Band Aid: Do They Know It’s Christmas?

So here at Lyrics, Weakly headquarters there hasn’t been muchany blogging going on for quite a while.

Yeah. Well, we’ve been…busy? Had to rake the leaves falling from the birch tree in the front yard, you know. (Sidebar: Who came up with the idea that birch trees are good landscaping elements? And are they still around, so that we can round them up and do mean things to them?) So, of course, new posts haven’t gone up.

But it’s December, and you know what that means: Endless Christmas songs on the radio! And, of course, most of those songs are really just not that good.

There are two types of not really good Christmas songs, though. First, there are the badly done versions of Christmas songs that have been around for a while, clearly just done to get some royalty payments when the annual Christmas song gorgefest comes around. (Yes, Barbara Streisand may be a singing genius, but her rendition of “Jingle Bells”? Please, no.) The second category is where today’s entry falls: Original compositions about Christmas that really, really, really don’t work.

And with that, i present for you Band Aid’s syrupy 1984 masterwork, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

Now, before i go any further, i want to say that when Bob Geldof and Midge Ure wrote this song (people usually forget Mr. Ure’s contribution to the song, since Mr. Geldof is rather more famous, so i figure i might as well do the same from this point on, ’cause it’s easier to write about one person than a group), the sentiment was precisely spot-on. I mean, for those of us who were around then, the mid-80s Ethiopian famine was heartrending—all these people dying and we couldn’t do anything. Well, most of us, at least—some people had the means to put plans into operation, and Mister Geldof was one of those. He got a bunch of really, really famous mostly-British rock stars together to have them record the song, and the rest is history.

So Mr. Geldof wrote a song for charity, and it was successful—and i’ve seen various numbers for how much it raised for famine relief floating around the interwebs, but $14 million seems to be the most widely cited figure. So good for him and everyone else associated with the song.

Anyway, the song starts with dome foreboding minor-key tonality, very doomy, which is kind of cool for a Christmas song. Fitting for one that has to address human suffering and all.

But the lyrics! Ah, the lyrics…

It’s Christmas time
There’s no need to be afraid

Well, that’s a relief. I mean, given the fact that 68% of the population suffers from a phobia of Christmas…Oh, wait, you mean they don’t? Oh, well, then, i suppose it really is true that there’s no need to be afraid.

For the record, i did find one site that lists “xristougennaphobia” as the fear of Christmas, but i think it says something about how made upwidespread that is that it only shows up on that one page in a Google search. (Well, two, once this page gets indexed by Google’s all-knowing database.)

I also found a lot of listings for “christougenniatiko dentrophobia”, which was defined as the fear of Christmas trees.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.

(Best discussion of the effects of christougenniatiko dentrophobia, by the way, from a page that seems to be serious, giving advice to aspiring fiction writers: “A person with this phobia would most likely not grow Christmas trees for a living. Since all live Christmas trees are a type of pine tree, is a person with this phobia afraid of pine trees year-round? Or just at Christmas time? Could they be afraid of them because of bugs they could bring in the house? Or maybe it is the possibility of the tree catching fire that scares them. Are they also afraid of artificial Christmas trees? And does the tree have to be decorated for them to fear it?”)

At Christmas time
We let in light and we banish shade

I would just like to say, as a resident of Alaska, that this is not possible, at least in the northern latitudes (and the British Isles aren’t in the far north, but even London, near the south end of the islands, is up there with Calgary, of all places). If you open the curtains at Christmas time in the northern hemisphere, you get…dark, at least for most of the day. The opposite of light. In order to provide light, you have to flip a switch or light a candle or something in your house.

I mean, c’mon, people, this is basic kid-level earth science!

And in our world of plenty
We can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world
At Christmas time

Okay, this is a softball, but one i have to take: Those are some really long arms!

These lines, though, are delivered by Boy George, and they’re worth a listen to remind us of how just absolutely amazing his voice was before he went all VH1 Behind the Music on us.

