While avoiding what I was supposed to be doing today and listening to some of the songs I have on iTunes, the random play came across the theme to the old Wonder Woman TV show. The funky baseline of the late 70s brought back those images of Lynda Carter spinning into Wonder Woman and throwing her golden lasso around the bad guys from the days I watched the show, clearly in reruns if I remember it.

But this time I started listening to the lyrics. Unlike Knight Rider, for which I can recite the voiceover (albeit a short few lines) from memory, all I could remember of the Wonder Woman theme was the high-pitched "Wonder Woman!" of the background singers. So I listened more closely to the lead singer, and I just had to find the lyrics:

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.
All the world's waiting for you
and the power you possess.

In your satin tights,
Fighting for your rights
And the old Red, White and Blue.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.
Now the world is ready for you,
and the wonders you can do.

Make a hawk a dove,
Stop a war with love,
Make a liar tell the truth.

Wonder Woman,
Get us out from under, Wonder Woman.
All our hopes are pinned on you.
And the magic that you do.

Stop a bullet cold,
Make the Axis fall,
Change their minds, and change the world.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.
You're a wonder, Wonder Woman.

If you knew nothing of the legend of Wonder Woman, this song isn't going to help you out much. She's about four different people in this song. Take it stanza-by-stanza. In the first, she could very well be the Second Coming: "all the world's waiting for you and the power you possess." Jesus in an invisible plane.

Then she becomes something of a modern Rosie the Rivetter, or perhaps a hooker: "In your satin tights, fighting for your rights and the old Red, White and Blue." Then we're led into something of a chorus or refrain, since the shrill "Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman" is repeated often.

Next, she's a Beltway insider, perhaps a politician or lobbyist. Or the evil half of the good cop/bad cop routine: "Make a hawk a dove, stop a war with love, make a liar tell the truth." If you want to be all symbolic, she can turn a war hawk into a peacenik. On the surface, she turns the hawk, a hunter, into a dove, a showbird. Or something. Failing that, she'll simply stop a war with the overwhelming power of love. Now we know she's a made-up character. Imagine for a moment that Wonder Woman truly could stop a war with love: She would've been out of a job. If she managed to exert that influence over all the world, then her mission would've been complete. I laughed out loud at the liar line. From heavier images involving birds and wars, we switch to repenting liars.

The next stanza is flat-out dirty, if you want to look at it that way, which, frankly, I do when you consider Wonder Woman's costume. I grabbed these lyrics off the first site that came up under a Google search, so who knows how accurate the punctuation is (I've taken some out because it was just stupid). But take out the comma in "Get us out from under, Wonder Woman." Yeah. Then "all our hopes are pinned on you." Erase hopes and look at "pinned on you." Or "pinned to you." I don't even have to lead you in that direction to consider "and the magic that you do" in a different light. OK, so maybe I'm stretching. Or horny. It's been a busy week.

So from sex we're back to Wonder Woman as the one who can stop all wars. "Stop a bullet cold, make the Axis fall, change their minds, and change the world." My recollection of the show is very limited, but I don't understand how Wonder Woman could change the world from the backlot at Universal Studios (or Warners or wherever it was). Yes, Diana Prince worked for the U.N. or something, but she can only be in one place at a time.

Indeed, she's a wonder, that Wonder Woman.