Luftgitar - Air Guitar - the Sugarcubes

Cindy J. Leather Trio Productions.
Lately all these people have been writing and calling with, "Cindy, you just gotta tell me what that Sugarcubes song 'Cat' is about." No f**king way. Sly secret. But I decided to write about another Sugarcubes song that's also sung in Icelandic. Only this time, I'm going to tell you what it's about. The song is called "Luftgitar" and it's not on the album. If you want to hear it, you'll have to get the "Deus" import single (don't anyone tell Elektra about this Crusade, okay?).

"Luftgitar" means "air guitar" in English. The song, which is sung by a friend of the band named Johnny Triumph, is all about two kinds of boys in Iceland who go to school dances. Of course, none of the boys dance. The first kind just stand by the wall and look at all the girls. Boys are really good at doing that. The second kind go up to the band that's playing and try to imitate the guitarist, but of course they have no guitar of their own so they play Luftgitar. According to boy-cube Einar, girl-cube Björk can't properly play Luftgitar because she's a girl. He's right. We all know that us girls are totally incapable of striking that silly macho rock star pose required of all air guitarists. And Björk says that it's okay to smash the guitar at the end of the song because Luftgitars don't cost anything. So the song is about boys who can't dance and need to be liberated by playing their Luftgitars. Yes, boys in Iceland are the same as boys here.

July 8, 1988, Album Network