While all but the most adept geniuses need annotations to make heads or tails of James Joyce's Ulysses or a molecular biology textbook, most folks seem to do just fine without expertly-annotated copies of Elle Girl. Truth is, they don't know what they're missing. To remedy that, we present Pop Annotations, a weekly column dedicated to exposing the factoidal profundities lurking below the surface of today's hit songs. This week we tackle club-phenom Fergie's infuriatingly catchy single, "London Bridge," which goes a little something like this:

When I come to the club, step aside
Pop the seats, don't be heavy in the line1
V.I.P. because you know I gotta shine
I'm Fergie Ferg, and me love you long time2


All my girls get down on the floor
Back to back drop it down real low3
I'm such a lady but I'm dancing like a ho
"˜cause you know I don't give a f***,4 so here we go!

3. Probably a reference to the sexy-like-an-epileptic-seizure stripper dance, an outgrowth of the crunk style of hip-hop. (Interestingly, there is some debate over whether the term "crunk" was coined by Southern rappers, Conan O'Brien or Dr. Seuss.)
4. She really doesn't. To wit: the 2005 concert in which she wet her pants but kept on singing, despite the presence of photographers and shocked fans.

How come every time you come around
My London London Bridge5,6, wanna go down7 like
London London London, wanna go down like
London London London, be going down like


5. Fergie's album cover shows the Tower Bridge, not the comparatively unremarkable London Bridge.
6. Unless Fergie has bought and now owns the London Bridge, we're pretty sure this is a naughty metaphor. Anyone got any other ideas?
7. London Bridge actually fell down many times: first in 1013 -- burned by the strangely-monikered King Ethelred the Unready -- and most recently in 1924, when Her Majesty's engineers decided the bridge was unsafe and sold it to an American businessman. The old bridge now spans Lake Havasu, and is the second-largest tourist draw in Arizona.

Drinks start pourin'
And my speech start slurrin8
Everybody start looking at you

8. Alcohol intereferes with synaptic firing in the brain, resulting in lowered intellectual capacity while drinking "“ and also during a hangover.

Grey Goose got the girl feeling loose
Now I'm wishin' that I didn't wear these shoes (I hate heels!9)
It's like everytime I get up on the dude10
Papparazzi11 put my bidness in the news
And I'm like "Get up out my face!
"˜Fore I turn around an' spray your ass with Maceâ„¢
My lips make you want to have a taste!"
You got that? "¦ I got the bass!12

9. High heels were actually first worn by men, popularized by diminutive French nobility who wore them as high as four inches.
10. Fergie is currently dating Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! actor Josh Duhamel.
11. The term "paparazzi" derives from Signor Paparazzo, a character from Fellini's classic film La Dolce Vita. Paparazzo is a photographer who finds he can earn 60 times his usual rate from photographs of celebrity confrontations.
12. Did we mention that bass of a certain frequency can make you love God?