Stop, collaborate and listen

Great songs aren't great everywhere

2006-06-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

Without further (or any) fanfare, I present to you my favorite songs that aren't appropriate for jukeboxes. These songs rule, until someone plays them at the bar:

--"Like a Rolling Stone," by Bob Dylan. This song is like a vast desert. It is beautiful and disorienting and if you get lost in the middle of it, you will die before you figure out where you are. Try turning it on, then leaving the room, then reentering. You can leave for a while, because the song is longer than any one Ramones album. When you come back into the room, try to finish the verse, then jump to the next. No one--least of all Dylan--can do this. This leads to a lot of people quietly singing Dylan's words in random sequence at bars. "Like a complete unknown...have you on your knees...uh...go to him now, Napoleon...Tangled up in, oh man..."
--"Sex Type Thing," by the Stone Temple Pilots and "Closer," by Nine Inch Nails. If I were a major league closing pitcher, I would tell the sound people to play "Closer" during my run from the bullpen to the mound. Not only would this treat the audience to a delicious pun, it would make batters think I felt indecent intentions for what we would do after I struck them out. Don't play this at the bar, unless it is one of those bars filled with punk men and women who would be turned on by Trent Reznor's spooky thumping mishmash of religious, sexual and animal imagery, which he caps with an unnecessarily blunt pickup line. Ditto for STP.
--"Sunday Morning Coming Down," by Johnny Cash (and others). No one at a bar wants to hear a prediction of how lonely and regretful they're going to feel in the morning.

A Guns N' Roses moment

2006-06-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in Barnes and Noble the other day drinking iced coffee while I waited for Sears to finish taking three hours to put new tires on my truck. Next to me was a man who I recognize from hanging out downtown singing out song lyrics and generally freaking people out. So he starts singing...

'Double Talkin' Jive' by GnR. He really only sang the part that goes 'Double Talkin' Jive,' but still, I almost spat ice cubes and coffee and my uvula onto the window. I didn't know anyone else had ever listened to that song. It might be the stupidest song on either Use Your Illusions album (I love my GnR, but that is a serious accomplishment).

Then, when I my vision cleared and I started to breathe again, his friend comes in and they talk. He tells the friend he's been working on...

'Night Court' fan fiction. I don't have a joke about that. I will send you here. I strongly advise against following that link if you don't want to see some really amazing things.

Also, Google 'Eminem fan fiction' and get ready for some readin'. Wow. It's a great big world. And I'm just a squirrel. Tryin' to, well, you know.

Thrilla with Hilfiga

2006-05-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

How crazy do you have to be to have a donnybrook with Axl Rose and come off looking like the crazy one? The apparent answer.

The funniest thing about this is that Axl said: "It was the most surreal thing, I think, that's ever happened to me in my life."

This is a life that has included jumping off an aircraft carrier in huge basketball shoes with his name on the tongue. The man wrote a song in which he confessed to wanting to crush mens heads tight in his vice ("PAIIIIIINNNNNN!"). This man has been working on the same album called "Chinese Democracy" for a decade. This man has orange cornrows.

You've got to be some kind of awesome to give Axl the most surreal experience of his life. My congratulations go to Tommy Hilfiger, if this account is true.

You'd better sit down

2006-05-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

If your brain is prone to exploding in response to excellent news, stop reading now because W. Axl Rose said on a radio show that the new Guns N' Roses album is going to come out this fall (I chose that manifestation of the AP article because ABC News failed to spell the Cornrowed One's name correctly in the photo cutline).

Issues:
1)When "Chinese Democracy" comes out, I hope record stores pull all remaining copies of albums other Guns members have done since the breakup of the real band and put them on a temporary shelf near the C.D. cds. Then I will steal this shelf.
2)Does ten years of work translate into ten years of awesome? Will this be a three disc album like the Magnetic Fields' "69 Songs." How might the songs on Chinese Democracy respond to magnets? Can you own a Magnetic Fields disc and three copies of Appetite for Destruction?
3)Will there be a tape version, or will I have to choose between buying a cd player for my truck or never going to work again?
4)How many of the songs are about Bob Guccione Jr.?

