(Sure thing, Jimi.)
(Do you mind if I watch?)
I was thinking on my way home today (it happens) about some of my go-to songs and happy dance music and general euphonious preferences, when it occurred to me that sometimes…
Well, sometimes music is weird.
I mean, first of all, there are bizarre lyrics.
- She’s got a chicken to ride (Beatles)
- Wrapped up like a douche (Manfred Mann)
- I’ll never leave your pizza burnin’ (Rolling Stones)
…to name a few.
Or how about:
Hold me closer Tony Danza
Count the head lice on the high wig
AND
I’m not talkin’ ’bout the linen
And I don’t wanna change your lies
Yeah, yeah, I know… To quote Gina Davis in the movie The Long Kiss Goodnight: “Movin’ in. This song is not about linen.”
Still and all…
Music be weird, yo.
And that’s just the things you *think* you hear.
What about the stuff that’s ACTUALLY there?
I mean, in addition to turning a Springsteen song into an anthem about feminine hygiene products, Manfred Mann also has the distinct honor of creating that oh-so-profound earworm of a tune, Doo-wa-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo.
Or how about the mentally stimulating lyrical offering of A-do-run-run-run, A-do-run-run? Which, for me, was immortalized by Harold Ramis’ genius use of the tune in the movie Stripes:
(You kinda have to watch both shorts to ‘get’ it, if you’ve never seen it before.)
Granted, sometimes there are fascinating educational lyrical offerings to be found along with catchy rhythms and distinctive bass lines and such.
Songs about wildlife, for example.
If you go chasing rabbits…
Or music celebrating ancient cultures.
Foreign types with their hookah pipes say, “Way-oh, way-oh, oh way-oh, way-oh…”
Or tunes that examine scientific opposites. (Complete with biblical references, even.)
I’m so hot for her but she’s so cold… (and something about a burning bush…)
Other times…
Not so much.
Oh, the tune is catchy. It sticks in your head all day and you sing along mindlessly when you hear it on the radio, and then one day it dawns on you…
This is fucked up.
Case in point:
LYRICAL SAMPLING:
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity… Romeo and Juliet
40, 000 men and women everyday… Like Romeo and Juliet
40, 000 men and women everyday… Redefine happiness
Another 40, 000 coming everyday… We can be like they are
Come on baby… don’t fear the reaper
Baby take my hand… don’t fear the reaper
We’ll be able to fly… don’t fear the reaper
Baby I’m your man…
That’s just a short sampling of this song’s lyrics, but that’s enough I’d say.
The whole song is about embracing death. Specifically in the form of suicide. And that’s equated to LOVE?
What. The. FUCK.
It’s an AWESOME song though, isn’t it?!? One of the most recognizable rhythm guitar riffs of the 1970s for sure. Fantastic song structure. A bridge that’s totally unexpected, every.time.you hear it. Where song craft is concerned, I dig it. Hard.
But still…
:: shudder ::
This one is better. If you need to de-freak from the previous offering, take a listen. BOC redeem themselves lyrically here. (The hair is still pretty bad though.)
But let’s forget about redeeming ourselves for a moment.
I mean, let’s be honest. There are songs we love, that… Well…
Sometimes there’s just no excuse.
And I know I’m not alone in this, so don’t even pretend you don’t shout-sing embarrassing tunes in the shower. Sometimes they’re silly ditties from childhood (Macho Duck, anyone?) or maybe just really badly constructed songs. Other times…
Well, here’s one of my personal “I Have No Excuse” favorites:
#Don’tJudgeMe
Ahem.
And then of course there are songs that somehow seem to hit all the categories. Songs that are catchy, that have a message, that are a little WTF, that are structurally genius, that have unique instrumental identities, and yet… They leave you scratching your head and asking yourself, “What is it that makes this song so great? Why do I like this?!?” (Come to think of it, you probably feel that way about a blog or two too, don’t you?)
Songs like this.
Your turn! I’ve shown you mine. Let’s see yours.
🙂
What music makes you ponder/laugh/say WTF?