(Admit it—you were totally expecting that last link to be this one, weren’t you?)

Anyway, at this point the music changes and we get an uptempo rhythm (largely courtesy of Phil Collins, taking a break from ruining the band Genesis) sounding much like…well, actually, sounding like every single other uptempo synthpop song released in the mid-80s, and the lyrics continue.

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones

So we’re supposed to pray for The Others? Why? According to the Wikipedia page for the movie, it’s done quite well for itself without any prayers on our part.

(Yeah, yeah, i know. After reading that, though, you may be happy to learn that there are plays on words out there that are even worse.)

At Christmas time, it’s hard

I single out this line just because i can’t make any sense of it. The lack of punctuation between lines in the source i was able to find doesn’t make it easier, but all i can figure is that it’s supposed to follow from the preceding lines, so that it reads But say a prayer, pray for the other ones—at Christmas time, it’s hard, and that doesn’t make any sense, really. Maybe it’s supposed to go with what follows? Well, that’s worse: At Christmas time, it’s hard, but when you’re having fun there’s a world outside your window, and it’s a world of dreaded fear.

So all i can figure is that At Christmas time, it’s hard is supposed to be a standalone sentence, not syntactically connected to the phrases either preceding or following it. Unless this is a something about the widely-held but false belief that Christmastime is associated with mental illness, it seems just a throwaway attempt to get from George Michael to Simon Le Bon.

Anyway—sorry about the grammatical aside. I’m a linguist by profession, though, so i can’t really help it.

But when you’re having fun
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dreaded fear

Okay, so here’s where we start to go properly off the rails.

They’re trying to say that right outside your window, while you’re having fun at Christmas, people are starving in Ethiopia—essentially, it’s guilt trip time! Now, of course, Ethiopia isn’t literally right outside the windows of this song’s target market, but that’s okay—i’ll happily let them be figurative here.

But dreaded fear? I mean, could this be a little bit clumsier? After all, what other kinds of fear are there? Welcomed fear? Appealing fear? Pleasing fear?

Sometimes you just want to shake your head, you know? I mean, Mr. Geldof, you’re the guy who wrote “I Don’t Like Mondays”, which is full of amazingly turned lines about a horrific event, so we know you’ve got the ability. But dreaded fear? Srsly?

Anyway, enough rant. Back to…

Where the only water flowing
Is a bitter sting of tears

Now i realize that we didn’t Wikipedia to answer all our questions back in 1984, but this. I mean, Mr. Geldof, couldn’t you at least be bothered to look at an atlas? The Blue Nile, for heaven’s sake, originates in Ethiopia!

And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom

Actually, no.

Ethiopia (and Eritrea, which has since become independent but was part of Ethiopia at the time) are both majority-Christian nations, and they have a number of churches that, presumably, could ring bells on Christmas—and even though i’m not actually there to confirm this, i’m pretty sure that they’d choose bells that sound at least minimally joyous on what is, after all, one of their big celebration days.

And then, finally, we get to Bono shouting out…

Well, tonight thank God, it’s them
Instead of you

Let’s take a step back for a moment and consider.

There are a lot of people out there who hate this song. A lot. And, in my review preparing for this entry, this line was mentioned by approximately every single one of them. (In fact, if you simply google this line you get several of them fairly high in the results. Of course, you also get a few defenses of the line, but at least a couple of them also claim that Wham!’s “Last Christmas” is a great Christmas song, so they can of course be dismissed as simply ludicrous.)

I mean, it’s arguably the most clearly sung line in the whole song, and it’s sung with a fervor that nothing else in the whole thing is. Further, it’s even the structural fulcrum of the entire piece, with the following lines coming at a rather more frenzied pace.

And Bono—dear, dear Bono—with all he’s done to try to improve the world, gets remembered for this.

(Actually, i did run across a claim that Bono objected to it, but that Mr. Geldof insisted on it being sung as written. If this is true, then it seems that Mr. Geldof didn’t just play someone with a bit of a dictator complex.)