5)How can I get ahold of Sebastian Bach's cell phone? Axl answers his calls. I wonder who else I could reach....

Me: Hello Glenn Danzig.
Glenn Danzig: What's up Sebastian?
Me: I just wanted to tell you to tell your children not to walk my way.
GD: Huh?
Me: Do you want to bang heads with me?

Misheard lyric

2006-05-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

I remembered a classic hip-hop misinterpretation this weekend while I was driving on I-90 from Chicago.

I was riding with my friend Michael a few years ago, listening to his favorite joint of the moment, "Hate Me Now," the Nas track probably best remembered because of the Hype Williams video in which Nas is crucifed for the sins of humanity. (As I understand it, Capone betrayed him with a kiss and Noreaga denied him three times to Funkmaster Flex. This information is from the recently discovered gospels of AZ and Nature).

Nas has always been one of hip-hop's most original, thoughtful MCs. He is also tragically inept at making career and artistic decisions. This of course leads to Puffy yelling moronic threats all over "Hate Me Now."

Back in the car with Michael--an even whiter whiteboy than myself--the song starts. He turns to me puzzled and asks "Why is Puff Daddy yelling 'Basketball season has returned?'" I informed Michael that Puffy was yelling "Escobar season has returned." Of course, "Escobar" season makes much less sense than "basketball season" to any one who doesn't know that Nas self-applied the last name 'Escobar' for a few years there. He has recently shied away from that in favor of his real last name, "Jones," which sounds much less like "basketball."

The only Rupert Holmes misheard lyric

2006-04-23T12:58:00.001-07:00

I bet William Safire sings this song "If you like pinas colada."

Until a few years ago, I had always heard Rupert Holmes singing about "waking up at midnight in the dunes on the cape," in his immortally preposterous "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." Turns out he's singing about "makin' love at midnight on the dunes on the Cape." I think my interpretation makes more sense, since someone who likes pina coladas enough to write a song about them is likely to mysteriously wake up on a beach at midnight at some point. "If you like staring up at flashlights/and getting thrown in the jail..."

But that misheard lyric isn't even the most interesting thing about the song. Other issues:

-I know he means "cape" geographically, but I also think the lyric about "making love " on a cape would be meaningful if he were talking about superhero clothing. People who wear capes get a lot of action, I bet.

-So the song is about a guy who leaves his wife after he reads a personal ad from someone who likes the same things he does. Drinking. Capes. Not doing yoga. But there's one line that's especially troubling, even for a personal ad seeking a drunken, lazy exhibitionist: "If you have half a brain." This is supposed to be an exasperated jab at the stupid, self-absorbed people who rule all dating scenes everywhere. But the wording makes it sound like having exactly half a brain is a requirement. Like having a whole brain disqualifies potential mates. I would say a newspaper is a poor place to advertise to people who have had halves of their brains removed. Also, does it matter which half? Sure sounds like it would be tricky introducing your new partner to the parents:

You: Mom, Dad, meet Rupert. He's just perfect. He's got half a brain.
Mom and Dad: Hi, Rupert!
Rupert: Gluphhhhhhhsssssssssspuuuhhnnnnnnnnnnn. Uuuummmmmmmmmmmspuuhhhhhhh.
You: Oh, isn't he just the most? I found him asleep on the beach. He hates yoga.
Rupert: Eszchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
You: Could somebody get him a pina colada?

"Let's Kill Saturday Night."

2006-04-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Ha! I tricked you. "Let's Kill Saturday Night," by Robbie Fulks is not a bad song. It's one of those songs I like so much that when it comes on the radio, I almost crash my car. Other songs that radio stations play that impair my driving abilities include:
-"Brick House," by the Commodores.
-"You Never Even Called Me by My Name," by David Allan Coe.
-"Walk Like an Egyptian," by the Bangles.
-"Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress," by the Hollies.
-"What's So Funny ('Bout Peace, Love & Understanding)?," by Elvis Costello (that's a tough one to punctuate).
-"My Boyfriend's Back," by the Angels.
-"How Do You Like Me Now?" by Toby Keith.
-"Can't Deny It," by Fabolus.
-"Train in Vain," by the Clash.

