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if only he had been plugged in to his music on the subway. this all could have been avoided.
so one-hit-wonder james blunt saw a beautiful woman on the subway (who, the story goes, was his ex-girlfriend.) she was with another guy. he’ll never see her again. but they shared a moment (at least, he had a moment) which will last as long as lite-rock stations and on-hold music play you’re beautiful incessantly. depending on whether you hear the clean radio version or the CD version, you get a slightly different experience with this song.
clean version: She could see from my face that I was flying high.
not-so-clean version: She could see from my face that I was fucking high.
now, this totally changes the equation. see, most of us only know the clean version. we just think, oh, here’s this guy, having a slightly-stalkerish moment on the train with a woman he may or may not know. it’s a wonderful moment, and she can see he is doing well in life (flying high.) let’s all assume there is love all around; everyone ends up wistful but happy. so maybe you think that this is all a wonderful Hallmark sort of moment wrapped up in a song that is about as deep as any Hallmark product. and perhaps you’d be right.
but… in the not-so-clean version, he is having this slightly-stalkerish moment… and she can see he is wasted. have you ever been that person who is stared at by someone who is clearly messed up? i have had more than one experience in life where someone who was completely fucked up either frightened me or actually tried to harm me. i have spent time with people who are messed up. most are pretty peaceful. some? not so much. i won’t get into it, but suffice to say, little good can happen when the wrong person is FUBAR’d and glued to you. what’s so fucking romantic about having someone who is messed up staring at you on a train? i fail to find it a lovely, deep experience. for me, all i can think of is where’s my can of mace?
at best, this is the most irritating piece of elevator music material. at worst, it is creepy elevator music. if i am going to have creepy elevator music, i would prefer it to be something from a tim burton movie. at least that way, i can feel like i’m in the movie, too.
very few songs make me change a radio station faster than this one does.
now, before you go nuts because i’m not loving something by stevie flowy dress nicks, know that i love a lot of her songs, both from fleetwood mac and even solo. i think she is an amazing, inspirational gift to the planet. i even love the story (is it true? who knows) behind how this song was written. (apparently, nicks was on a honeymoon when she heard little red corvette, which inspired her to write this song. she called up prince (because apparently, all famous people have other famous people on speed dial, doncha know), who came down to the studio and played the synth in this song. he is uncredited for that, though i think he has a songwriting credit for this song. and then poof! he finished his work and left.)
but all i can hear when this song plays is that synth, sounding like relentless bullets into my head. it actually hurts to listen to it. that, of course, and the feeling i get that i am listening to a loop, a never-ending, whining loop. i have to get away from this before my head starts to cave in on itself. (oh wait — am i confusing this song with edge of seventeen? that’s possible. those two songs are the two songs i really, truly, cannot abide from ms. nick’s work… but nope. in this case, i really do mean stand back.)
okay. it’s a toss-up. i can’t stand either song. i think i’ll listen to some actual prince instead.
criticizing ’70s music is like shooting fish in a barrel. i did it for one month and still have stuff left over. how i passed over john travolta’s star turn is beyond me. middlebro is probably smiling right now reading this, as i think this would make it up there on his list of awful ’70s songs. (he’s like the ultimate curator of ’70s music.)
travolta was at the height of his teen heartthrob time, as he played vinnie barbarino in welcome back kotter. teenybopper wreke never thought he was cute, but i did want my hair to feather back off my face like his did. i’m impressed that they took a chance on him and let him sing in the movie grease; this piece of musical drivel would be a career-killer for most. luckily for travolta, his career survived this song.
so here’s the deal. you have a young girl with no friends and no life. she lives her life as a shut-in, with only her radio for company. one day, a young man comes to visit. he gets confused by the loud music in her room, so angie turns the volume down and sucks him into the radio, where he remains, her secret lover, for all time.
