What is "Walk Like An Egyptian" about?

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All the old paintings on the tombs
They do the sand dance don't you know
If they move too quick (oh whey oh)
They're falling down like a domino
All the bazaar men by the Nile
They got the money on a bet
Gold crocodiles (oh whey oh)
They snap their teeth on your cigarette
Foreign types with the hookah pipes say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an Egyptian
The blonde waitresses take their trays
They spin around and they cross the floor
They've got the moves (oh whey oh)
You drop your drink then they bring you more
All the school kids so sick of books
They like the punk and the metal band
When the buzzer rings (oh whey oh)
They're walking like an Egyptian
All the kids in the marketplace say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an Egyptian
Slide your feet up the street bend your back
Shift your arm then you pull it back
Life is hard you know (oh whey oh)
So strike a pose on a Cadillac
If you want to find all the cops
They're hanging out in the donut shop
They sing and dance (oh whey oh)
Spin the clubs cruise down the block
All the Japanese with their yen
The party boys call the Kremlin
And the Chinese know (oh whey oh)
They walk the line like Egyptian
All the cops in the donut shop say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an Egyptian
Walk like an Egyptian

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:22 (twenty years ago)

voguing.

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:26 (twenty years ago)

Here come the hotstepper...AL-FAYED

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

Mcarthyism.

― Masked Gazza, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:31 (twenty years ago)

I thought it was about the walk you do when it's so hot, all your bits are stuck to your leg. This is how dudes be locomotin' here today.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:34 (twenty years ago)

Yes, but what is it really about?

Obviously, they're making the point that our entire Western culture is heavily influenced by ancient Egyptian art, mathematics, philosophy and technology.

By extension, it is a nod to our origins and, indeed, our atavistic, unconscious nature as it exists with us now. In a sense, too, the song deals metaphorically with our sexual natures. We are all 'walking like Egyptians' - that is, moving in strange, ancient ways that are both enriching, alien, yet universal.

There is the lure towards, and repulsion from, the exotic in this song that exactly mirror's a child's discovery of his own sexual organs

It's a profound song that works on many levels. Now, back to my caramel fudge.

― moley, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:35 (twenty years ago)

http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/171/05/SandDance1.jpg

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:50 (twenty years ago)

The Bangles really have gone to seed these past 20 years.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:56 (twenty years ago)

her eyes in that video gave me the funny feeling as a small boy

― strng hlkngtn, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

She was giving you a sideways glance?

― moley, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 10:43 (twenty years ago)

isn't it about Grime in 2000 B.C. ?

― Amon (eman), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 11:03 (twenty years ago)

i think it's about the Other. oh-way-oh!

― swvl (vozick), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 11:54 (twenty years ago)

It's about Moses - his attempt to fit in with Egyptian society and to keep his secret Hebrew heritage from the Pharoah to avoid slavery.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

music makes people unite and dance
every body dance now - cc music factory - gonna make you sweat
think i better dance now - tom jones - kiss
let's dance - bowie

― bavid dowie, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

Dudes, it's about and Egypt's struggle to reconcile democratic modernity with a history of tyranny and postcolonial malaise.

The crocodile is Anwar Sadat.

"Call the Kremlin" is a reference to how the Russian government supported Nasser and helped to build the Aswan dam, and then were summarily kicked out as soon as Nasser had the clout to do it.

The "cops in the donut shop" are obviously the British, who ran Cairo for 75 years, getting wealthier while the Arab street suffered.

― The Mad Puffin, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

I agree with moley that "It's a profound song that works on many levels." However, I would argue that rather than "nod[ding] to our origins . . . indeed, our atavistic, unconscious nature as it exists with us now," The Bangles instead are warning us of the increasing slide back into a priest-led empire the ideology of which is founded upon metaphysical superstition and a fear of death so profound it manifests in youth worship (in the Egyptians' case: mummification; in our case: celebrations of teen idols and an epidemic of cosmetic surgery). By repeating the refrain "walk like an egyptian," The Bangles jolt us out of our nostalgic torpor and encourage us once again to forward rather than backward.

― I.A. Richards, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

Wasn't this on some Rock'n'Roll quiz show once? I think they said it was about standing on a cruise ship that was rocking on the waves, or some shit. I don't get it.

― Mervin Heinz, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE IN AFRICA?

― Another Allnighter (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

well, it could be the band's attempt at reaching the sublime through burke's criteria, what with all the mysticism and obscurity and whatnot. not enough dynamics happening musically though, to make this valid.

just a thought.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 02:52 (twenty years ago)

The guy who wrote the song explained that he was sitting on a ferry and noticed that when the boat rocked, people shifted and looked like they were walking like Egyptians.

― gorge (gorge), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 03:15 (twenty years ago)

A MAN wrote this song? Goodbye teenage dreams, goodbye.

― Petroski (petroski), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 03:54 (twenty years ago)

other songs written by men: "manic monday," "if she knew what she wants," "going down to liverpool," maybe "eternal flame" (officially credited to two guys and s. hoffs), the title song to their comeback record.

they did write some pretty damn good ones themselves, though, including "hero takes a fall" and "all about you."

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 04:05 (twenty years ago)

IIRC this was all about how the western world is so crowded. In the disco, in the school hall, at the donut shop etcetera. So in order to move (in this overcrowded society of consumption) you have to walk sideways to squeeze yourself through the crowds - i e walk like an egyptian.

― essdot, Wednesday, 22 June 2005 07:48 (twenty years ago)

just step s'ways

― Another Allnighter (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

"All the Japanese with their yen"

WTF

― Mervin Heinz, Wednesday, 22 June 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Obviously a double-entendre: The "Japanese" have a "yen," so these "party boys" call the "Kremlin" (house of gay prostitution).

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 15 July 2005 02:22 (twenty years ago)

The Chinese=bisexuals, hence they "walk the line."

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 15 July 2005 02:29 (twenty years ago)

and that's to say nothing of snapping teeth on your cigarette ... or hanging around in donut shops ...

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 15 July 2005 05:00 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

oooohhh waaaayyy ooooohhhhhh

― j., Saturday, 31 August 2013 06:14 (twelve years ago)

Gaddafi walking like an Egyptian in the video

― owenf, Saturday, 31 August 2013 12:00 (twelve years ago)

I heard this on the radio last weekend for the first time in years. I really didn't remember it having so much loud distorted guitar.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Saturday, 31 August 2013 13:00 (twelve years ago)

these are the sort of semi-nonsense lyrics i love. there's kind of a loose thematic pull but who cares really?

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 31 August 2013 13:03 (twelve years ago)

making sense = kind of rockist

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 31 August 2013 13:03 (twelve years ago)

what a bunch of idiots itt, this song is about walking like an egyptian

― j., Saturday, 31 August 2013 16:10 (twelve years ago)

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