It's not that radio stations don't play good music. It's that they almost never play good music. When they do play good music, it seems to be by accident (let's not even get started on morning show DJs. What chimpanzee focus group told radio execs it wanted to hear small talk, gay jokes and hoarse cackling between 5 and 9 a.m.?) I expect to hear one really good song per day in my two hours of drive-time radio listening. I expect to hear "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" by Chris Brown seven times. I suspect I hear Gwen Stefani's voice more than any other human voice (were Adam and Eve's transgressions really bad enough to earn us this? Jeez. It was just an apple eaten on misleading advice from a talking snake)

You know how we could start to fix the problem of hearing almost no good music on the radio? Put Robbie Fulks on country radio. Robbie has a big catalog of twangy, up-tempo country songs with understandable lyrics and smart, gimmicky choruses.

Often when someone doesn't get played on the radio, you can chalk it up to exclusivity or the difficulty of understanding or identifying with the music.

(Thus, we are saddled with the burden of pop songs with messages so simple, four-year-olds can unpack their meanings. "Mommy, Daddy: I want a milkshake, but I'm not sure I want boys to come to my yard. Do you have any suggestions?"

(Also, I should not that when he was about three or four, my brother used to wander around the house singing "Don't Stand So Close to Me," a song by the Police about an illicit teacher-student relationship. At three-years-old, I'm not sure how my brother interpreted the Nabokov reference. I think he probably identified with Sting because The Stinger pronounces things like a small boy. "Doh stah. Doh stah so. Doh stah so clohs to me.")

Back on track now, Robbie's music should be understandable to everyone. His songs are about drinking, lost loves, home and the south. No person capable of operating shoe laces should be too stupid for Robbie Fulks. The music is great (Objectively great. I'm not kidding. Buy "Georgia Hard," tell me it's not good, and prepare for a fight).
And he's a cool guy overall. Check his specs on Google.

So why, why, why, why in the name of Nickelback are our airwaves death-gripped by insulting, trite, safe garbage?

I have no answer. Ask the record company people and the old guys who run the radio stations. But if the case of Radio Stations v. The Country's Dignity ever goes to trial, Robbie Fulks should be a witness.

"Skin (Sarabeth)"

2006-04-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Performers: Rascal Flatts.
What medical problem does Sarabeth have: Unclear.
How scared is she: Scared to death. Death rhymes with Beth, you know.

This terrible song is unfair. It is about a woman who gets a disease and loses her hair. So no matter how bad it is, there's the imp of guilt that says 'Don't make fun of that song, you hateful, unsympathetic troll.' It's like bad song insurance.

But you shouldn't feel guilty about wanting to set this song on fire.

This cynical, crude kick-in-the-heart ballad is not only a monster bad song, but a symbol of everything wrong with pop country radio. The song is about a woman who finds out she has some kind of disease. The Rascals get into some pretty technical jargon ("Between red cells and white, something's not right." I hate it when my cells team up against me.) The treatment makes her hair fall out. I'm guessing they're talking about cancer, which is certainly a horrible disease. My Grandpa had it.

Moral of the story, SB gets a date for the prom, and to make her feel comfortable, her date shaves his head. I know people who have done this for other cancer patients. I think it is a wonderful show of support. I would like to believe my empathy is stronger than my vanity, but I'm sure life will test that later.

The problem with the song is this: It assumes everyone, everywhere is stupid. Like we haven't heard this stuff before. Life is precious. Kindness is important. Human hope is potent. Everyone knows these things. We don't need a country song that rhymes "mom" with "prom" to tell us to start living our lives. Wow, Rascal Flatts, we were sitting around not valuing our time on Earth and not connecting with each other when you came along with this song to tell us about what really matters. Thanks.