I like to wonder, though, what such a thanks to deity would sound like. “Dear Lord, we are thankful to thee that thou hast made those people in Ethiopia to starve, and not us.” Now, i don’t precisely no what the response of deity to such a prayer might be, but i do know what it’d be if i were the one so addressed.

And then we get a lesson in climatology…

And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time

And you know why? Because, a couple of very specific locations aside, there’s nearly never snow in Africa. In fact, snow in Africa is an event worthy of international headlines.

This is simply a fact of geography and climate. I mean, just look at a map, for starters! The vast majority of the African continent lies in the tropics—absent really insanely high elevation, you don’t get snow.

But you want to know the best part of all this? It’s that the claim about no snow in Ethiopia actually isn’t even technically true. Yes, most of Ethiopia is completely snow-free, due to the aforementioned tropic-ness of the place. But Ethiopia also contains the Semien Mountains, where snow can accumulate in the winter. (Skiing, though, would be difficult.

The greatest gift they'll get this year is life

Um, just to be non-snarky for a moment here: Isn’t that true of all of us?

I mean, i don’t care how much you wanted that particular gift, if you’re dead it’s not going to mean as much to you.

(Clearly, the shelf life on non-snarky is short here.)

Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow

See above on the fact that there are rivers in Ethiopia. Quite a few rivers, in fact.

There’s also rain in Ethiopia. Yes, the mid-80s had record low rainfall in much of the country, but it certainly rains there.

And things also grow in Ethiopia. In fact, agricultural products make up 80%  of Ethiopian exports, according to what i could find on the web.

Yes, yes, i realize that the popular conception is that Ethiopia is a desert, but it’s not actually true. Once again, Mr. Geldof, would it have hurt so much to look in an atlas?

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

Well, since (as already mentioned) Ethiopia and Eritrea are both majority-Christian nations, i would have to say that yes, they do know it’s Christmas time, thank you very much.

But what difference would it make? I mean, are you saying they need calendars, too?

But yeah, there’s a pretty good-sized Muslim population in both countries, and so there may well be villages and towns that are entirely unaware that it’s Christmas time, because the entire population is Muslim. And you know what? Come in close, listen carefully, because this is an important secret about those villages: They don’t care!

Now, they may well care whether it’s Eid al-Adha or not, but you know what? They already know.

Here’s to you
Raise your glass for everyone
Here's to them
Underneath that burning sun

So what do we learn from these lines? That when faced with hunger in a distant land, the proper response is to get drunk and party.

Um, yeah. Well, whatever works for you, i guess.

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

Again, yes. Or no. But it doesn’t really matter, you know?

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world

In all seriousness, i didn’t know what these lines were until i wrote up this post. Nice sentiment, it’s just a pity that it had to get stuck in a song like this.

And then we get this on repeat and fade:

Let them know it’s Christmas time again
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time again
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time again
Feed the world

It can’t be just me who hears this and thinks it’s pretty much a “Neener neener neener! We know it’s Christmas time! So there!”

But in all seriousness, why should it matter to you whether they know it’s Christmas time? If what you want is to feed people, then send them a pizza, no matter the day. I mean, there’s really no connection at all, is there? (Or at least there shouldn’t be.)

So now we’ve got a logical inconsistency to go along with everything else, what with the whole Christmas-famine relief non sequitur.

Anyway, this little gem was released in 1984. In an attempt to redeem the year, here’s a better (though, admittedly, darker) song released the same year, and it even had the year in the title! Enjoy.

Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg: California Gurls

Welcome once again to Lyrics, Weakly, where we remain dedicated to the proposition that it is, in fact, the singer and not the song that makes the music move along. You doubt that? Then consider that the song “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (with stunt vocals by Snoop Dogg) was the #1 song in the United States—and much of the rest of the world, so it’s not like taste elsewhere is any better—for several weeks earlier this summer.

