TRACK #118:

The Time Warp by Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell and Charles Gray

You all know the moves, most assuredly, because you all know the song and the musical it originates from, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, all too well.

It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right. Pretty simple shit honestly, but here’s a diagram anyway. Act like you know.
Halloween is inexplicably associated with Rocky Horror. I may never understand exactly why, within the larger culture, these 2 things are so entwined but VH1’s Halloween showings of it in my youth have forever bonded them together in my own consciousness. Perhaps that’s the case for a lot of people.

According to the production however, the laboratory sequence and Rocky’s creation were filmed on the 30th of October in 1974. So there’s that and that’s pretty Halloweenish, not that Rocky Horror really needed any justification.

The most well known, oft played and Shindigable track is the bizarre inter-dimensional dance craze that was all the rage on Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania.

Is it about sex? Probably, everything else in Rocky Horror appears to be. Or perhaps it’s more literal, as they use a time warp to transport themselves back to Transexual. Maybe it’s both.

I’ve heard it interpreted that Riff Raff’s initial verse is about feeling horny and then orgasming. Magenta’s solo describes the viewing of pornography or perhaps a more direct for of voyeurism, while Colombia’s solo is a depiction of a rape scenario. Dunno if I cotton to all of that exactly (particularly since Colombia doesn’t seem to mind all that much) but it’s as solid a read of the songs intentions as anyone could ask for. And of course, there’s all that pelvic thrusting.

Whatever the hell the Translyvanian’s are on  about, it’s certainly getting them riled up and causing them to dance like buffoons all over the place, just as you should be doing at your Halloween party right…about…now.

Let’s do The Time Warp…again.