Check the honest, excoriating review from the New York Times.

Another fine specimen of the disease-themed pop country genre is Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." . In this song, he talks about a guy finding out he's going to die. So what does he do? He becomes an extreme athlete. He goes skydiving, mountain-climbing and bull-riding. Tim hits it right on the head: you're not really living unless you're doing things like base jumping and waterfall-kayaking. Sorry, everyone quietly raising well-adjusted children and trying to do a job that doesn't hurt the world, you're not living right because you're not extreme enough. Lesson: Fleeting surges of adrenaline are what life is all about. Now get out there and jump off something, terminal disease-sufferers.

The worst thing about these two songs is that country radio--and radio in general--doesn't have to be this insulting to its listeners. Tonight I am going to see Robbie Fulks at a small local bar. Robbie writes energetic, meaningful pop country songs that don't go lowest-common-denominator, but it's not like you have to be in Mensa to rock with him. If they played him on the radio, people would listen.

Country can be better. Some performers are still making good country songs. Sarabeth is not featured in any of them. She probably went skydiving.

Lyrical stupidity: 9.
Obnoxiousness: 8.
Listener patronization quotient: Not expressible in numbers.
Overall badness: 9.
Likelihood that I actually like it: 1.

Part Deux

2006-04-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

This is the logical followup to the last excellent picture, if you're collecting the set, like McDonald's Batman commemorative glasses.

I will find a new bad song to taunt Tuesday or Wednesday, I promise.

Misheard Lyric: Today I heard that Verve Pipe song "The Freshmen" that was inescapable when I was...oh my gosh...a freshman in high school. That's totally meaningful, I bet. Back on track, I always thought the singer was dissing some woman named Sheila Poncarelli because she couldn't take advice. Turns out the right words are "She a punk who rarely ever took advice." I prefer to shout this song in the direction of that imaginary no-advice-taker Sheila Poncarelli. Also, I like the part about how she was touching her face, and that's why he's not responsible for what happens in the song. Like the Verve Pipe got her pregnant, and then when her dad came to clock him in the face, the Verve Pipe said "No, wait. She was touching her face! Touching her face, for the love of God!" And the dad got in his Camry and drove home, not mad at all anymore.

Lock up your daughters

2006-04-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is what good music looks like. See the smiles on those ladies' faces? That's no accident.

Extra points to those who know what I'm singing. Hint: If it comes on the radio, your dad will say "Ooh, I love this one," crank up the volume, and possibly play air guitar.

Misheard lyric: In Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" I always heard John Kay singing "I like smokin' lightning." The right words are "I like smoke and lightning." While the verbal difference is small, the meaning rift is wide. Apparently, "lightning" is slang for amphetamine. I wish I had known I thought John Kay was saying he prefers to smoke his speed pills. That is pretty wild.

Boston and Arizona

2006-04-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is a big, important day in Wisconsin sports. The savage angels of mutilation who skate for the Wisconsin Men's Hockey team are preparing for a little tea party with the Boston College Men's My Little Pony Appreciation Club. Wisconsin will win, I predict, by at least 18 goals. Robbie Earl will score 9 of them.

The Brewers are preparing to ruin the Arizona Diamondbacks' day and collect their 5th win on the way to an unprecedented undefeated season.

Here is why neither neither Boston nor Arizona can beat their respective Wisconsin opponents:

-Because of what made Milwaukee famous.

-Because Aerosmith is from Boston. No other rock band has saddled us with so much bad music over the last 30 years. The fact that they wrote the best song ever about sex in an elevator cannot save them. Likewise to the only song about teenaged girls shooting their molesting fathers (misheard lyric: I had always heard "they found him underneath a train" as "they found him on the vapor trail." I don't know what a vapor trail is, but it sounds forensic. Also, how did he get under the train? Were the train tracks his favorite hangout? Did Janie drag him there after she shot him? Then the song should be about Janie's incredible strength. It could have been "Janie Wrestled Her Father to the Floor and Strangled Him With One Hand"). And the "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" alone would be a pass to the Bad Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. No team from Boston can beat Wisconsin, even though the BoDeans are from Wisconsin. Aerosmith is the reason the Boston Red Sox were cursed, then when they did win, Jimmy Fallon ruined it.