I mean, really, with lyrics like this, you really think it would have been taken seriously if it weren’t for the star power of Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg getting people to think they liked it? I mean, really, take a look at the lyrics, and then try to convince me we have poetry to rival Longfellow and Coleridge and Dylan Thomas (or even Bob Dylan) here.

→Greetings loved ones
→Let’s take a journey

First of all, Snoop Dogg doesn’t have all that many lines in this song, so i’ll be marking his lines with an arrow (→), to contrast them with Katy Perry’s unmarked lines.

Second, when Mr. Dogg asks me to take a journey, i can only assume he means a journey that would result in all of us being, ahem, at an excessive altitude.

I know a place where the grass is really greener
Warm, wet, and wild
There must be something in the water

Okay, i get the grass being greener—that’s fine. And Ms Perry’s completely within her rights to have whatever opinions about landscaping she wants to, but i don’t want my lawn to be warm, wet, and wild unless there’s just been a summertime rainstorm. Otherwise, i’m pretty sure she’s right and there is something in the water—unfortunately, Ms Perry, you’ll just need to be more careful about where you put the pool next time.

Sippin’ gin and juice (gin and juice)
Laying underneath the palm trees (undone)
The boys break their necks
Try’na to creep a little sneak peek (at us)

Great, just great—i come here thinking i’m going to be listening to a mindless little song about summer and all, and i end up being faced with the horrible, horrible image of guys with broken necks. Wow, way to harsh my mellow, dudes.

You could travel the world
But nothing comes close
To the golden coast

True fact: If you search Google for “golden coast”, the first results are for locations in Australia and Africa. If nothing else, then, it appears that this song may be useful as a way to alert the educational establishment in the United States of the desperate need to improve the state of geography instruction, particularly international geography.

Once you party with us
You’ll be falling in love
oh-oh-oh-oh

Well, i suppose “love” is one way of phrasing it, so yes, i guess you’re right.

California girls, we’re unforgettable

Very seriously, this is true. Listen to any top-40 station these days, and you’ll hear this song so often that it will sear itself permanently into your brain.

I would submit, however, that this is not the Good Thing that Ms Perry is presenting it as.

Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top

This isn’t titillating, it’s simply boring—the whole Daisy Dukes+bikini top thing has been done to death. You want to get someone’s attention these days, you need a bit more originality—maybe pair your Daisy Dukes with a turtleneck or something.

Sun kissed skin so hot
We’ll melt your popsicle

This line, believe it or not, led to a very proud parenting moment for me: My 11- and 9-year-old daughters, upon listening to the lyrics to this song, had the same reaction as i did, and the 11-year-old told me i should discuss this song on this blog simply because it has this one amazingly stupid line.

My reaction? Well, it’s simple, really: Given the temperature of skin, at least of the skin of living human beings, when compared to the melting point of popsicles, anybody’s skin will melt your popsicle. So, essentially, Ms Perry is saying that California gurls are alive. Wow, that’s exciting. No, really—better than Cats, even.

Well, either that or there’s some sort of sexual reference going on here, which (given that we are talking Katy Perry and Snoop “Doggystyle” Dogg himself) wouldn’t surprise me at all. However, the only thing i can come up with is that the popsicle is a phallic reference, and the message is that mere viewing of the sun-kissed skin of the California gurls out there will result in the popsicle, um, losing its popsicle-like shape. Doesn’t really seem like a very positive portrayal of the view on the west coast, does it?

Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh (or perhaps uh-oh), indeed.

California girls, we’re undeniable
Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock

So since i’m not hip and with it enough to know what it means to have things “on lock”, I took a stroll over to Urban Dictionary, where i discovered that it means to have things under control, but in a very intense way—in particular, it means (as the most clinical of the definitions phrases it) to be under strict, severe obligations or rules.

So basically, we have just learned that California gurls are all nuns. I’m a little confused now.