(yeah. screams hit song to me, too.)
and yet, in 1974/5, it hit number one for australian singer helen reddy in the US — she of i am woman, hear me roar fame.
what a freakin’ letdown for me. i mean, one second, reddy is singing all about empowerment. and then, next thing you know it, some girl who clearly is disturbed but has some sort of magical powers uses them for evil. it’s like a prelude to carrie— misfit girl takes revenge. by the way — doesn’t anyone ever wonder what the hell happened to the boy? where are his parents? where are the authorities? it’s like some freaky show set in charlie brown’s land of no adults.
if this had been made today, i suspect someone would have turned it into a reality show. can you imagine — it would be the intersection of those ghosty shows and hoarders, only this telekinetic chick is hoarding an actual person. considering the stories one hears in the news as of late of people who are kidnapped and missing for years, this song just trips my creep-o-meter that much more.
oh hell. i need a mental palate cleanser. something from that era that is happy and kooky and that always makes me smile.
dammit, they never, ever sing the words what’s up. what is up with that?
there was a period of time in popular music, children, when to seem earnest, you needed to look like your last bath was in the prior decade. you needed to put ordinary, garden-variety items (like goggles) around your stovepipe hat to seem like you were genuinely creative. (this was also the time period where the tramp stamp gained popularity.) throw in some acoustic guitars, flannel shirts, some dreads, and a video set in a living room, and you were set for stardom.
this was the age of grunge.
now, do not misunderstand me. there are works from the era of grunge which i hold dear in my heart. (why, one of my most favorite songs, ever, comes from this musical era.) but 4 non blondes did not produce anything truly meaningful or remotely entertaining at this time. and yet, what’s up became a big hit for the group. i’m thinking that the youth of america (a group for which i sort of still qualified at that time) just liked the refrain:
and i say: HEY! yeah yeaaah, HEY yeah yea i said hey, what’s going on?
this, sung over and over and over. shower, rinse, repeat.
now. lest you think linda perry, author and singer, is not deep, her lyrics are really, really inspiring.
and so i wake in the morning and i step outside and i take a deep breath and I get real high and i scream from the top of my lungs what’s going on?
so she basically steps out of her house, hyperventilates, and then screams. if she lived next door to me, that sort of behavior might severely hinder neighborly relations.
poor lady. in the song, she spends a lot of time lying in bed, crying and trying to get something out of her head. she notes she feels peculiar. also, she prays for sanctity and for revolution. considering she spends the entire length of the song wondering what the hell is going on, you wonder from what she wishes to revolt. but she still cries. and she still prays. and she’s still very, very confused.
you know what i wish for her? perhaps some antidepressants.
ah, the freshman 10. you never believe it will happen to you until you head off to college, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and you are faced with cafeteria food. the university of miami cafeteria, at least the one near my freshman dorm, was no pleasure palace. sure, it offered some things i never had before (and, thanks to it’s awful treatment of such foods, i will never try again — platanos fritos, i am looking at YOU), but the food was inedible for the most part.
i spent quite a bit of time eating godfather’s pizza (which wasn’t a lot better), the strange chicken patty sandwiches in the breezeway, and the happy hour free eats at a bar across south dixie highway. (nevermind the fact i was not drinking age. i could buy a soda and get a whole meal with it.) not exactly a healthy regimen; and when i came home for winter break, i realized i was not on a good path.
upon my return, i signed up for an aerobics class that happened a couple of nights each week at the UM gym. (i think the football players had their own gym, as i never saw anyone terribly bulky there.) and anyone who remembers the early 1980s remembers a lot of women sporting fluffy hair and stripey duds much like the lady herself, ms. jane fonda, queen of pain.
my roommate was heavily into jane, so we spent a lot of time attempting this stuff.
anyway, back to the UM gym. my roommate and i spent hours and hours in aerobics class. and, in short, i didn’t really enjoy this particular class, but i didn’t feel like i had any choice but to attend. (the food choices weren’t changing, so something had to give.) i didn’t like the especially joyful woman who taught the class. i didn’t particularly want to feel the burn. what i wanted was to make it through the damn class so i could go out and risk my life crossing grand avenue to visit steve’s ice cream in coconut grove feel a little virtuous, for 5 minutes at least.
so every time i attended, guess which song had the leg lifts i dreaded?
yep. mr. billy idol, reminding me that no one could see the sun through my thunder thighs.
in short: i hate pert ladies who yell Woo! as they bounce and stretch it out.