-The Arizona Diamondbacks cannot win because...name a good band from Arizona. Alice Cooper lived there as a child, but that doesn't count because he was not born there. Waylon Jennings played in Phoenix a lot, but sorry, D-Backs, he's from Texas. Mamas, I hope you didn't let your babies grow up to play for the Diamondbacks, because they're going to lose to the Brewers.

Lifetime Achievement Award

2006-04-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentleman of the Academy. Guests. Dave Matthews Bandmembers.

It's the time in our program when we honor one artist for transcendent achievement in the field of writing and recording bad songs. This award is not for the Sister Hazels and Eamons of the world who record one bad song and then slip back off into comfortable anonymity, waiting to show up between Gennifer Flowers and Soy Bomb on some VH1 list show. This award can only go to an artist with the chops, courage and dedication to write consistently bad songs over the years, dropping each one off on America’s doorstep like a pink wicker basket containing a loaf of rock hard bread that can’t be digested.

The woman we honor tonight is the beginning and the end of bad music. She has made bad punk music, bad ska music, bad pop music and bad rap music. Her voice is uniquely unpleasant, with bursting kazoo-like high notes mixed with the most unnecessary vibrato. Not content to stop at that, she often employs vocal affectations that make her sound like a 9-year-old girl.

Even her fashion sense is gloriously obnoxious. Whether she’s gluing sparkly things to her face or toting around a crew of Japanese women because she thinks their Japanese-ness is stylish, this woman makes a statement. That statement is “I suck.”

We speak, of course, of Gwen Stefani.

Behold, a partial glimpse at the awful wonder that is her catalog, solo and with Satan’s backup band, No Doubt. Bear in mind, she didn’t even have to write many of these songs, but only vocalize to make them awful:
-“Spiderwebs.”—While actually one No Doubt’s less excruciating songs, it does feature her trademark high vocal blast. “I’ve gotta screeeeeeeeeeen my phone calls!” I’ve heard that chorus is the reason Edvard Munch’s painting continues to scream.
-“I’m Just a Girl.”—Here is the best place to hear the little girl vocal stylings. Sly parody or grating copout from having to actually sing? I have my opinion.
-“Don’t Speak.”—Couldn’t have said it better myself.
-“Hey Baby.”—And I quote: “I’m the kinda girl that hangs with the guys/Like a fly on the wall with my secret eyes.” If she’s a fly on the wall, maybe she means ‘compound eyes.’
-“Underneath it All.”—“You’ve used up all your coupons/And all you’ve got left is me.” Seriously, I had coupons and I got you? What happened to the things I got with the coupons? I want more coupons.
-“Luxurious.”—This track takes a beat popularized by Notorious B.I.G. and replaces his rapping with Gwen Stefani’s singing. I don’t have a joke to follow that last piece of information.
-“Hollaback Girl.”—This is the granddaddy of them all, the bad song every other bad song wishes it was. So here’s the concept: A Pharell Williams—cringe—produced cheer-stomp beat with Gwen rapping and shouting over it. What does she say? First she points out what is and not her s—t. She takes a blasé stance on rhyme. “Track,” does not rhyme with “that.” This song is the piece de resistance. You know that Nipper, the dog in the RCA logo is not listening to this song in the popular drawing, because if he was he would be trying to bite his ears off.

So Miss Stefani, who is about to have a child and start a magazine, we present you with the First Annual Gwen Stefani Hollaback Girl Bad Music Lifetime Achievement Award. May you never gain any good taste.

"Fresh AZIMIZ."

