I'm a fan of some country music artists. I have a few Brad Paisley albums on CD, but not all of them.
I have an iGoogle tab that's music-related and in the last month or two I added feeds from a few country music sites just to see if there might be anything of interest popping up now and then. This morning I see an item titled Paisley starts last tour leg, goes clean on three shows.
The phrase "goes clean" threw me. To the best of my recollection I'd never heard it before and maybe it was a brain cramp, but I couldn't gather the meaning from the context even when I viewed the expanded blurb. The only thing it made me think of was the phrase "comes clean," but that made no sense as an alternative given the context.
So I clicked to visit the actual page in case there was anything more I was missing, did a quick skim and still didn't see any obvious explanation. A second, slower reading caused the meaning to suddenly dawn on me. In retrospect I suppose maybe I should have been able to figure it out from the headline alone, but I don't know.
I still don't recall ever having heard the expression before. Is it a new term the showbiz kids bandy about these days? Admittedly I'm not the most hip person around (as attested to by my enjoyment of country music?) and I often don't know what's going on in a more general pop culture sense. For instance, commercials for hot new products take a while for me to notice, let alone comprehend and when I finally figure out what they're selling, my reaction is usually, "So? Who needs that?" Of course, by that time the product is often the proverbial "phenomenon sweeping the nation!" Yeah, I'm not exactly tuned in on things.
Anyway, following is the full news blurb (minus a listing of Paisley tour dates). If you haven't figured out "goes clean" for yourself already, just read this and you'll no doubt get it and then be able to answer my little question at the top:
Tuesday, January 20, 2009—Brad Paisley launched the final leg of the Paisley Party Tour this past weekend with sell-out shows in Memphis, Little Rock, Ark. and Pensacola, Fla. and "near capacity" in New Orleans, according to his publicist. He heads to Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana for more shows in the next week. Dierks Bentley and Darius Rucker are guests on the tour.
So is it me...? I'm OK if it turns out it probably is or I wouldn't ask.
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6 comments:
No idea what it means. Even after reading the real story.
Well, apparently it's not just me then.
I also ran it by a friend of mine online a short while ago and he offered up two possible interpretations (based on the headline alone), neither of which was the correct one.
I won't say just what it means, but here's a hint: It helps if you keep in mind the number "three" from the headline as you read the paragraph.
I have no idea why they wouldn't just use the standard phrase, especially since it wouldn't be appreciably longer. But naturally when someone's typing something they just know exactly what they mean themselves and it doesn't even occur that a phrase might not be commonly understood or evident. I know I've almost done that on occasion, but sometimes I catch myself and change it to something I think will be less prone to misunderstanding. (And if I actually did do it, then I never was made aware of it.)
In this case it definitely seems like a slang term because it doesn't appear to be a direct quote. Either way, it's still not something I've ever seen or heard before (in any context). I just found it curious.
P.S. Hmmm, I just realized that when I say the standard phrase wouldn't be appreciably longer, I'm wrong. It actually wouldn't be any longer at all. In fact, it would be shorter!
The way I see it, the three-word, eleven-letter phrase "goes clean on" could be replaced by a common two-word, nine-letter phrase.
To clear up any remaining suspense, I gather from the context that "...goes clean on three shows" translates to "...sells out three shows."
I have no idea why they wouldn't have just said that.
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Also, I see I miscounted letters in my prior comment. "Goes clean on" vs "sells out" boils down to three words/eleven letters vs. two words/eight letters (not nine---Duh!).
NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO! if you go on like this, i will develop a spontaneous headache. even for me, as a non-native anglais writer, the goes clean seems like a mistake rather than a hip phrase. or maybe he's shaving off his beard, moustache? if he has any. did you write the musician and ask for an explanation? because frankly, i don't want you to go on about it in the next 3 blog entries, you will turn a simple headache into a whirling and throbbing migraine that will make my computer spit marbles of loud-shrieking and yelling little critters until everything has to be cleaned. yeah.
As I mentioned in my prior comment the term simply means that Paisley sold out three shows. I don't know why they didn't just say that.
I see this afternoon that in fact they ARE just saying that now: Paisley sell outs continue.
But don't worry, that's really all I have to say about it. It was just one of those phrasings that stood out to me as very odd. I'm just glad it wasn't only me who found it strange.
A friend of mine speculated that "goes clean" could have referred to banning alcoholic beverages or something to do with promoting an environmental cause somehow. Though incorrect, those were both good guesses, I thought, ones which hadn't occurred to me.
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