zany nebraskan duo denny zager and rick evans’ in the year 2525 hit number one on the US charts the week of the first manned moon landing. it’s ironic, really, as this song warns of the evils of technology and how it will ultimately doom the human race. (bet they were the life of the party.their next song, a happy-go-lucky ditty which didn’t get far in the US but was a hit in the UK, involved a rapist nailing himself to his prison wall.) i marvel at how young americans thrilled to hear that nasally voice of death as it warned of the evils that would befall us every thousand years, and only apparently in years that ended in 525.
this song always reminded me of a part of the passover seder where we sing about each and every freaking plague that happened before pharoah let moses takes the jews out of egypt. you drop wine on your plate (or, if you are a slob like me, on the edge of your white blouse’s sleeve, never to come out in the wash.) i imagine in this version, though, zager and evans taking a big hit off a giant spleef after each verse.
In the year 4545 Ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your eyes You won’t find a thing to chew Nobody’s gonna look at you
zager: hey man, that’s a good one. hey! let’s write a few about G-d. only the G-d lines have to happen in years that end in 10. like, say:
In the year 7510 If G-d’s a-comin’ he ought to make it by then Maybe he’ll look around himself and say Guess it’s time for the Judgement day
evans: far out, man. faaar out. don’t bogart that joint.
i’m struggling to envision groovy guys and girls boogying to this song about the end of the world.
a far better choice would come later with this:
hell, if the end of the world comes, let it come with a bang, not a relentless, whiny whimper.
(and let us all say amen birthday party cheesecake jellybean BOOM! right?)
you are welcome to take issue with my selections in the comments. (some people are still taking issue with what i wrote over 5 years ago about the song wildfire… on my old blog. and wow, who knew those fans would be so nasty!) also, if you have nominees for songs you loathe (and which i’ve not written about already), feel free to share.
it’s a tough call. hearing someone sing thong tha tha tha thong is awful enough and is grounds alone for getting sisqo laughed off the face of the earth. but let’s break down this ode to underwear.
there is nothing wonderful about wearing a thong, and anyone who tells you they are comfortable has no nerve endings in her nether regions. sure, you end up with no VPL (visible panty lines), but there is a reason why these torture devices are called butt floss.
there’s something even more disturbing about the song and video. the video starts out with a little girl, presumably sisquo’s daughter, bringing a thong to him and asking him what it is. then, the song starts with this utter objectification of women. i mean, the sum total of a woman is her ass. so hey, little girl. don’t bother going to school; just work on your posterior and then show it off.
and then, la creme de la creme of this poetry is this gem of a line:
she had dumps like a truck truck truck
wow. we are really talking a completely different type of experience here. yes, it involves an ass, but this is just gross. of course, maybe that’s why she wears a thong. after she’s hitting the clubs, maybe downing some nachos, thongs are her only hope here.
you are welcome to take issue with my selections in the comments. (some people are still taking issue with what i wrote over 5 years ago about the song wildfire… on my old blog. and wow, who knew those fans would be so nasty!) also, if you have nominees for songs you loathe (and which i’ve not written about already), feel free to share.
when i was young, a friend of mine recounted a family time when he and his family were watching what passed for a racy movie back then: the blue lagoon. they were all gathered around the TV, not realizing it was going to be racy. suddenly, there was a little nudity and… my friend popped up and asked the rest of his clan: hey, anybody want some hot cocoa?
when i think about this song, i surely do.
it’s kind of sad to say this, as divinyls lead singer chrissy amphlett recently passed away after fighting a battle with both breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. i don’t even mind some of the rest of their catalog. but this song? TMI.
it seems like a pleasant enough song, really. you think it will be a nice little love song when it starts. and then, boom! you get this jarring moment. the moment when, if you are driving in a car with kids, you switch the radio r e a l l y fast or else suffer conversations you really don’t want to be having while driving 65 miles an hour on a highway.
seriously — what person in his or her right mind wants their significant other to say, hey honey, when i think about you, i choke my chicken? ew ew EW! it’s creepier still when the sentiment comes from someone you don’t know — or perhaps don’t even like.
nope. i’d rather think about a funny parody of this song. sorry, there aren’t subtitles for those of you who have trouble with accents.
