Yah, yah, and here it is. The article I was waiting for that tells all. Originally in Houston, relocated to obscurity outside of Dallas. Sure, sure, there's all that dirt about the person we called Anna Nicole Smith.
But here's the thing, the tail end to the article linked above:
"Some people have it that she disgraced this town," said Alan Campbell, a burly trucker in the local natural gas industry.
"But I don't think that she did. She had a goal and she did it," he said as he tucked into lunch at a Mexia restaurant.
See it? An idiom of your average British dirt reporter.
You know Candle in the Wind, whether Elton John, so-called, was referring to Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana at the time. If you've got 80's recall you remember Def Leppard's Photograph, which at least could be about anyone, unless you've seen the video. Now quick, name a better-known American music tribute. I'm sure there's one. Mention them here if you wish, but please, no Marilyn Manson references, or for that matter other Ohio exports.
Are you sure you can't look away? Why? What is it her image did for you?
Comments
vtt: I been a lot of places. A lot. I've been places where people actually say "vittles" and "thow" (as in forwarding an object through the air). This usage is a first for me. I take your word, of course, but do you really think a Reuters story would use this idiom in the rednecky sense?
That's why when I read that article, I assumed its use had a more widespread "southern" use than I knew, and I also assumed the writer was doing a sort of no-quote quote of the trucker by using the word.
Although I see from the internets that its use is certainly popular in England and Australia. Therefore your explanation is probably more likely.
How about the Billy Joel "Start the Fire" song? She MUST be mentioned in that.
Internets check: Okay, yeah, she is.
One mention does not really a tribute make, although Billy did rhyme her name with DiMaggio, her ex-husband, so that was thoughtful.
I can think of a bunch of those, where multiple influences or contemporaries are referenced: Garden Party, Vogue, Sir Duke, plenty more.
What I suppose I was really aiming at were easy stabs at creating hits with name-dropping. Candle in the Wind is the high whore on that list for now. Since when do you re-purpose a requiem?