2006-04-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Writer and performer: Bow Wow.
You may be fresh, but you are not: Fresh AZIMIZ.
Proportion of verse lines than end with “man”: Nearly all.
What are you saying?: Nuttin’

You’re not riding. You’re not bumping like he’s bumping. You’re not saying nothing, homie. You’re not fresh as he is.

Bow Wow—who has been rapping since he was Lil’ Bow Wow—should have developed rhyming skills accidentally by now. He has not.

This song follows the standard format of dissing everyone except the recording artist. “I’m great, you suck and are generally not fresh. Not as fresh as I’m is, anyway.” This template has often worked, resulting in the kind of songs that inspire guys like me to make guns out of their fingers and roll hard across town to Sentry to pick up tomatoes and pretzels. But in order to work, an I’m-awesome-you’re-not joint needs one of two things: either a trunk-thumping beat or interesting, unique lyrics. To have both is to be truly as awesome as the song says you are.

Some models:
-T.I., “U Don’t Know Me.”—Tip Harris doesn’t show any remarkable verbal dexterity, but the beat is what God would listen to while rolling around judging fools. The track has the galloping, thick-bottomed bass that has been replaced in too many rap songs by formless, thin bleeps and taps looped by the likes of Pharell Williams.
-Lyrics Born, “I’m Just Raw.”—Me versus you is “like a Stealth Bomber up against a Hyundai Accent.” Beat by Dan the Automator. How could that miss?
-Wu-Tang Clan, “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ to F—K Wit.”—I will cite this track as evidence that almost any other joint could be better. By becoming more like this joint.

I will not list MC Paul Barman’s “I’m Frickin’ Awesome,” among those others, because it is truly a special case.

What is not special is “Fresh AZIMIZ.” It’s the same tired, bitten nonsense about money, clothes and more money. There is nothing new here, not even a tweak on an old way of saying he has a lot of money.

Although, AZIMIZ is pretty likely to catch on as slang in southern Wisconsin soon. “I’m cold and drunk.”

“Not as cold and drunk AZIMIZ.”

Lyrical stupidity: 8.
Musical obnoxiousness: 5.
Likelihood that I actually like it: 7.
Overall badness: 8.

"One Shining Moment."

2006-04-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

Writer: David Barrett
References to shooting stars: One.
If this song plays in the background while your face is on TV, you are probably: An excellent basketball player.
Or: A basketball net.

Before you call me a chronically ironic blue state Yo La Tengo monkey, you should know I can’t name a single song by Yo La Tengo.

And I am not above being viscerally moved by sporting events. I cried tears of rage when the Packers lost the 1995 NFC Championship to the evil Dallas Cowboys. I have never felt happier than I did in the seconds following Lee Evans’ over-the-shoulder touchdown catch in the rain at night over Ohio State in 2003.

So it’s just a crime—a crime I tell you—that I can’t get all weepy at CBS Sports’ official tourney ender. Why doesn’t this one hit me where it counts? Maybe it’s because CBS plays OSM no matter who wins or how un-heartwarming the winning school’s story. Maybe it’s because getting emotional seems less spontaneous when a major television network supplies the theme music you’re supposed to be getting emotional to at the same time every year (“And…queue the goosebumps.”) Maybe it’s (probably) the lyrics.

I do not hate blunt, aggressive songs that make no secret of their ambitions to stir strong feelings. But there is a line to cross between honest feeling and crass sentimentality. Examples of songs that do not cross this line:
-Elvis Costello, “I Want You.”—If your soul has a crotch, Elvis Costello is kicking it. No clichés. No life-as-a-race metaphors. No assurances that if you lose, everything will be Ok. Just a bright guy writing honest, poisonous lyrics about love and hate.
-Wu-Tang Clan, “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ to F—k Wit.’”—No subtlety here. There’s no place to hide once they step inside the room.
-Warren Zevon, “Keep Me In Your Heart.”—Sad. Clear. No bad metaphors.
-Romantics, “What I Like About You.”—“Here is what I like about this woman played over slamming guitars and loud, unembellished drumming.”

