I just finished rereading DAVE BARRY'S BOOK OF BAD SONGS. It's hilarious, and even when I disagreed with people's comments about a particular song, I had to admit they had a point.
Bad songs, like all bad poetry, stretch figurative language too far, distort emotion until it's scary, and twist syntax to make a rhyme or a syllable count.
I thought it might be fun to revisit the subject of bad songs, with categories.
Song I liked at first and now despise: "Brown-eyed Girl" I think Van Morrison pays all my local radio stations to play his song every fifteen minutes. I'm not sure why he would do this.
Story song that is really lame: Well, honestly, a lot of them are, but "Last Kiss" has been rescued from its well-deserved obscurity several times, even by such as Pearl Jam. What were they thinking?
Song that makes the singer sound like a maniac: There are lots of them, but the Beatles hit a low point with "Little Girl," which has such lyrics as "I'd rather see you dead, Little Girl, than see you with another man."
Yow!
Song that repeats waaaaay too much: Rod Stewart's "The Motown Song" -Rod is a master of saying the same thing over and over, and granted, it does make it easy to sing along.
Song that gets stuck in my head, even though I hate it: "I've Got Friends in Low Places"-I hate the song, the singer, and the sentiment offered, the old "proud to be dumb and drunk" theme so common in country music.
If you like, you might add to the list, argue with my choices, or just go on your way with Garth echoing in the back of your mind.
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I hate that 80's song Bright Eyes. Do you remember the one? HATE that song. And there was another... "Got some change in my pocket going jingle-ingle-ing, gonna call you on the telephone, baby, and give you a RING." Ugh, I hate that song. And I can't explain quite why, except I think the words are stupid.
ReplyDeleteThere's a song by the Killers, Human, I love it and hate it at the same time, and I think it's because I'm a writer that I have an issue with it. "Are we human, or are we dancer?" I love the premise, what it is he's trying to say, and trying to get us to ask ourselves, but the fact that he uses bad grammar, and on purpose, I just can't reconcile myself with it. I think he did it to make us think all the more about the words, but I find it distracting, and I constantly want to correct it as I sing along. It always makes me think of John Gardiner's assertion in "On Moral Fiction", where he maintains that good art must be "faithful to its integral laws." Meaning...bad grammar makes for bad literary and musical art. I can't help but wonder if he's right. And that could maybe apply to the other two songs, too. Maybe. (Also, they're just stupid.)
Yeah, that last thing you said!
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