Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: You gonna walk [to work]?
LORELAI: I’m wearing heels.
RORY: Change your shoes.
LORELAI: I’d have to change my outfit.
RORY: Change your outfit.
LORELAI: I’d have to walk upstairs.
RORY: Suddenly I’m living with Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, previously discussed.
LORELAI: Do you think [Luke’s] dated anyone since Rachel?
RORY: I don’t know. Where would he meet anyone? He’s either here or in his apartment.
LORELAI: Maybe he has a secret life. Maybe he’s got a little chippy stowed away in Mount Pilot.
Mount Pilot is a fictional town in the sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68). The show is set in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, and Mount Pilot is a neighbouring larger town. Mayberry is apparently based on the real town of Pilot Mountain in North Carolina, with its name inspiring Mount Pilot. (There is a real Mayberry in Virginia, about 22 miles from Pilot Mountain).
The archetypal small town of Mayberry was almost named Taylortown and had a sheriff named Taylor [!!!!!], and like Stars Hollow, only had one traffic light and a cast of lovable eccentric characters. Like Stars Hollow, it was about thirty miles from the state capital, and had a population of ambiguous size.
The name Mayberry is used in popular culture as a term to refer to idyllic small town life and rural simplicity. Lorelai is humorously using the name “Mount Pilot” to mean any real life neighbouring town to the “Mayberry” of Stars Hollow.
“Chippy” is dated American slang for a prostitute or promiscuous woman; it goes back to the late 19th century and is of obscure origin.
LORELAI: The Macarena. You and Lane for hours and hours, for weeks on end.
RORY: Hey, we were mocking. You can’t mock the mocking.
Macarena is a Spanish dance song by Spanish group Los del Río about a woman of the same name. Appearing on the 1993 album A mí me gusta, it was an international hit and dance craze in the latter half of 1996 and part of 1997.
In mid-1996, the infectious song became a worldwide hit roughly one year after the Bayside Boys (composed of Mike Triay and Carlos de Yarza) produced a remix of the song that added English lyrics. The reworked song spent 14 weeks at #1, and was the #1 song of 1996. The song stayed in the charts for 60 weeks, the longest reign of a hit song at that time. It is often considered one of the greatest of one-hit wonders, and one of the most enjoyable “bad songs”.
In the US, the song, and its corresponding Macarena dance, became popular around the time of the 1996 Democratic National Convention in August that year. C-SPAN filmed attendees dancing to the song in an afternoon session, something which might have attracted the young Rory to the song.
Lorelai gets revenge by mentioning some of Rory’s musical guilty pleasures.
Bryan Adams
Born 1959, Canadian singer, composer, and guitarist who has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Joining his first band at 15, he released his debut album, Bryan Adams, at 20, and rose to fame with his 1983 album, Cuts Like a Knife. His 1984 album Reckless made him a star, with hits such as Run to You and Summer of ’69. His 1991 song Everything I Do (I Do It For You) went to #1 around the world, and is one of the best-selling singles of all time. He did a 1996 duet with Barbra Streisand, one of Lorelai’s favourites. Rory had a poster of him on her bedroom wall for two years; this doesn’t seem quite believable, as he reached his peak when she was seven, a bit younger than the usual age kids start putting posters of pop stars on their wall. Another case of Rory being a precocious child, or perhaps, like Lorelai, she is fond of the music that was big when she was a small child?
The Spice Girls [pictured]
A British pop group formed in 1994, with a mantra of “girl power”, they are one of the most recognisable acts of the British pop music resurgence of the 1990s. Their 1996 debut single Wannabe went to #1 around the world, the start of their global success as the face of a marketing juggernaut aimed at girls and young women. They went on hiatus in 2000, but have reunited for two concert tours since. The group has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them the best-selling girl group of all time, and the biggest British pop success since The Beatles. They became big when Rory was twelve – bang on time for an interest in pop music. Her being a fan of a girl group seems suspiciously like Lorelai’s obsession with girl group The Bangles.
