It means pseudo-intellectual nonsense, insincerity or a confidence trick perpetrated by elected officials, so while antiquated, always current and relevant, and with a lovely musicality where has it been used in lyrics?
Flimflam, or flim-flam often comes with flirting, and the great Nat King Cole recounts a little in the melancholy love-hurt swing of Welcome To The Club from the 1959 album of the same name.
Oh, do I hear you saying you got hurt?
Did you say that she’s a flimflam flirt?
Are you saying that some
Double-dealing doll went and did you dirt?
Well, bub, welcome, welcome, welcome to the club
Now you know the feeling when you’re stung
Now you know why torchy songs are sung
So you stumbled down the ladder of love to the bottom rung
Well, bub, welcome, welcome, welcome to the club
Blues artist Jeff Healey meanwhile takes a more aggressive stance against nonsense about love when he declares that you can’t con a confidence man, from the 1988 album See The Light.
Well, I lost you at the border when you crossed it
Had your number, baby, but I lost it
I know your love was just a flimflam
No, you can't pull the wool over me, 'cause I'm a confidence man
For a much more obscure reference, citing Russian history and a whole variety of musical styles, here’s a song from that odd, but cult debut from Van Dyke Parks and his 1967 Song Cycle.
No Caucasian flair
For flim-flam will do
Step by please step by
Weigh the small advance
There is still a chance
Less common words in lyrics are always most likely to crop up in hip hop. Here’s Sam Sneed, collaborating with Dr Dre, and dismissing more flamflam in the music business:
‘Cause I'll inclined with the mastermind
I got my crew in my corner so I can't lose
’Cause I'm paying mad dues in this record biz, I don't snooze
And suckers be popping at those idiotic egotistical type of flimflam
I can't be faded Sam-I-am
Playing with the hustlers never dealing with the knucklehead bollers
Cause boys play with toys and scholars play with dollars …
And as an example of slicker rapping from 1992, Here It Comes from 3rd Bass’s MC Serch from the album Return Of The Product:
I heard the rumours and the fables
Remove them like the tumours on the tables
Boomers for the willing and the able
So turn to the next page in your manual and flim-flam, all over the jam!
There’s plenty more flimflam, or flim-flam out there, in lyrics and other places. Feel free to share your examples, fictional, factual, nonsense or otherwise, or in comments below would be most welcome, or other unusual words or contexts. Does this song make you think of something else? Then feel free to comment below, on the contact page, or on social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube. Please subscribe, follow and share.
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