What do those songs not have that OSM has? These lyrics:
And when it's done/win or lose/you always did your best/cuz inside you knew...
(that) ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU REACHED FOR THE SKY.

The thing speaks for itself.

Misheard lyric #1

2006-04-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

While this site is fully dedicated to individual bad songs, I also feel it is important to point out instances in which the correct lyrics to songs are disappointing because they're not as good as what you thought you were hearing. I like to think my ears fix broken lyrics. To be clear, I do not dislike these songs. In fact, I have to like a song a lot to mess up the words. Feel free to share your misheard lyrics.

Example 1: Dr. Dre, "Keep the heads ringing."
I spent seven years of my life thinking there's a part of this song from the "Friday" soundtrack in which Dre says he's "worth more than a stuffed llama." Turns out he says he's worth "more than a Stealth Bomber." It never seemed odd to me that he would compare his value to that of a stuffed llama. Sounds pretty pricey to me.

Example 2: 'Lil Troy, "Wanna be a baller."
This favored song of ballers and shotcallers explodes with utterly incomprehensible lyrics. The best example of this is in Yungstar's verse, in which I had always heard him saying something like "I'm a boobin' on the loobin." I don't know what it would mean to boob on the loobin, but it sounds like something I would like to try. The real words are, and I swear on Duff McKagan I am not making this up: "Boobie diamond Ruby's, I'm watchin on a movie." Dalton Trumbo would approve. This is the not-so-rare case in which the misheard lyric makes more sense than the correct one. They are both malarkey, flapdoodle and guff, which is how I like for my boobin' to be loobed.

"Jesus, take the wheel."

2006-04-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Writers: Brett James, Gordy Sampson and Hillary Lindsey.
Performed by: Carrie Underwood
References to Cincinnati: one.
In this song, a baby is compared to: a rock.

This song by American Idol “winner” Carrie Underwood is an M-80 of a bad song to kick off the bad songs blog. It invokes Cincinnati, Jesus Christ and glare ice. According to the writing credits, three people helped assemble this song, which combines unpleasant music with terrible advice and one singularly impossible demand. The results are memorable.

Faith does many important things. Belief in God can buoy people through life’s inevitable failures and humiliations. Some people get out of bed everyday only because faith in God provides a reason for being.

But neither God nor any of his relatives will drive your car when you don’t want to. To prove this, I propose an experiment:

I will drive my car. You ask Jesus to drive your car. We will see which one ends up overturned in the median. We can wait for the press release from the Wisconsin State Patrol to give details (Driver: Jesus Christ. Age: 2043. Address: Everywhere.)

How many times does it have to be said? Jesus is not your handmaiden. He might give your life meaning, but he will not—ever, under any circumstances—perform everyday tasks at which you have somehow managed to fail. God’s son and man’s savior does not take requests. Jesus, dig my softball cleats out of the trunk. Jesus, sew the drapes. Jesus, clean the litter box. None of these things will get done unless you do them yourself or ask someone—someone who currently exists on this planet—to do them.

In the song, a woman is driving to Cincinnati (of course) with her baby when her car slides on the dreaded “thin black sheet of glass.” (Officer: “What was the sheet like?” Underwood: “Well officer, it was thin.”) What the song should tell people to do is stay off the brake and turn in the direction you wish the wheels to go. Instead, the woman in the song throws her hands into the air and asks Jesus to take the wheel.

I cannot overstate what a bad idea that is. Maybe she would have better luck concentrating her demands on requests that could come true, then attributing them to Jesus. Next time she hits ice, she could yell, “Jesus, crash my car into an abutment.” The months that follow a request for Jesus to drive a vehicle are always filled with requests for Jesus to pay medical bills, for Jesus to order a new quarter panel from the dealership, for Jesus to pay the other insurance company.

Also, Jesus cannot drive a four-wheeler, so don’t even ask.

Ratings (out of 10):
Stupidity of lyrics--10.
Musical obnoxiousness--4.
Likelihood of me actually kind of liking it--7.
Overall badness--8.