It’s a bewildering world, and this wonderful sounding evocative verb, attributed originally to translated François Rabelais from 1469, indeed means to confuse, and its four syllables trundle musically with a form of crash-bang rhythm. The French Renaissance writer, physician, humanist, monk and Greek scholar, best known for his satire, bawdy jokes, songs was a mischievous inventor of many words. His best known work is The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, a tale of extravagance surrounding two giants, and with this word as shown in this example from Chapter I.VI:
“Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock or inpulregafize your spirits with these vain thoughts or idle conceits…”
In 1611 lexicographer Randle Cotgrave meticulously interpreted and translated many of these inventive words, when he published his A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, and many Rabelaisian words found their way into English also via Thomas Urquhart's unfinished 1693 translations, completed and considerably augmented by Peter Anthony Motteux by 1708. Here are some illustrated samples of Rabelais’s most famous work:
But how does emberlucock come up in song? As an obscure, archaic verb, it’s not easily found of course, but just to bring some entertainment, perspective and similar satirical angle to the subject, let’s begin with a song by the Seattle post punks, The Presidents of the United States Of America:
But it’s hard to beat the late, great Charles Bradley when singing about confusion:
Lee Dorsey’s song is another belter:
This is a rather fetching, funky, retro-sounding but recent number by Leo Anthony
This later Kinks number shows some parallels with The Clash:
Genesis’s 1986 song Land of Confusion kept the satirical angle by parodying themselves with puppets in the style of the British political send-up TV show, Spitting Image:
Arguably there’s a far more enjoyable and inventive version by the Norwegian band Katzenjammer:
But on the topic of emberlucock, it’s hard to compete with perhaps this, the greatest and always most relevant number by The Temptations - Ball of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today):
So then, do any more emberulock-related songs worth floating up from your collection? Feel free to share any further ones from songs, or even film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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