Tribute to INXS: Top 5 "Hallway-Walking" Songs

As if Monday couldn’t get any more depressing, Australian rock group INXS announced today that they were retiring from the rock scene.  This was a shocking development; I mean, who could have possibly guessed that INXS hadn’t already quit?  

 

They will be missed, though, as there may never be another band so profound at creating perfect background music for a person rhythmically walking down a hallway--periodically pointing at bystanders, performing pivots/spin-moves, posing, removing their jacket and tossing it to an on-looking crowd, etc.  If it were up to me, every movie would begin with an opening-credits scene featuring the protagonist dance-walking through a high school with INXS blaring, including Argo. 

Now as any top music critic will tell you, it is nearly impossible to narrow INXS' vast discography to just a few of their most appropriate compositions for pulsating interior foot-traversing, but I have tried. 

As a tribute to this legendary group, from five to one, I present INXS’ top “Walking Down a Hallway” hits.  And, as a bonus, I’ve provided a breakdown of some of their horrific genius lyrical work from within these works of art, because when you think INXS, you think horrific flawless, horrific inspirational songwriting.

 

5. “The One Thing”  

 

An upbeat tune to start, you have to have a brisk pace when traveling the corridors for this one.  This tune provides ample opportunities to vary your movements choreographically;  the sax solo (starting around the 1:35 mark) allows the walker to add some passionate twitching to their stride. 

Key Lyrics Breakdown:  It’s difficult to decipher just what the hell INXS lead man Michael Hutchence was talking about in this track, as we can see when we look at the first verse:

Well you know just what you do to me
The way you move soft and slippery
Cut the night just like a razor
Rarely talk and that's the danger

 

That is poetry too deep for a literary novice like me to comprehend, for sure.  For example, I don’t see how rarely talking could be a danger.  But for as clouded as that verse’s meaning is for me, anyone can recognize the deep romanticism as Hutchence speaks to his love interest in the hook lines:

 

It's the one thing
You are my thing

 

That’s right: “You are my thing.”  Go ahead and try that line on your girlfriends, men, provided you are trying to break up with them.  I’d blame that line on a translation issue except I’m pretty sure I heard somwhere that Australians speak English (some weird version of it, anyway).

 

4. “Devil Inside”  

 

With the intensity-depressed intro to this song, it is perfect for walking up to the set of swinging double-doors that act as the entrance to the hallway you are going to power walk through.  Make sure you push both of those doors open at the same time when you burst through at the 0:39 mark, when once again you will have to maintain a speedy pace.  That potentially exhausting rate of stride is all that keeps this song out of the top 3. 

 

Key Lyrics Breakdown: Again, the complexity of this song is pretty overwhelming, so here let’s just examine INXS' fine attempt to rhyme words.  Taken from the second verse:

 

Here come the man
With the look in his eye
Fed on nothing
But full of pride
Look at them go
Look at them kick
Makes you wonder how the other half live

 

Well, first, “eye” is rhymed with “pride.”  Later, “kick” is rhymed with “live.”  It’s unclear who the “them” is that is going in the fifth line, but they are probably leaving because they've had enough of being written into songs by a lyricist who doesn't understand how rhyming works. 

 

3. “Need You Tonight/Mediate”

Finally, we can walk at a more leisurely pace.  In addition to a slower tempo, “Need You Tonight/Mediate” allows plenty of opportunities for stopping/posing, which can be followed immediately by a fist pump, if you are feeling up to it.  As far as your walking routine goes, the “Mediate” section can probably be cut out, but it does provide a signifcant achievement, lyrically. 

 

Key Lyrics Breakdown:  My theory is that INXS probably received a lot of crap about their kindergartenesque lyrics in their early songs. So, while sulking, they wrote "Mediate," proving that if push came to shove, they do know how to rhyme words correctly: 

Mediate
Clear the state
Activate
Now radiate
A perfect state
Food on plate
Gravitate
The Earth's own weight
Designate

Your love as fate
At ninety-eight

We all rotate

 

Now, of course, these lyrics still don’t make sense, but they do rhyme, and as Meat Loaf said, “Two out of three ain’t bad,” and one out of two is like, almost two out of three. 

2. “New Sensation”

 

 

 

Remember that double-door burst-through mentioned for use in “Devil Inside?”  Well that same move works well at the 0:09 mark in this one.  Also, make frequent use of hesitation-moves (at 0:33, for example).  Pretty much just copy whatever Hutchence does in the music video, and you’ll be performing some pretty chic hallway maneuvers.  
 

Key Lyrics Breakdown:

 

Love baby love
It's written all over your face
There's nothing better we could do
Than live forever
Well that's all we've got to do
 

 

At a certain point, you realize that that even INXS has no idea what they are talking about.  (Also, they rhyme “do” with “do” here.)

All we’ve got to do is live forever?  Sounds easy enough.  I’ll get right on that. 

 
 

1. “What You Need”

 

 

Remember the songs that finished two and three on this list?  Well I’m not sure we can be 100% certain that this song is not identical to either or both of those. The nice part of that self-plagiarism is it means that this track is just as awesome to rhythmically stride to as the previous two.  Actually it’s better, because it is number one on this list. Duh.  

Key Lyrics Breakdown: If someone sits down and reads enough INXS lyrics they eventually will find some that make sen—ah just kidding, they always seem pretty stupid:

 

Ain't no sense in all your crying
Just pick it up and throw it into shape

 

 

Disagree with this list?  That’s totally understandable.  There are hundreds of INXS songs out there, almost all of which sound exactly the same.  You can pick any five tracks of theirs at random and they will be pretty much be the same as what I have highlighted earlier.  The important thing is that we all are on the same page in commemorating the end of an era. 

 

It’s alright, and probably even appropriate, for us to feel bad about having heard INXS' last obnoxious and unnecessary sax solo.  We can and should be somewhat depressed over the retirement of a group of inspirational and transcendent rock gods. 

 

But there ain’t no sense in all our crying about it.  Let's pick it up and throw it into shape.