'WHERE DO THE CHILDREN GO' BY THE HOOTERS - GREAT SONG BUT WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE LYRICS?

American band The Hooters deserve to be remembered for more
than just one song, the anthemic party rocker AND WE DANCED.
Unfortunately like so many bands have discovered over the
years one or two mega-hits can actually be a total curse
because fickle fans tend to latch onto a hit song to the
point where they dont take any notice of the definitive
output a band records which doesn't quite have hit sin-
gles written over it. THE HOOTERS did in fact score a
few hits, including the minor one, ALL YOU ZOMBIES,
which is a very provocative interpretation of the bibli-
cal journey taken by the 'lost children of Israel' under
the guidance of Moses. AND WE DANCED of course is
a dance favourite which caters for teenagers caught
up in the throws of innocent romance, two inspira-
tional tunes undoubtedly, but beyond all the fickle-
ness of the commercial success of these songs is
a catalogue of if not better songs which contin-
ues to be ingored by australian radio stations.

The Hooters are categorised by a sound which incorporates
rock'n'roll, folk and a little element of reggae if you listen
very carefully, i love the song featuring on the You Tube
above, WHERE DO THE CHILDREN GO, a song which has
always aroused my curiosity as to who the deadly piper
is who is leading all the children away as it's rendered
in the song, personally i interpret that as meaning so
in a purely metaphorical way, that the innocence of
children always gets lost to all the bad influences in
the world as they grow up, i dont think The Hooters
are singing about a child predator who's kidnapping
children. It may be construed in that manner if you
were to interpret the song literally. A bit like how
a certain religeon interprets 'abstain from blood`.

Other tracks of The Hooters which deserve men-
tioning which never get played in a radio station
in my part of the world is the overlooked DAY BY
DAY and the title track off the NERVOUS NIGHT
album, the album which AND WE DANCED and
WHERE DO THE CHILDREN GO feature on, as
well as a few more folk influenced songs off
the 1989 album ZIG ZAG, notably a cover of
500 MILES and the rollicking DONT KNOCK IT
TILL YOU TRY IT. In 2001 the band reformed
and a brand new album came out a few years
ago, still a great live act but their best music
remains their classic stuff from the 1980`s.