Aretusa Loser

Album: The Best of Peter Sarstedt (1969)
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Songfacts®:

  • Running to 3 minutes 41 seconds, this witty uptempo infectious song was the B-side of "Frozen Orange Juice." It is a bit surprising it was not chosen as the A-side, and very surprising that it didn't fall foul of the censor, because the British state could be very heavy-handed with musicians at the tail end of the Swinging '60s. If the reason why is not entirely clear to you, the clue is in the rhymes, in particular the ones ending in "uck."

    Curiously, it includes the title of a later ABBA song on a broadly similar theme.
  • This is a song with which every red-blooded non-alpha male will identify as realization dawns that he has set his sights too high, and may have to settle for taking home "some poxy hag" rather than the homecoming queen. Aretusa (or Arethusa) was a nymph in Greek mythology; she is said to have fled from the river god Alpheus when she realized he had his eye on her, which is probably the point of the song. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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