I had read about The KLF’s “The Manual” years ago, and then forgot about it, but a recent mention of it on the Macbreak Weekly podcast reminded me all about it. So, I poked around online and found the text of “The Manual”, and surprise of surprises it explains exactly why “Rickrolling” is so popular:
No records are bought in vast quantities because the lyrics are intellectually clever or deal in strange and new ideas. In fact, the lyrics can be quite meaningless in a literal sense but still have a great emotional pull. An obvious example of this was the chorus of our own record:
“Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who Doctor Who, in the Tardis Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who”
Gibberish of course, but every lad in the country under a certain age related instinctively to what it was about. The ones slightly older needed a couple of pints inside them to clear away the mind debris left by the passing years before it made sense. As for girls and our chorus, we think they must have seen it as pure crap. A fact that must have limited to zero our chances of staying at The Top for more than one week.
Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, however, are kings of writing chorus lyrics that go straight to the emotional heart of the 7″ single buying girls in this country. Their most successful records will kick into the chorus with a line which encapsulates the entire emotional meaning of the song. This will obviously be used as the title. As soon as Rick Astley hit the first line of the chorus on his debut single it was all over – the Number One position was guaranteed:
“I’m never going to give you up”
It says it all. It’s what every girl in the land whatever her age wants to hear her dream man tell her. Then to follow that line with:
“I’m never gonna let you down I’m never going to fool around or upset you”
GENIUS.
As soon as they had those lyrics written they must have known they could have taken out a block booking on the Number One slot.
What makes this amazing is that “The Manual” was written in 1988! So, as you can see, the basic building blocks used to make a pop song popular haven’t really changed in the last 20 years or so.