West Coast, represent
Now put your hands up
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

I’m always curious what happens when performers get famous enough to do a national tour and they deliver a line like this in, say, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I mean, Philadelphians have been known to boo and throw snowballs at Santa Claus, so i might actually pay to go to a Katy Perry concert just to see what they came up with in response to this verse.

If it was early in the night, i’m guessing that East Coast would represent by putting their fingers (well, actually, just one, relatively long finger) up. If it was later in the night, after the beer started flowing, though, it could get interesting…

Sex on the beach

This may be getting a bit too personal here, but i would like to publicly say that this is not an experience i care to ever have. I mean, sand is uncomfortable enough when it somehow gets stuck in your armpit or the crook of your elbow—i don’t wish to ever have sand reach other, more sensitive parts of my anatomy.

And now, as an apology for that image, here’s something completely unrelated for you to waste a couple minutes with.

We don’t mind sand in our stilettos

More discomfort.

Though i would like to watch Ms Perry walk across the beach in stilettos. Just imagine it: Step-sink, step-sink, step-sink… It might even make up for having to watch the video for this song as i was writing this post.

We freak in our jeep,
Snopp Doggy Dogg on the stereo

This seems to be Ms Perry’s way of warning us that Snoop Dogg is about to speak. A bit overly subtle, but at least it does give you a chance to change the station if you haven’t already, so we should all thank her for her thoughtfulness.

You could travel the world (you could travel the world)
But nothing comes close
To the golden coast

Well, except for the water. I mean, that’s kind of the definition of “coast”, you know?

Once you party with us (once you party with us)
You’ll be falling in love
Oh-oh-oh-oh

And then we get a couple repetitions of the chorus, where we are reminded, in case we were not already aware, that human skin will melt popsicles. Since you are, i assume, already aware of that fact, i will skip them for you.

→Tone, tan, fit and ready
→Turn it up cause it’s gettin’ heavy
→Wild, wild west coast
→These are the girls I love the most
→I mean the ones, I mean like, she’s the one
→Kiss her, touch her, squeeze her buns (uhhh)

Apparently i erred earlier, and i should have put the link to the McDonald’s Rap here.

→The girl’s a freak, she drive a jeep
→in Laguna beach

So she’s a yuppie driving an SUV. Wow. Such an exciting freak she must be. Maybe she actually even (dare i say this on a blog without a warning page?) plays golf!

→I’m okay, I won’t play

Oh, apparently not. Sorry.

→I love the bay, just like I love LA

So does Randy Newman. I can’t figure out if that comparison helps or hurts your cause, but either way it certainly makes things a bit weirder.

→Venice beach and Palm Springs
→Summer time is everything

Well, everything except winter, spring, and fall, at least.

→Home boys, hanging out (all that ass hanging out)
→Bikinis, zucchini, martinis, no weenies

Okay, this may be very second-grade of me to point out, but Mr. Dogg just told us all that his homeboys have no weenies. I hadn’t even suspected this.

→Just the kingy and the queenie
→Katy, my lady (yeah?)
→Hey looky here baby (uh huh)
→I'm all up on you
→Cause you representing California (oh-oh-oh yeah)

Actually, in the interest of accuracy, i have looked at the official website of the House of Representatives, and i find Ms Perry’s name nowhere on the list of representatives from California. Maybe this song was written during a previous sitting of Congress, and she was serving there back then? ’Cause i didn’t have time to research all the previous California congressional delegations, so i can’t be sure.

Either way, we get two more repetitions of the chorus, where we get told yet again that California gurls are actually warm-blooded, resulting in them having skin so hot [they]’ll melt your popsicle.

Well, upon thinking about this further, i guess it’s good to know they’re not lizards or anything like that, so maybe i shouldn’t be so hard on that line.

→California girls, man
→I wish they all could be
→California girls (California)
→I really wish you all could be
→California girls (California, yeah)

And we close with Snoop Dogg giving a shout-out to his progenitors in rap, those unknown pioneers of hip-hop, the, um, Beach Boys.

