Well, yes...

I was watching...no, Studying The Classic Albums DVD I just bought ((It's great, you've got to get one!!)) and Joe said that "sugar" in "Pour Some Sugar on Me" stood for sex.

Listening to "S.L.@.N.G." I think it stands for religion, though in my interpretation the song "Slang" itself I think I said was about sex, but I ramble...

The mental image of the cover of "Retroactive" popped in my head. A beautiful woman staring at her ego in a mirror and thinking of death. Death to the ego? And didn't Retroactive pave the way to S.L.@.N.G. perfectly? (An album that seemed to come out of their inner souls instead of usual songsmithy?) And why would they feel the need to make such a statement?

Def Leppard's history makes a perfect story of humanity, suffering, and success. Did fate use them to make the perfect spiritual rock album?

Anyway, think of it... they fought to get what they wanted in the beginning, fought hard, and won it. Pyromania caught fire. Bad karma seemed to follow, a testing of their will. Sure it happends to everyone, but not to this extreme, and one is fighting for his life while another is quietly drowning his.
They manage to reach the heights again after faith, determination, and unbelievably hard work aiming for perfection, the perfection they had targeted on the album cover of "Pyromania". This time they came back with a mission.

Not just killer rock and roll, but "Hysteria" was sympathetic towards women, and woke the rock and roller in her heart. (See the video for "Women"and follow our superheros as personified in one body: "Def Leppard", and how he came onto the scene where women were as robots, and activated the emotional woman, rescuing her from a life of drudgery, opening her heart.)

After the stunning success of that album, you know they were riding high, but too late for one of their own. Adrenalize was a statement that life continues after death. The sheer defiant edge of "Let's Get Rocked", what I've called "the slacker's anthem", is that rock still lives... Even after the palpable sorrow of "White Lightning", so beautifully crafted as a homage to Steve, we are still told their firm belief in love in "Stand Up, Kick Love Into Motion"...

"Retroactive" was facing change. What a jewel-case of music this is!

Imagine the woman seeing the span of her life, as no doubt Def Leppard have done:

Desert Song: She dies and is reborne

Fractured Love: Her birth

Action: the material-driven world

Two Steps Behind: discovers deep love

She's Too Tough: Pride gets in the way

Miss You In a Heartbeat: love reminds her it is real

Only After Dark: confusion and drugs envelop her

Ride Into the Sun: she takes it to the edge

From the Inside: she faces her demon: the drugs speak

I Wanna Be Your Hero: tries to win back love,

Miss You in a Heartbeat, Two Steps Behind, "electric": There's too much emotion, too much electricity, but the words, the feeling is there,

Miss You In a Heartbeat "Joe's Solo" and in the end the raw truth of love is simple and beautiful. Love is real.

And death?

We adopt religion to help us deal with that, and I believe that's what SL@NG was all about:

S.everal
L.anguages
A.bout
N.eeding
"G.od"

S.L.A.N.G.

I heard clocks in the intro of "Turn To Dust", did I notice them before? I'm not sure I mentioned that in the interp, but it seems to confirm what I've understood. Time and the concept of it is a true enemy, seconded only by egos trying to control people through spirituality. And in Pearl of Euphoria didn't Joe sing "Religion...they hung these walls..."

So yes, I see a flow from Pyromania's energy and youth, through Hysteria's perfection of mission and Adrenalize's defiance to Retroactive's reflection and summation before the perfection of SL@NG....

So now I bow at their feet, to look up at them and say humbly:

Thanks, guys!

Told you I was obsessed...

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