Songs About Flirting
June 27, 2013
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Writer: Frederick Euell (Fuel)

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The original column as written got truncated in the Guardian and the complete column is below:

Judy in the sandbox was my first flirt. Innocent, playful and wicked – she was just making friends. My mother was so happy when I slept with her – I caught mumps.

Later on in life, I’d flirt with my eyes first. Next, I’d saunter over and cheekily say, “Bet you’d look good on the dancefloor”. I recall one girl’s winked reply, “With someone else”. I looked for another signal and she played with her hair. I smiled flirtatiously and thought “Could well be in” but The Streets know flirting is more complicated than that.

I saw her blushing while her laughing friends gave her the third degree. It was very “Oh! My! Gosh!” and “He was soooo fresh” – as was her “sugar” line. The DJ was playing “Kiss” by Prince, I smiled her way when he sang, ‘You can’t be too flirty’.

Smooth operator? Me? No. I used to move like Michael Philip Jagger, ‘I'm going red and my tongue's getting tied’. Jagger sounds too gauche. I can tell he’ll be satisfied with a kiss and a fumble. He’s flirting to get to know her better. The 1960’s mood caught somewhere between restrained Edwardian England and the noughties.

“Brass in Pocket” was my introduction to flirting with intent to seduce. She has ‘motion, restrained emotion,’ uses her hands, her style, her imagination.

I learnt from Miss Pretender. Previously, I’d just played “Silly Games” and affected an “I want you to want to me” attitude. But standing as immobile and unfathomable as a Henry Moore statue is guileless. No wonder Janet Kay sounded so disappointed: rejected by bronzed foolishness.

I was foolish in other ways. Flirting makes you vulnerable and a good flirt can manipulate you, hurt you. One “Wicked Game” was all promise: it was hard to tell where the pleasure of the flirt ended and the distress it caused began.

So, I tried to be Phil Lynott’s alpha-male rocker. I wasn’t. I also lacked 1940’s charm, wit and subtle elegance. What do you want make those eyes at me for? That action’s wasted on me.

And women see through my politician-style practiced lines and sensitivity. Ladykiller? Miki Berenyi knows my show of empathy is a ruse that will lead to her getting screwed.

So why flirt? I do it for the joy, the laughter, the self-affirmation and I can live with the humiliation. My best nightclubbing years were soundtracked by Underworld singing, ‘She said come over, boy. She smiled at you, boy’. Touch and Go’s “Would You… ?” is flirtatiousness itself. It’s in the timing and delivery of the words, the infectiousness of the beat and joie de vivre of the playing. It’s a song to make you want to flirt.

During those heady rave days, I met the living embodiment of the female flirt in the Afghan Whig’s “66”. She shimmied with a little come on for me that asked for my move. I couldn’t help but reciprocate, she was utterly sexy. I fell in love and she didn’t.

She was also easily bored. She introduced herself to a handsome man at a party, flirted with him and flitted out of my life.

Conversation became reserved. Actions cautiously calculated to avoid intimacy. I lived through depression and pills until I surprised myself by exchanging glances with a stranger. Her smile brought the glint back into my eyes and love was just a warm embracing dance away.