Wow. Now that’s a juxtaposition to make your head explode, that is.

Timbaland with Justin Timberlake: Carry Out

All two of the regular readers of Lyrics, Weakly may have noticed that i haven’t had much to say about today’s music—the most recent song i’ve offered commentary on was 1992’s “Save the Best for Last”. Well, it’s time for that to change, and so we move directly into the current top twenty, with the hit “Carry Out” by Timbaland, with supporting vocals from Justin Timberlake (and with both of them, but particularly Mr. Timberlake, looking particularly dorky in the video).

There’s really nothing much to say to lead in to the utter joy that is the stunning incoherence of this song’s lyrics, so let’s just go ahead and get started, shall we?

Eh, eh, eh

No, i’m not kidding. This really is the first line of the song. With a start like that, you just know it’s gonna be fun!

Even better, this is followed by a few lines that are Auto-Tuned into such submission that not only am i unable to figure out what nearly any of them say, i haven’t been able to find a transcription of them in any of the expected places—many sites simply skip them, while others transcribe them as the following:

(…)

No, really—i’m not kidding.

The lines i can figure out from this section, though, seem to more or less match the chorus, so i’m not going to stress too much about not knowing for sure what they say. I’ll just move on to the bits that i could figure out, given a bit of help from various online sources.

Baby, you’re lookin’ fire hot

I have to admit that this is a good line. The Auto-Tuning makes it kind of weird, but whatever—that’s the sound Timbaland was after, and even if it undercuts some of the smoothness of the seduction, it at least gets you to pay attention.

In any event, this is obviously going to be a lesson in the best pickup lines in the business. I’m sure all of us will learn something we can use from every single line of this song.

I’ll have you open all night like you’re IHOP

Or maybe not.

I mean, really? You’re comparing the woman you’re trying to get in your bed to an IHOP?!? As in International House of Pancakes? With the blue roof and everything? And you’re telling her this to her face, and expecting it to work?

Of course, you’re a successful R&B and hip-hop performer and producer, so that might mitigate the expected effects of this particular line. Just pick a woman who’s already drunk enough that she wouldn’t be able to tie her own shoes if they were slip-ons, and it might work for you anyway.

I’ll take you home baby, let you keep me company
You give me some of you, I give you some of me

This is only one of approximately 2,348 references to the act of sex in this song, but it merits highlighting because it may be the only one of them that isn’t actually insulting in some way.

Oh, and the rhyme of company with some of me would belong in the bad rhyme hall of fame, except that…

You look good baby must taste heavenly
I’m pretty sure that you got your own recipe

…the rhyme of heavenly with recipe beat it there.

So pick it up, pick it up, yeah I like you
I just can’t get enough I gotta drive through

I know this is a sexual reference, but for the life of me i can’t figure out what it means. I mean, drive through? If Timbaland came up to me and said “Dude, i’m gonna have sex right through you”, i would fear for my physical safety and edge carefully away. But apparently the object of his desire doesn’t, ’cause he just keeps singing to her.

Cause it’s me, you, you, me, me, you, all night
Have it your way, foreplay before I feed your appetite

All the food imagery might be making you hungry, it might be making you queasy. All i know is, if you’re anything like me, it sure ain’t making you horny.

Nothing personal, Timba, but this really isn’t the smoothest set of lines i’ve ever heard.

Let me get my ticket baby let me get in line

At least it’s a nicely subtle way of saying he’s cool with sloppy seconds.

Which i suppose is yet another food reference.

I can tell the way you like it baby supersized
Hold on, you got yours, let me get mine
I ain’t leavin’ till they turn over the closed sign

The whole supersized thing has progressed to the point of cliché, but that’s alright, i’ll let it pass, ’cause i’m a bit surprised by what we find in the next line—we heard Timba say that the object of his affections has a supersized it, just like Mr. Land himself does. Given that Timbaland is saying that he has a supersized it, and i’m pretty sure we all know what he means by that, it’s making me think that this song is actually a below-the-radar gay anthem. I mean, that’s the only logical conclusion to draw. Right?