you are welcome to take issue with my selections in the comments. (some people are still taking issue with what i wrote over 5 years ago about the song wildfire… on my old blog. and wow, who knew those fans would be so nasty!) also, if you have nominees for songs you loathe (and which i’ve not written about already), feel free to share.
happy july 4th! i love july 4th. it is truly the most american of holidays, as we gather to celebrate our independence. yes, we replace our phillies flag with old glory; and i put on red, white, and blue clothing, which i fortunately have. sometimes, i even get the kids in some patriotic clothing. i love the fireworks and the parades and the people joining together for one brief second as one people. i would even bake one of those yummy-looking strawberry-blueberry cake thingies, though i know jools hates fruit and won’t go near one.
okay. about this lee greenwood song. now, i know a lot of people love it and feel their hearts all warmed by it. and that’s great; and it’s a free country and all that. this is not about you. this is about me.
and i loathe this song.
in fact, there are very few songs that physically make me cringe. this is one of them.
it’s not necessarily that g-d is in the title. i mean, i love to stand up and sing g-d bless america. (admittedly, i often break out in the version i learned as a child, g-d bless my underwear. but still.)
part of what bothers me is how it was written. greenwood has said in interviews that he and his producer sort of calculated the city shout-outs:
first of all: economically part of the basis of our economy? what the WHAT? and so, let’s pander to the (at-the-time) money-making locations in the USA. you’ll get more radio airplay in those markets, which can only boost sales. now, certainly, lots of songs name-check places, but i don’t think they often do it in order to target the economic centers of the country. that’s just weird and disingenuous to me.
so there’s this calculated cheesefest that strikes at your heart.
I’d thank my lucky stars, to be livin here today. ‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can’t take that away.
generally, the people i have met who are into this song often (not always, but often) are the sorts who are all about freedoms. their freedoms. everyone else’s? they can go to hell. maybe their ancestors had the good luck to come to this country at a time when people melted in. mine weren’t so welcome (hence why my grandmother’s family came in through galveston, texas, even though their entire family was in tenements in NYC. there were too many jews, you see, immigrating (nevermind we were escaping being used as kindling in pogroms in russia poland), so there was an effort to bring immigrant jews in via alternate US ports. we were persona non grata, you know. still the age of no jews, no dogs signs.
now, of course, substitute mexicans for jews.
so yeah. maybe you are here for a generation or two. (or ten.) does that make you more american than people who are striving to be american? i know we can’t support the world; we can barely support ourselves. but the attitude i hear from so many people borders more on the bigoted and less on the factual. (which, i would add, a lot of people don’t truly get. here are some recent ones, for those who want to get info.) policy must be based on facts and not on your scapegoat-oriented ideas.
that would be unamerican.
And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up, next to you and defend her still today. ‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA
i think i’ve got it. there’s an implication that criticism of the US = you don’t love this land. criticism of the US = you don’t appreciate your freedoms. in fact, those of us who criticize this nation love it just as much as those of you who jingoistically knee-jerk into america is perfect mode. i’m quite sure, in fact, that there will be readers of this who will call me everything from communist (nope, sorry, not one) to a nation hater (nothing could be further from the truth.) in fact, they will also curse me as… wait for it… a liberal. like that would be a bad thing to be. (it’s not. neither is being conservative. it’s just different points of view.) but this song codifies the polarization of our nation in a few stanzas, a polarization which has led to legislative standstills and all sorts of negativity in the political arena, more than any i, a student of the political process, have witnessed in most of my life. to me, this song is rather insulting.
for if you don’t love g-d bless the usa, then surely it follows that you don’t love the usa, either.
in my view, there are many other, better patriotic songs for this day. i encourage you to seek them out. some are rah-rah-usa works. some are critical. but all encapsulate a vision of this nation as a place that welcomes and celebrates all of its citizens.
some of my humble suggestions from wreke’s jukebox:
you are welcome to take issue with my selections in the comments. (some people are still taking issue with what i wrote over 5 years ago about the song wildfire… on my old blog. and wow, who knew those fans would be so nasty!) also, if you have nominees for songs you loathe (and which i’ve not written about already), feel free to share.