Which songs do you love?
Interesting post that reminded me again why I have continued to always “carry a laser down that road that I must follow” since the mid 1980s.
Yes! Haha! In a Vader outfit, just for kicks. 😉
Mike & The Mechanics…
Kyrie Eleison is a good one. The song of theirs that pops to mind most often for me is In The Living Years. 🙂
How about the Rolling Stones Don’t Stop “And your wrote your name right on my back. Boy your nails were sharp”
Or Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane singing about her vibrator in “Plastic Fantastic Lover”
“Cosmetic baby plugged into me
I’d never ever find another
I realize no one’s wise
To my plastic fantastic lover
The electrical dust is starting to rust
Her trapezoid thermometer taste”
Larry Archer recently posted…Seduced by the Dark Side – On Sale!
Lyrics can definitely be glaringly obvious at times. 🙂
One of my favorite lyrical curiosities has always been Bernie Taupin’s lyrics to the Elton John classic album Tumbleweed Connection. He tries to render southern Americana, but makes glaring errors. In the song Country Comfort he says, ‘ . . . the hedgehog’s gone to lay between the bricks.’ Sorry, no hedgehogs in the Americas.
And a funny one that goes way back. When Rod Stewart sang on Jeff Beck’s Truth album, they recorded the old tune Ol’ Man River. He sang ‘ . . . lift that barge, tote that bale . . .’ –which is backwards, you tote a barge and lift a bale, and that’s how the song goes.
The bale and barge bit was part of one of Walter Mitty’s daydreams (as played by Danny Kaye), so now I have t-pocketa, t-pocketa, t-pocketa going through my mind. Not exactly a song, but it gets stuck like one. 😉
I still call “My Little Friends” my Plastic Fantastic Lovers, lol
What about BTO? “Baking Carrot Biscuits” 😉
And whatever you do, don’t walk through your neighborhood with your headphones on singing “psycho killer, c’est ca se, fafa fa fa fafa fa fa fa…”
I learned that the hard way!
Ha! Carrot biscuits. 😛
Yes, I can see how the psycho killer headphone trick might be a little disconcerting for your audience. Heh.
Hahahaha– you got all the goodies, Feve. 😀
Oh, I’m sure there are plenty more of note. (See what I did there? 😛 )
How about the Cars? “Who’s gonna dry your horn tonight?” 😀
It happens in other kinds of vocal music also. The official Latin text of the Gloria in the Mass has a line that goes
Laudamus te, benedicimus te, …
On the other hand, every performance of every setting of the Mass I have heard goes
Laudamus te, FENERicimus te, …
Dunno what (if anything) “fenericimus” means. Hope that fener-ing the Lord is at most a venial sin 😉
Barry K Rosen recently posted…Beyond Towels
Ha! 😀
All glory, laud and fener…
😀
Barry K Rosen recently posted…Beyond Towels
An obvious choice for weird lyrics where you don’t know what the heck he’s saying and when you do find out it’s a big WTF ! In Stairway to Heaven– ‘If there’s a bustle in your hedge-row, don’t be alarmed now, it’s just a Spring Clean for the May Queen.’ WHAT ?? What the hell, Robert !
Another strange song is ‘Badge’ by Eric Clapton & George Harrison. It’s a pretty tune, which stops dead for about 10 seconds in the middle . . . what’s that about ? I’d heard that Clapton said the non-sensical lyrics were from them just goofing around, trading off lines for fun. Also the song was titled ‘Bridge’, still weird, but someone mis-heard it and wrote the wrong name on the master recording or something.
Once upon a time, a bustle was a type of ladies’ undergarment, that held the back-draping fabric away from the body and kept it from dragging on the ground. Like a hoop skirt but not.
Anyway, I always figured some hoity-toity lady decided to say “To hell with this crazy fashion shiznit,” and was throwing her unwanted clothing and such out a high window, with some of it getting caught in the bushes (hedgerow) on the way down.
Which is a long way of saying that those particular lyrics have always made a peculiar kind of sense to me. 😉
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