Rock and roll rhetoric: Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)

“Come up and see me, make me smile

Or do what you want, run on wild.

…

There’s nothing left. All gone and run away.”

Steve Harley was hugely under-rated as a songwriter. Also as a performer: his sneering snarl on this song is just delicious. In concert, he was also an engaging raconteur.

The rhetoric here is … all about the pause. The song has a wonderful, very-nearly-but-not-quite-too-long pause at the end of each chorus.

A pause is a powerful device for building tension or letting the import of what’s just been said sink in. In poetry, it’s termed caesura.

Here are a couple of versions; an original “official” video and an excellent, more recent performance.

From the 1975 album, The Best Years of Our Lives.