Swing out, Sister!

Well, this past Monday was Thanksgiving Day for we Canadians, eh? And accordingly I was thinking of things I might like to give thanks for. I even thought I might be able to squeeze a 5-List out of it. But it turns out that I can only really think of 3 things I'm thankful for, and everything else is a kind of sub-set of those three things. And ain't no way any damn sub-set is getting in one of my 5-Lists. This is my promise to you.

So, I went back to the well of pure hatred that dwells within me to see what I could find, and voila! I got something almost immediately. While listening to the radio a song came on that I absolutely detest. It's a song on a CD that I own, and I skip over it as soon as I hear the opening bars. Why do I hate this song so much? Well I'll tell you why: because I like to sing.

I sing every single day of my life. I sing while working alone, while I'm cleaning, as I'm walking to the bus, standing in line, while doing my taxes. I sing not to annoy other people but rather because I enjoy it. When someone catches me singing who wishes that I not, I counter with a wish of my own, that the other person not smoke or smell of b.o., something along those lines. I do not sing loudly or out of tune, that is the best I am willing to do for anyone. I don't know what the big deal is anyway. Were they sang on as a child or something? I mean--

Um, I have gone off on a tangent. Sorry.

In any event, because I sing, I tend to listen to lyrics of a song and oftentimes I judge a song too harshly based on that criteria alone. Here, then, are...

Five Songs I Hate Because of Their Stupid Lyrics

1. Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves, by The Eurythmics (Featuring Aretha Franklin) The chief reason I hate the lyrics to this song are that they remind me of when I was in grade school. Periodically in grade four the boys and the girls would start up an "our gender is better than YOUR gender" argument which invariably the boys would win. You see, this was 1979 and even though my fellow girls and I had plenty of spirit, we had very little ammunition. There was no Sally Ride, no Florence Griffith Joyner, no Madonna for us to point to as obvious examples of our equality and/or superiority. There were important women around to point to in 1979, but none of us had the knowledge to be able to say "oh yeah? Well we have Rosalind Franklin, jerkface!"

Anyway, the reason I hate this song is because the lyrics have that same frustrated tone and a whole lot of nothing that I remember spouting way back when. It seemed so important to try and make our point somehow. Nowadays of course everyone knows that men and women have more similarities than differences and when anyone seriously focusses on these differences it's insulting to all involved.

I realize that this song was written in 1985 so I should possibly cut it some slack. But I can't help but feel that instead of proving anything it's just embarrassing.

Plus, there's just stupid parts in the song like:
"Everybody take a look around
can you see, can you see, can you see
there's a woman right next to you!"

Gah! A woman!? Great holy Christ! Run!!

2) Hit 'im up Style by Blu Cantrell This song advises a woman to get back her own on a cheating man by taking him for all he's worth. I think Blu thinks she is perhaps empowering women in this song, but instead she implies that monetary revenge will somehow heal the hurt caused by infidelity and a loss of trust and intimacy, and that this monetary revenge will somehow teach the cheating man to never cheat again. WRONG! Overall I just get the impression that none of the adults involved in the story of the song should have ever been trusted with a mature adult relationship in the first place.

And I think Blu thinks she's made her ode to unthinking revenge somehow deep by adding the line at the end "cuz a marriage is better than money you see". Hey, Blu honey? So is personal dignity. Ah, but you're young. You'll learn.

The thing I think I hate most about this song, though, is it is so frickin' catchy and I end up singing it any damn way.

3) All I Wanna do is Make Love to You, by Heart Ugh. Ugh. A thousand times ugh! I don't know one person who thinks this song is anything but ridiculous. Now, normally I like Heart. (Dammit! Heart! I coulda pointed to the rocking female artists Heart as a kid!) But this song tries sooo hard to be a hit pop song with the shocking twist at the end that I think they forgot to actualy write the song well. I could never do anything but laugh at it. That is really when we all knew it was over for poor Heart.

Another unfortunate thing about this song is the time it came out. One of the Wilson sisters was getting... shall we say... a little big-boned. This song gave some of my more evil friends an opportunity to make fun of this by substituting some of the ridiculous words with even more insulting ones. "All I wanna do is eat cheese fondue, a side of beef, some dessert, too... etc"

*ahem* Yes, well, we were teenagers at the time.

4) Bitch, by Meredith Brooks The only thing I really have against Meredith Brooks is that I wrote this poem when I fourteen, without all the cussing (if you can even believe that. But I had to hand it in to my grade nine English teacher after all). I have no real rationale for my hatred. This is just another case of me resenting someone for discovering something I discovered long ago and not being cleverer or more insightful than me about it, end of story.

I know a few people who actually really like this song, but for me it might as well be about the sky being blue, grass being green and dogs having four legs and a tail. Bo-RING! Point-LESS! Also, not particularly musically appeal-LING! Therefore, I hate it. Quite a bit, actually.

5) If I Were a Bell, from the score to Guys and Dolls Okay, yeah, I know it's a show tune, and a lot of show tunes have somewhat silly unbelievable lyrics. But I like musicals and most of the time I can suspend my disbelief long enough to enjoy people singing about washing their hair, but this one takes the cake.

I realize that in Guys & Dolls the character singing the song is supposed to be drunk, but still. Let's take a look at just one of the more ridiculous rhyming couplets in this song.

"Ask me how do I feel now that we're fondly caressing" Alright, that starts out fair enough.
"Pal, if I were a salad I know I'd be splashing my dressing"? WTFFF? Salad... splashing? Huh?

I'm not saying I could do any better than a published songwriter, but I have come up with some quick suggestions to finish off that couplet right off the top of my head that I think are comparable to Mr. Loesser's effort, if not better:

"If I were a sitcom star I'd be Deborah Messing"
"If I were a problem I'd certainly need addressing"
"If I were euthanasia for some I'd be a blessing"
"If I were a lactating breast I'd sure be expressing"
"If I were a hemmoraghing fleshwound I'd need fresh dressing"

Ngh? Ngh? Better, right? Well, if not better than at least slightly more graphic. The other thing I hate about this song is it's another one of those that tends to get right into your skull and just sit there all day repeating each stupid verse over and over again in your head until you want to gouge your brain out through one of your various head openings.

And there you have it. My list for this week, mon amis. There are plenty more songs I hate, but these just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got picked. (I did hear the "Mmm, mmm" song by The Crash Test Dummies, but since I hate every single one of their songs for their dumbass lyrics, I thought it didn't really fit with my list so I left it off. My apologies to Samwise for this.)

Anyway, thanks everybody!