Lyrical guidance ... Mr T said be nice to your mum. Photograph: Ron Frehn/AP
How do you make up with your beloved? Romantic dinner, perhaps? Some daring new underwear? All well and good I'm sure but one Mario Balducci has you beaten hands down. The 58-year-old Italian plans to woo back his ex-girlfriend by enacting the lyrics of the Proclaimers' 500 Miles by walking 500 miles from his hometown to Rome then back again ("And I would walk 500 miles/And I would walk 500 more"). It puts your pair of frilly drawers in perspective doesn't it?
Balducci maintains a strong tradition of people slavishly following the instructions from pop lyrics. Serial killer Richard Ramirez followed AC/DC's Night Prowler more literally than his victims were comfortable with, 60s family guy Charles Manson interpreted the Beatles' White Album as a rallying call to race war, and let's not forget the suicide pact between Raymond Belknap and James Vance who claimed they were only obeying direct orders from Judas Priest. It seems your average sociopathic malcontent can't wait to start killing you softly with his song.
But it doesn't have to be all bad. There's a lot of top-notch advice in the songs we hear every day. Following the lyrics of popular music needn't have negative consequences. Sure, you may wind up beating on the brat with a baseball bat but equally you may feed the world. As a youth, I listened to Mr T's advice to treat my momma right and the old girl and me get on swell these days. When Johnny Thunders sang you can't put arms around a memory he wasn't kidding. And while Prince's exhortation to "look for the purple banana until they put us in the truck" was confusing I can report no ill-effects from that particular quest.
That was my truth, now tell me yours. Get up offa that thing and hit me with the lyrics you've followed or maybe plan to follow. We all need a moral framework in life and song lyrics seem as good a starting point as any. And if anybody has won back a lover by following a lyric literally like Mr Balducci then this will prove the vast repository of collective wisdom in popular song. Don't let me down - I'm a believer.
