Dammit Janet
| "Dammit Janet" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Richard O'Brien. Performed by Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon from the album The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Music From The Motion Picture | |
| Released | 1975 |
| Recorded | London |
| Genre | Pop-rock |
| Label | Ode Records |
| Writer(s) | Composer: Richard O'Brien, Richard Hartley Lyricist: Richard O'Brien |
| Producer(s) | Lou Adler |
| The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Music From The Motion Picture track listing | |
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"Dammit Janet" is a song/musical number in the original 1973 British musical stage production, The Rocky Horror Show as well as its 1975 film counterpart The Rocky Horror Picture Show, book, music and lyrics by Richard O'Brien, musical arrangements by Richard Hartley.
The number provides well known audience participation moments and has entered the pop culture lexicon through the often quoted phrase, "Dammit, Janet!"
The first scene of both the stage production and film open to a wedding scene with the two main characters, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, in attendance. In the motion picture, a repressive Gothic setting, backs up the young couple in their chorus with the "American Gothic" characters themselves. Brad and Janet are portrayed as sexually uptight. The song is performed in this deliberate awkwardness, setting up the characters as naive and innocent. The scene is reminiscent of the opening scene to "Night of the Living Dead". Several comparisons to the latter film with Rocky Horror have been made by authors such as Roberta E. Pearson and Philip Simpson in their book, "Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory", as well as J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum in the book, "Midnight Movies". Costumes for the two characters in this scene are nearly identical to those of the two main characters from the film "What's Up Doc".
The song is an awkward musical marriage proposal by Brad to Janet, after both have attended the wedding of two high school friends, just before setting off to visit their high school science teacher. The music for the song exaggerates the Rock-N-Roll tendency to repeat simple chord progressions.
The song is in the key of B♭ major.
Dammit Janet is the second number in the stage production following the prologue, and is performed as a duet. Act One, Scene 1 opens directly to Brad and Janet as they are waving goodbye to newly wedded friends, Ralph and Betty Hapschatt. For the film the exterior location used was an American style small town church. The original film script refers to it as the Denton Catholic Church, but as seen in the final film, it is the Denton Episcopal Church.
A notable aspect of the film production for this number is the cemetery next to the church with a billboard in the distance for comical effect. It depicts a large heart with an arrow through it with the words, "Denton, the Home of Happiness". Brad and Janet stand on opposite sides of the screen with the cemetery in the background and the billboard far in the back, but directly between each character as the song begins.
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