My First Review – Kiss!

I’ve written a lot of reviews in my time but none had quite the immediate impact that the very first review had. It actually managed to bring an entire room to silence and cause a collective intake of breath. It also got me into a lot of trouble.

The review was of the Kiss song Shout It Out Loud.

It was way back in Form 2, so I was about 12 or 13 years old. The Form 2 English teacher at Murrumbeena High School (which incidentally is no longer there, and has become a housing estate) was Miss Warwar. She was known to be a tough, no-nonsense teacher whose classes were not to be taken lightly.

She did have her positive side though. Appearances can be deceiving and apparently Miss Warwar was a bit of a groover. This led to her setting us an assignment intended to test our English comprehension.

The task was to select our current favourite pop or rock song and analyse its lyrics. Then we had to write a report about our interpretation and present it to the class.

Little did I know at the time but this was going to be the first of probably ten thousand songs I would listen to, analyse and report on.

I was a big Kiss fan at the time (come to think of it I’m still a big Kiss fan!). I had discovered the band via their video for Rock N’ Roll All Nite and from there I had bought the Kiss Alive album before working my way back to Dressed to Kill, the self titled Kiss album and Hotter Than Hell.

By the time Destroyer came out I was pretty sure I was Australia’s pre-eminent Kiss expert – I was certain I was the best informed Kiss fan in Miss Warwar’s Form 2 Murrumbeena High School English class.

The song I chose was the first single from Destroyer – Shout It Out Loud. In retrospect it was an obvious first single – it was thematically almost identical to their big hit Rock N’ Roll All Nite and it had the same style of massed anthemic chorus.

History probably judges songs like God Of Thunder, Detroit Rock City and King Of The Night Time World as superior to Shout It Out Loud, but for me, as an impressionable 13 year old, Shout It Out Loud was my youth rebellion anthem.

I didn’t actually write a report – that would have been too much like homework – instead I was ready to give  a verbal report. When Miss Warwar asked for volunteers to go first I was quick to put up my hand. I was proud of  being a Kiss fan and I was already confident about my ability to string a few words together on music related matters.

I had it all well planned. I’d analysed the song in depth and came to the monumental conclusion that it was about a bunch of kids who were being exhorted to rebel against authority and express their rebellion by having a loud party. Deep stuff.

The problem came when I was describing what the kids were doing, how they were coping with their version of suburban boredom. I was rolling along nicely until I had to make a snap decision between saying they were “fooling around” and they were “mucking around”.

I chose both and loud and clear I announced to the class that the kids were out “fucking around”.

You could have heard a pin drop.

I quickly gathered myself and blubbered on until the end of my review, hoping that perhaps I’d been the only one to notice my gaffe. No such luck. Miss Warwar looked at me and said “I hope you are pleased with yourself”, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m sorry”, I replied. “It just slipped out”

Her response was to assign me 100 lines “I must not swear in class”.

I wonder if Hunter S Thompson started this way?

Kiss would continue to make some unexpected appearances in the story of my life, but not in this chapter.