Timbaland and Timberlake, sittin’ in a tree…

Ahem. On with the song—we’re up to the chorus now.

Check it
Take my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body till you hear me out
Turn me on my baby don’t you cut me out
Turn me on my baby don’t you cut me out
Take my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body ’til it’s lights out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out

As always, smooth.

I mean, comparing someone to a carry out? I’m just trying to imagine pulling this one off: “Hey babe, your body makes me think of a place that serves cheap, greasy food in styrofoam containers.” All i can say is that the folks at the clubs Mr. Land frequents are way different than those in any clubs i’ve ever been too.

And let me walk into your body? That’s either admitting clumsiness, or it’s just plain disturbing. I can’t get anything from that line that doesn’t result in some degree of disgust, or at least annoyance.

And Justin Timberlake is taking over the vocals here, though with the amount of Auto-Tune going into this it’s effectively impossible to tell Timberlake apart from Timbaland.

Number one, I take two number threes
That's a whole lotta you, and a side of me

What in the world is a number three? Number one and number two i know about, but i haven’t heard about number three. Well, i figure that anything i don’t understand from the hip-hop world i can find in the Urban Dictionary, I go there only to discover that number three is [insert drum roll here] masturbation.

So Mr. Timberlake is telling us that the first thing he does is masturbate. Twice. And this is supposed to be seductive.

I guess it’s just me, but i don’t get the allure.

Now is it full of myself to want you full of me?

But i’ve gotta give credit where it’s due—this is actually a pretty clever line.

And if there’s room for dessert, then I want a piece
Baby, get my order right no errors
Ima touch you in all the right areas
I could feed you, you could feed me
Girl, deliver that to me, come see me

Wait—did he just rhyme errors and areas? Yes? Wow. This is getting into America territory here.

And is it just me, or does the whole get my order right no errors thing sound a little threatening to you? At least he plans to make physical contact with her in all the correct places as a reward for getting his order for a Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity right. Fair trade, i suppose.

Cause it’s me, you, you, me, me, you all night
Have it your way, foreplay, before I feed your appetite
Do you like it well done ’cause I do it well
Cause I’m well seasoned if you couldn’t tell
Now, let me walk into your body till you hear me out
Turn me on my baby don't you cut me out

The do you like it well done line seems a reasonable enough way to pick up your local IHOP waitress, but then Justin has to ruin his groove by calling himself well seasoned. Since i didn’t know what that means, i again turned to my good friend the Urban Dictionary to find out that he’s describing himself as a…Oh. Let’s just say it isn’t likely to turn her on.

Especially since we then have to listen to the chorus a couple more times, where Misters Timbaland and Timberlake threaten to walk into her body. Again.

But in an attempt to recover from that faux pas, they try to distract her by asking questions.

What’s your name? What’s your number?
I’m glad I came, can you take my order?
What’s your name? Girl what’s your number?
I’m glad I came, can you take my order?

You know, you’ve already propositioned her repeatedly—it may be a little late for questions like these.

Come over here (What's your name?)
Come closer (What's your number?)
Over here (I’m glad I came)
A little closer (Can you take my order?)

Or maybe it’s just a bit of the old Protestant work ethic—if you’re a playa, you’ve got a job to do, and the fact that you’ve only got a bunch of not-really-sexually-explicit food references to work with isn’t gonna keep you from doing your job.

’Cause that’s the only way i can get any of this to make sense to me.

And then we get the chorus several times as the song ends, reminding us all that they think of their waitress as somehow, inexplicably, similar to a carryout restaurant. I’m guessing the song stops right before the waitress at their table “accidentally” spills most of a fresh pot of coffee into their laps.

(And yes, i just discussed a song with Justin Timberlake in it without mentioning wardrobe malfunctions. Interesting, though, that he has yet another hit—i wonder how Janet Jackson’s imploded career feels about that?)