Dido
Born Florian Armstrong in 1971, English singer and songwriter with a distinctive voice. She attained international success with her 1999 debut album, No Angel, which had hit singles such as Here With Me and Thank You. It sold over 21 million copies and won several awards. This seems to be quite a recent guilty pleasure, dating to when Rory was about fifteen.
Rory teases Lorelai about some of her other musical guilty pleasures.
The Bay City Rollers
A Scottish pop group known for their teen idol popularity in the 1970s. They’ve sold more than 120 million records worldwide, and their biggest hit is Bye, Baby, Baby, from 1975. It’s never confirmed that Lorelai ever actually liked them, and Rory seems to mention them as a trick to get Lorelai to confess her real guilty pleasure.
Duran Duran
Olivia Newton-John
Born 1948, British-Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Four-time Grammy Award winner with five #1 songs, she has sold 100 million records worldwide. Her biggest hits include I Honestly Love You (1974) and Physical (1981). In 1978, she starred in the musical film Grease, previously mentioned, whose soundtrack remains one of the most successful in history. In 1980 she starred in the musical film Xanadu, which was a box-office disappointment and panned by critics, but has become a cult classic (is this the reason Lorelai likes her?).
LORELAI: All right, I confess, I was hiding Barry Manilow.
RORY: You confess!
LORELAI: But he was very big when I was very small and it’s the live version where he does a medley of all the commercial jingles he’s written.
Barry Manilow (born Barry Pincus in 1943) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and producer who’s had a career spanning more than fifty years. His biggest hits include Mandy (1971), I Write the Songs (1975), Can’t Smile Without You (1975), and the Grammy-winning Copacabana (1978). He has had 51 Top 40 hits, with 13 of them getting to #1, and has sold more than 85 million records worldwide.
Lorelai admits that she has been hiding a Barry Manilow CD under the seat of the car. The album she refers to is his 1977 Barry Manilow Live, recorded at the Uris Theatre in New York. It contains a track which is titled Very Strange Medley, and as Lorelai says, it’s a medley of commercial jingles that Manilow wrote before he became a star. Some of the products promoted are Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Dr Pepper, and Pepsi. Manilow says he included it against the values of his “artsy-fartsy” friends.
Rory teases Lorelai by singing a song which appears on this live album – Looks Like We Made It. It’s from his 1976 album, This One’s For You, released in 1977, and reached #1. People often take the song’s lyrics as being positive, but in fact they’re bittersweet – the narrator of the song and his ex-lover, have finally “made it”, but separately, not together. Only by breaking up have they found success. A possible reminder that, as a mother and daughter, Rory and Lorelai will have to go their separate ways at some point if Rory is to have a future.
LORELAI: Wow, busy today. Has Luke been advertising or something?
RORY: He gets good word-of-mouth.
LORELAI: Well, we have to start spreading bad word-of-mouth so we can always have a table.
RORY: Well, that would be wrong, but sure.
The show opens with Lorelai and Rory having a weekend breakfast at Luke’s and finding it disturbingly busier than they anticipated. (It actually doesn’t look busier than any other time they’ve shown Luke’s diner on a weekend at breakfast time).
Even though there’s a free table right inside the door, they still joke about ruining Luke’s business to make sure they never, never, ever, run the risk of missing out on a table. Then they end up ordering coffee and muffins, which they … didn’t really need a table for, anyway? They could have taken those to go. But from the goofy way Lorelai gazes at Luke, it seems she’s here for more than food …
Lorelai is surprised to see Luke being polite and friendly to a customer, saying he’s usually so gruff. Luke is chatting to a middle-aged woman sitting alone – probably trying to make her feel welcome, as single, older women quite often get short shrift in cafes and restaurants. It’s not only a kind gesture, but good business sense (and quite believable behaviour for someone who lost their mother young and was brought up with traditional values). No wonder he gets good word-of-mouth!
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 