in the Clash.

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