Week Fourteen: Mixed-Tape Madness - Soft Cell - "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" - The Very Best of Soft Cell

Week Fourteen will be dedicated to the most awesomely awesome mixed-tape that I ever received from someone with a Y-chromosome (that would be a male, for all of you who slept through science class - shame on you!!!)

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So it was on to the next song, which happened to be "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye", and if I was baffled by the meaning of "Tunnel Song", you should have seen the perplexed expression once this one kicked in.  I was quite familiar with Soft Cell, and I knew this song was about ending a relationship with a dancer/prostitute that should have never even taken place from the beginning. 

I eventually had no other choice but to resort to my gay best friend for help and an explanation as to why this song made it onto the mix.  He offered a very simple analysis when he reminded me that, for weeks, my crush and I had simply been "saying hello" and "waving goodbye" as we passed one another on campus.  He thought it was a very sweet gesture that he would have put a song like this on the mix to commemorate those simple little passings.  Then he reminded me that it could have been worse; he could have selected "Tainted Love" or "Sex Dwarf".  He also assured me that there was no way that my crush thought I had dabbled in dancing or prostitution.

I had to be satisfied with this analysis.  He was, after all, a dude - albeit a dude who liked other dudes - but he was a dude nonetheless.  This song still left me scratching my head a bit, but rather than let my imagination run wild, I finally accepted the "very sweet gesture" explanation once and for all...

Standing in the door of the Pink Flamingo
Crying in the rain
It was a kind of so so love
And I'm going to make sure it never
Happens again
You and I
It had to be
The standing joke of the year
You were a sleep around
A lost and found
And not for me I fear

I tried to make it work
You in a cocktail skirt
And me in a suit
(Well it just wasn't me)
You're used to wearing less
And now your life's a mess
So insecure you see
I put up with all the scenes
And this is one scene
That's going to be played my way

Take your hands off me
I don't belong to you, you see
Take a look at my face
For the last time
I never knew you
You never knew me
Say hello goodbye
Say hello wave goodbye

Under the deep red light
I can see the makeup sliding down
Hey little girl you will always make up
So take off that unbecoming frown
What about me- well
I'll find someone
That's not going cheap in the sales
A nice little housewife
Who'll give me a steady life
And won't keep going off the rails

Take your hands off me
I don't belong to you, you see
Take a look at my face
For the last time
I never knew you
You never knew me
Say hello goodbye
Say hello wave goodbye

We've been involved
For quite a while now
And to keep you secret has been hell
We're strangers meeting for the first time, okay?
Just smile and say hello
Say hello then wave goodbye

Say hello then wave goodbye (x3)
Say hello wave goodbye
Say hello then wave goodbye
Say hello say goodbye
Goodbye
Say goodbye
Say goodbye

Goodbye...