It’s an adjective to describe the act of flattery, often false and deceitful, toadying, fawning and that done by a sycophant, but where does it come from and how might it show up in song?
The related verb gnathonise, or gnathonize, and the variant adjective gnathonical are now antiquated words from the 17th and early 18th centuries but they are thought to come from the character in the play Eunuchus (The Eunuch), the play the Roman writer Terence. As the Oxford English Dictionary describes him Gnatho was a form of parasite, a figure who is very familiar in many walks of life, from politics and any workplace, media, music and anywhere else. Gnatho is the sort of person who will say black was white or yes meant no if, in his case, it pleases Thraso, the man of wealth and power he has succeeded in attaching himself. The Latin word for him was parasitus, a parasite, a person who lives at the expense of somebody else and repays him with flattery, and original sense of parasite in English — the non-human sort came along a little later. The parasite in Greek and Roman literature was particularly fond of his food. Terence’s use of the word Gnatho was probably named with a reference to the Greek gnathos (γνάθος) for jaw, with and the character’s consumption of free meals obtained through greed and excessive flattery.
Flatterers, lickspittlers and bootlickers and their characteristic has always been at large, ever since Plutarch wrote his essay How to tell a Friend from a Flatterer, which sets the dynamic between sycophant and the object of his flattery and both are at fault. sycophancy can only thrive because of the target’s self-love, which impairs his judgment and because “everybody is himself his own foremost and greatest flatterer.” There are songs about this too.
The word’s most recent example might be in 1855, from Charles Kingsley’s novel Westward Ho!: “That Jack’s is somewhat of a gnathonic and parasitic soul, or stomach, all Bideford apple-women know”. But there are many better known gnathonic characters, real or fictional, such as Uriah Heep in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield with his “cadaverous and lanky” form, and “clammy hands”. Just as skincrawling a figure is the duplicitously scheming chaplain Obadiah Slope in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers adapted by the BBC in 1982..
Frederick Barnard’s illustration of Uriah Heep in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield
No sycophants are perhaps deadlier though than Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello. In more recent works, there’s also Nick Guest, sucking up to a Conservative MP in The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, or the fawning and sycophancy in the fashion industry to abusive magazine editor Miranda Priestly in Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada.
And in TV, two of the finest are Gareth Keenan, the ‘team leader’ character in the original British version of the mockumentary comedy series, The Office, and Mr Smithers, assistant to Mr Burns in The SImpsons.
In politics and business, these kinds of people are around all the time, climbing up the greasy pole of power. But their approach can be very dangerous. In the 1930s, a key figure in this mould might be Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, who took the gnathonic to mass hysteria levels of leader worship, creating the “Heil Hitler” saluted and the Der Führer label. And in the 1960s and 70s, arch diplomat and secretary of state to US president Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, known by many as Henry Ass-Kissinger, committed many acts of remarks of notorious double-standards in his web of international relations.
So then, on to the ass-licking world of song. Let’s kick off kick-ass kiss-ass song with a view of the music business and fawning and fandom by The Rolling Stones, with Shattered from the Some Girls album of 1978:
This town's full of money grabbers
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, huh
Sha oobie, my brain's been battered
My friends they come around they
Flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter
Pile it up, pile it up, pile high on the platter
Far heavier and meatier though is Orgasmatron by Motörhead, which takes on the big topic of obsequious behaviour by politicians and subjugation to The Church, The State, and The Military by society for many centuries. Go Lemmy!
Your downfall is my gain
And still you play the sycophant
And revel in your pain
And all my promises are lies
All my love is hate
And here’s a more obscure vision of the trait, in this lesser known 1960s number by The Velvet Underground with The Murder Mystery:
Dear Mister Muse fellow of wit and gentry medieval ruse
Filling the shallow and empty, fools that duel duel in pools.
To Rembrandt and Oswald, to peanuts and ketchup, sanctimonious
Sycophants stir in the bushes
In an entirely different style and later in her career, here’s Dog Eat Dog from the 1985 album of the same name by Joni Mitchell doing a live version, with the song taking on ‘bigwig financiers' and ‘snackbite evangelists and racketeers’:
Where the wealth's displayed
Thieves and sycophants parade
Pop’s Katy Perry make a more personal attack on the fawners backstage as well as being the performer, in High On Your Supply:
High on your supply
Tell yourself another lie
You're cooler than these sycophants
Who wanna be part of the show
It's hard to hear, but oh-so clear
You're not in on the joke
The Smashing Pumpkins’ song on the subject has a drug edge to it, and Annie-Dog is one of their quieter numbers:
A simple man
A sycophant
Her elephant with the laughing call
She wants clean sheets
And fresh flowers
And dental shots
And the Hong Kong glue
Amphetamine Annie-dog
Has her leash and a face
The Courteeners meanwhile won’t stand for that kind of thing, and take a northern, no-nonsense approach in their song Sycophant:
I'll never dance with a sycophant
I'd rather entertain disdain
From someone who I love
At least you know where you stand
Teenage Fanclub take a more self-critical approach, seeing flattery as much as something you do to yourself, in It's All In My Mind:
Everything's illusion
And I flatter to deceive
My life is going fast
It's make believe
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
Meanwhile the Pixies, on Levitate Me, positively ask for some sycophantic behaviour towards them:
Won't you please fawn over me?
So then, does any more gnathonic behaviour or associations spring to mind in your music collections? Feel free to share any further ones from songs, or even film, art or other contexts in comments below.
You can also get in touch the contact page, and also visit us on social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube. and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share. New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Please make any donation to help keep Song Bar running: