Huey Lewis & the News: The Heart of Rock & Roll

So i was thinking that i ought to post a song with really excellent lyrics, after Mariana raised the idea in response to my last post. So i got started looking for possibilities, filtering through them (do i like Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” because the lyrics are good, or because of the emotional content? is Yes’s “And You and I” too obscure? is Berlin’s “The Metro” too purposefully intense to really fit the bill? would choosing an instrumental like Herbie Hancock’s “Actual Proof” be cheating?), coming closer and closer to a decision…and then this song came on the radio, making my choice for me through its sheer awesome horribleness.

So let me take you back to the days of my youth…1983, to be exact.

1983 wasn’t really one of the greatest years on record. Not only were there semi-obscure but horrifying events like Able Archer 83, but Microsoft Word was first released. Need i say more?

Against this backdrop, the release of a ridiculous song doesn’t seem so bad—but, i must say, it certainly doesn’t help.

Anyway, for good or ill, that was the year that Huey Lewis & the News released “The Heart of Rock & Roll”, which immediately became one of the most overplayed songs of the year. Of course, a song being overplayed often results in a backlash (though not for the great ones—two of the songs from that year were Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Prince’s “1999”, which never got old), but sometimes the backlash turns out to be unwarranted—yeah, we heard too much of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and the Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another”, but we got to rediscover how good they were after they had lain fallow for a few years.

“The Heart of Rock & Roll”, though…One might think that it started to sound ridiculous because it got overplayed, but no, it started to sound ridiculous because it’s ridiculous. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look more closely, then, shall we?

New York, New York is everything they say
And no place that I’d rather be
Where else can you do a half a million things
All at a quarter to three?

Well, what about Paris? Or Chicago? Or Miami? Or London? Or Berlin? Or Frankfurt? Or Tokyo? Or Shanghai? Or…well, pretty much any big city with any sort of nightlife scene, really.

Not to slap New York down or anything—i mean, it’s bigger than me, and could probably beat me up in a fair fight—but it’s not like nothing ever happens in the wee hours of the morning anywhere else in the world.

(Also, the way the first line of this song is delivered, for a long time I thought it was New York, New York isn’t everything they say. vaguely confusing, given what follows.)

But anyway, it appears that this is going to be a song of praise to New York, and that’s fine—there’s a long history of fixating on New York in literature. So let’s hear what else Mr. Lewis has to say about New York.

When they play their music, ooh that modern music
They like it with a lot of style
But it’s still that same old back beat rhythm
That really really drives ’em wild

I like to focus on the lyrics of songs in this blog rather than the videos, mainly because there were so many mindblowingly stupid videos done in the 80s even for decent songs. But i do have to mention that if you haven’t already, you should take a moment to watch the video linked above for this song, where Mr. Lewis and his News use this moment in the song to ally themselves with New York’s punk scene. Um, no.

But you can see what they’re building here—all rock music is the same, it doesn’t matter if it’s the News singing a mash-up of doo-wop and 80s-pop or Minor Threat playing punk, it’s all exactly the same. Okay, whatever. Let’s just say that Minor Threat might not appreciate the comparison.

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beatin’
And from what I’ve seen I believe ’em
Now the old boy may be barely breathin’
But the heart of rock and roll, heart of rock and roll is still beatin’

So rock and roll is on life support? Apparently Mr. Lewis was worried about a resurgence of disco, and felt that we should be on guard against it. A reasonable stance, now that i think about it.

Also, from the true stories i probably shouldn’t admit about myself department: For many, many years i thought the third line of the chorus was actually Now the oboe may be barely breathin’. I don’t know what do with that fact, i just find it amusing.

L.A., Hollywood and the Sunset Strip
Is something everyone should see
Neon lights and the pretty, pretty girls
All dressed so scantily
When they play their music, that hard rock music
They like it with a lot of flash

Music from scantily-dressed women? I wouldn’t have guessed that Huey Lewis was a fan of Vanity 6? Well, i guess they have overproduced mindless pop in common, so it shouldn’t surprise me.

But it's still that same old back beat rhythm
That really kicks ’em in the

Oh, ho, ho! That clever and naughty but not naughty enough to get banned from the airwaves Huey Lewis! He has made us all think of buttocks by not completing the rhyme! Well, except that the uncompleted rhyme has to rhyme with flash, which means that it actually kicks them in the ash. Well, i guess you can’t have everything.

But now we emerge into the part of the song that actually seriously annoys me. I mean, up to this point it’s actually a pretty unobjectionable, though not great, 80s-pop piece. Here, though, we make a sharp turn into…Well, just follow along.

D.C., San Antone and the Liberty Town
Boston and Baton Rouge
Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City,
Seattle, San Francisco, too

Really? Could the pandering for audience applause at various stops on your next tour be more obvious? (Well, yes it could, but Sir Mix-a-Lot hadn’t yet perfected the art.) So Mr. Lewis, i’m kind of ashamed on your behalf—and i don’t hold the News unaccountable here, either, since y’all should’ve staged an intervention or something. You’re supposed to be professionals, and therefore above such tricks.

Everywhere there’s music, real live music
Bands with a million styles
But it’s still that same old rock and roll music
That really, really drives ’em wild

Somewhere out there, Minor Threat is arming themselves for the necessary smackdown.

In Cleveland

Hey, didn’t some rock singer do a song about Cleveland? That must mean it’s important for rock and roll, right?

Detroit

And hey, Detroit has, like, a million people or something! If we pander to them, too, we can sell even more albums!

Heart of rock and roll

Rock and roll has heart, yes, but i’m unconvinced that Huey Lewis & the News are uniquely qualified to represent it.

On the whole, of course, this is clearly not the worst song i’ve covered on this site. Coming from the band that gave us the perfectly candy-coated doo-wop thrill that is “If This Is It”, though, this song is just sadly wasted energy.

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?)

The Shangri-Las: Leader of the Pack

So over here at Lyrics, Weakly central I’ve been hanging out in the 70s for the past few weeks, but today we’re going even further back—back to 1964, when the teen tragedy subgenre of doo-wop music was at its peak, shortly to give way to Beatlemania. And what better example of teen tragedy than the Shangri-Las’ #1 hit, “Leader of the Pack”?

If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s summarized rather neatly on its Wikipedia page. The summary doesn’t do the absolute incoherence of the story justice, though—for that you have to go to the lyrics themselves. So let’s do so, where we start with some forebodingly minor piano chords, leading into a conversation, presumably at the corner ice cream shop, or wherever it is well-groomed clean-cut white kids gathered back then.

(By the way, the narrator of this story is named Betty, and one of the singers in the Shangri-Las was Betty Weiss. I have no idea if she was the lead singer on this song—and what little i’ve been able to find seems to point to it being her sister, Mary Weiss—but i’m going to call her Betty just to make things easier for myself.)

Voice 1, spoken: Is she really going out with him?
Voice 2, spoken: Well, there she is. Let's ask her.
Voice 3, spoken: Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?
Betty, spoken: Mm-hmm.

So there’s the setup, with Betty wearing Jimmy’s ring. This apparently was a big deal back in the late 50s and early 60s—it meant that you were “going steady”—and the smugness in Betty’s closed-lips affirmative is palpable.

Voice 1, spoken: Gee, it must be great riding with him.

Her friends, naturally enough, are impressed. Not only does she have a boyfriend, he has a motorized conveyance (a motorcycle, as we find out later from the sound effects) with which he can drive her places.

What more could a middle-class girl want?

Voice 2, spoken: Is he picking you up after school today?

And he appears to no longer be in school. Betty done found herself an older guy!

Betty, spoken: Unh-unh.

And with this sad little verbal shake of the head, the first cracks in Betty’s absolutely wonderful world start to show.

You’d think that the response to such an answer would be “Really? Why not?” That’s what i’d ask, anyway—it would keep the flow of the conversation going. But Betty’s friends refuse to submit to such hidebound conventions.

Voices 1, 2, and 3, spoken: By the way, where’d you meet him?

They were hoping that Betty would give a simple answer like “At that bar in Chelsea” so that they can follow up with another non sequitur along the lines of “Incidentally, what color is his hair?” Instead, the singing starts. (I’ve put background vocals, done by the remaining three members of the group, in parentheses.)

I met him at the candy store.
He turned around and smiled at me.
You get the picture? (Spoken: Yes, we see.)

At the candy store? I’m imagining the candy store in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a bunch of ten-year-olds milling around and buying Wonka Bars while some motorcycle-riding tough guy tries to pick up any high school girls who accidentally walk in. Not that that would be remotely creepy, of course.

That’s when I fell for (the leader of the pack).

A guy looks at you in a candy store, you fall for him right away? I only hope he bought you the big box of chocolates.

But despite such an auspicious beginning, things aren’t all sex and cookies for the loving couple.

My folks were always putting him down (down, down).
They said he came from the wrong side of town.
(Whatcha mean when ya say that he came from the wrong side of town?)

Apparently Betty’s friends don’t understand certain common idioms used in the English language, so to answer them: It means that Jimmy resides in a section of the town that is generally associated with a lower socioeconomic class, or possibly even a criminal element.

In other words, Betty is calling her parents classist prigs—you know, Power to the People! and Down With the Man! and all that. Oh, and the main message of this song, too, which is True Love Starts in Candy Stores!

(And i’m not even going to mention the insanity of trying to fit the question into the meter of the song.)

They told me he was bad,
But I knew he was sad.
That’s why I fell for (the leader of the pack).

Okay, i realize this is being narrated by a teenage girl who’s recently had a pretty severe shock (as we find out later in the song), but that’s no excuse for this sort of narrative idiocy. I mean, let’s break this down, shall we?

First of all, being bad and being sad are not mutually exclusive, no matter what Betty seems to think.

Second, why would being sad be so utterly attractive? Really, i just don’t get it—“Oh, you look depressed, let’s go out” just isn’t the way my brain works. Apparently, though, Betty is made of sterner stuff than i am.

And finally, this is the second time it’s happened, but what’s up with the motorcycle revving here? There are some sound effects that make sense in the context of the story later in the song, but we’ve already established that Jimmy and his motorcycle aren’t coming to pick Betty up, so why are we hearing it now?

Speaking of the motorcycle sound effect, it was put to much better use on the Detergents’ parody of this song, “Leader of the Laundromat”.

One day my dad said, “Find someone new”.
I had to tell my Jimmy we’re through.

As the father of multiple daughters, part of me thinks that i should play this song to them over and over while they’re sleeping so as to subliminally convince them that if i disapprove of one of their boyfriends all i need to do is say “Find someone new” and they’ll break it off. They’d probably actually just laugh at me, but a man can dream, can’t he?

So anyway, Betty heeds her father’s advice, and so our good doormat protagonist goes to find Jimmy and break up with him. (My guess is that she just followed the sound of the gratuitous motorcycle.)

(Whatcha mean when ya say that ya better go find somebody new?)

Okay, the background singers maybe had an excuse not understanding the idiom they questioned earlier in the song, but this one just proves they’re being difficult.

He stood there and asked me why,
But all I could do was cry.

Besides, she realized how lame it would sound to say “Because my dad told me to.”

I’m sorry I hurt you (the leader of the pack).

The next bit is all spoken, for what it’s worth.

He sort of smiled and kissed me goodbye.
The tears were beginning to show.
As he drove away on that rainy night
I begged him to go slow

Twisted Sister, of all people, had the best treatment ever of the drove away on that rainy night line—look carefully at 2:04 in the linked video for the win!

Whether he heard, I’ll never know.

This is the big foreboding line—if the minor-key piano chords hadn’t clued you in already, now you know that something very, very bad is about to happen.

(No! No! No! No! No! No! No!)
Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!

This is accompanied by the sound of a motorcycle driving away and crashing, in case you still needed the tragedy of the moment pounded into your skull.

So Betty’s standing there in the rain, and Jimmy’s now dead. Pretty rough for her—so let’s go to her reaction (which is sung—the moment that’s so dreadful that it merits speaking is past).

I felt so helpless, what could I do,
Remembering all the things we’d been through.
In school they all stop and stare.
I can’t hide the tears, but I don’t care.
I’ll never forget him (the leader of the pack).

Pretty rough for her—except, um, back at the beginning of the song, she was so blasé about everything, that it kind of undercuts the pathos of the moment for me. I mean, i’ve never had a significant other die on me, but i’m pretty sure if someone asked me “Is [name of dead person] picking you up after school today?” i’d most likely do one of two things: Say “No, [name of dead person] is dead” or, probably more likely, burst into tears. (Maybe both.) Betty is apparently much more of a tough girl than i’ll ever be—she just responded back with a simple unh-unh.

Maybe she’s just in shock in the memory of all the things they’d been through—you know, all that stuff that took up so much of her time that her friends, um, had no idea whether she was dating Jimmy at all. Yeah, all those things they’d managed to go through in two hours spread over three days or so, apparently.

And yes, i do recognize that i overanalyze song lyrics. Still, i suspect that this bit of emotional inconsistency would really bother me even if i didn’t, and i figure i can’t be alone in that—can i?

And then, in case you didn’t get that Jimmy’s dead, we get the following on a repeat and fade:

(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!
(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!
(Gone!) The leader of the pack and now he’s gone (gone gone gone gone gone gone)!
The leader of the pack and now he’s gone!

Well, at least “Leader of the Pack” doesn’t have the utter sappiness of the whole class ring idiocy in Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel”—so we might as well take the small victories, right?

America: Sandman

Today, Lyrics, Weakly delves into the deep cuts—we’ve got a song that was never released on its own, but it’s so…amazing that it just begs to be commented on here. (It showed up on a greatest hits album, though, and so that’s enough proof of popularity for me!) It doesn’t have much in the way of lyrics (the chorus gets repeated a lot), and therefore this will be a relatively short review, but that all makes it no less amazing.

This also marks the first time Lyrics, Weakly has returned to an artist that has been dealt with before—but let’s face it, if you go through the lyrics of the band America’s songs, it’s just a gift of amazingificness that keeps on giving for a blog like this one.

Anyway, today we have the song “Sandman”, which was the B–side (in the US—the Brits had to make do with a different song) to the huge hit “A Horse With No Name”. The A–side went to #1—i wonder how this one would have done?

Ain’t it foggy outside
All the planes have been grounded

This isn’t too bad—we’ve got a bit of a mood here with the fog and the planes, it makes me think of the end of Casablanca. Not bad at all, really.

Ain't the fire inside?

What?

Never mind, i take back everything positive i just said.

Really, under what circumstances would anyone ever utter this sentence? I mean, “Where’s the fire?” is a sensible, if slightly weird, thing to ask—but “Ain’t the fire inside?” is just weird. And what would the answer be? “No, the fire’s outside. And what was the point of this conversation again?”

Let’s all go stand around it

Usually, indoor fires aren’t the sort of thing you stand around—they usually only have one side to stand in front of. This isn’t universally true, though, so i’ll let it slide for now, even though it’s pretty clear that it was phrased this way to provide a desperation rhyme for grounded.

Funny, i’ve been there
And you’ve been here
And we ain’t had no time to drink that beer

Okay, it’s been funny, sure. But why ain’t we had time? Oh, good, you’re gonna tell us.

’Cause i understand you’ve been running from a man
That goes by the name of the sandman
He flies the sky like an eagle in the eye
Of a hurricane that’s abandoned

Okay, right.

Yeah, i admit it—the real reason i chose this song for this week’s installment was because of the horrible awesomosity of the chorus. How is it awesome? Let me count the ways:

1. The rhyme of sandman with abandoned—and the singer sings it like like these words were truly meant to rhyme. I guess this is one of those where if you act like you know what you’re doing, people won’t question you. Act like those words rhyme, people’ll just go along with it. At least they will if they’re stoned enough.

B. The narrator makes this sound like there’s a life-and-death cat-and-mouse game going on, and yet it only comes up as a reason for not sharing a beer. There’s something to be said for having your priorities straight, i suppose.

Spleen. The possibility of a Logan’s Run reference. I don’t know if running from the sandman really was a reference to that novel (the movie hadn’t been made yet when the song was released), but if it isn’t it should have been.

π/2. A hurricane that’s abandoned?!? This is as opposed to, what? A hurricane that the deedholder has kept in good repair? It’s completely and utterly nonsensical, and yet it sounds like it ought to make perfect sense. That’s either incredibly clever or incredibly stupid, and you know what? I don’t care.

Ain’t the years gone by fast
I suppose you have missed them
Oh, i almost forgot to ask
Did you hear of my enlistment?

Once again, we have a truly horrible rhyme: missed them with enlistment. (This may be an even more egregious pair that sandman and abandoned, though i admit i’m unable to decide which one’s more amazing.)

Also, much praise for the offhand “Oh, by the way, i almost forgot to tell you i joined the army” news, since that’s a completely realistic portrayal of the way people usually announce that sort of thing. Right?

And, believe it or not, that’s it—all we get after that is several more repetitions of the chorus. To be honest, this leaves me disappointed—a band as talented at coming up with horrible rhymes as America, and they stop here? They could have given us at least three more bad rhyme pairs, i’m sure.

But, because it’s so amazing, i’ll leave you with the chorus one more time, just so that you can bask in the wonderfulisticness that is America in full-on desperation for a rhyme mode:

’Cause i understand you’ve been running from a man
That goes by the name of the sandman
He flies the sky like an eagle in the eye
Of a hurricane that’s abandoned

Loggins and Messina: Your Mama Don’t Dance

You know, when i started doing this blog i figured i’d be doing mainly 80s songs, ’cause i grew up in the 80s (so that’s the music i really know), and there are just so many bad 80s songs i thought i could just stay with those and never run out.

As it turns out, though, the 70s have become my go-to decade.

This week’s song is no exception: The 1973 top-ten hit (though it was a 1972 release) “Your Mama Don’t Dance” by Loggins and Messina.

Frightening fact: Kenny Loggins’s solo career has apparently dried up to the point that Loggins and Messina has been reformed. Yes, that’s right, you too can have the opportunity to pay large amounts of money to hear the original performers sing “House at Pooh Corner”. (I guess it’s not quite as frightening as the fact that Cheech and Chong are touring again, but still.)

Anyway, today’s song is the story of you, a young man—a teenager—trying to shake off all the restrictions society is trying to place on you. And why are you faced with all these restrictions? Why, because

Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll

Oh. Of course. Yeah, um, that makes perfect sense.

You’re having trouble because your mother doesn’t dance? Really? You know, i’ve been to enough family reunions, weddings, and so on to know that if there’s one thing most teenagers would agree on, it’s that they’d like for their mother to never, ever dance, at least not where anyone can see her. So how exactly is this a problem?

And the fact that your father doesn’t rock and roll? What does that even mean? Your father doesn’t play in a band? Once again, i don’t know that most teenagers really want their father to be in a band—that would be the ultimate embarrassment, i’m thinking. (Well, unless we’re talking Dweezil, Ahmet, Diva, and Moon Unit Zappa, but let’s face it, they live in an entirely different world from you and me.)

Of course, it’s entirely possible that by “rock and roll” Misters Messina and Loggins are reaching back a bit to an earlier meaning—they’re saying that your father doesn’t have sex. Well, leaving aside the fact that your father, if he is in fact your father, did have sex at least once, why would this be a problem for you personally?

I’m just not getting the basic reason for the whole complaint, and that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the song.

Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll

Just in case you forgot between the first and second lines of the song.

When evenin’ rolls around and it's time to go to town
Where do you go to rock and roll?

Well, there are probably a few dance clubs, maybe a rave or two going on in the warehouse district, parties at the houses of friends whose parents are a bit more permissive than yours…Really, my guess is that this isn’t actually a problem for you. I mean, even the kids in (random bonus Kenny Loggins music reference alert!) the movie Footloose found a place to dance once they put their minds to it—you’re giving up that easily?

The old folks say that ya gotta end your date by ten
If you’re out on a date and you bring it home late, it’s a sin

First of all, i’m a sociolinguist and dialectologist by profession, so i must mention that the rhyme of ten with sin is so wonderfully and perfectly Southern American English that i get a little geek thrill whenever i hear this couplet.

Second of all, was a ten o’clock curfew normal in the early 70s? I wasn’t yet of an age to really care about curfews, so i don’t know. Either way, i suppose that this is supposed to be evidence that your life is horrible and your parents are evil and so on. Of course, as we find out later, a ten o’clock curfew doesn’t appear to be stopping you from sowing your wild oats in all the expected places (excepting when you forget to take the beats of certain members of the police force into account, that is), so i’m not entirely sure why you should care so deeply about this.

Third of all, it? I could kind of understand someone having an issue if you’re bringing her home late, or bringing him home late, depending on your own personal preferences. But bringing it home late? I’m thinking the curfew may be the least of your issues.

There just ain’t no excuse and you know you’re gonna lose you never win

This was a semi-finalist in the balloting for the longest single-line run-on sentence ever found in a hit song.

I’ll say it again

This line frustrates me on two counts:

First, this is being sung by Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina. The song is a duet, sung in near-unison. There is no “I” here, it’s a “we”.

Second, they then proceed to not say it again. This isn’t a bad thing—the trainwreck that is the previous line should not be repeated, ever—but it does feel like a breach of promise.

But it does leave us wondering why you’re doomed to so much losing. You want to know why? Sure you do—and so here it is:

And it’s all because
Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll
Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll
When evenin’ rolls around and it's time to go to town
Where do you go to rock and roll?

Really, that’s a pretty heavy load to place on particular personal habits of your parents, particularly habits that are so, well, unimportant.

Also, the end of the chorus makes no sense here. Are Misters Messina and Loggins saying, as i parse these lines, that the reason you’re a loser is because when evening rolls around and it’s time to go to town where do you go to rock and roll? ’Cause that’s just a weird thing to claim—it’s like saying “I like ice cream because where is my hamster?”

But things are starting to look up for you, oh hormonal one, because

You’ve pulled into a drive-in and found a place to park
You hop into the back seat where ya know it’s nice and dark
You're just about to move in, you’re thinking it's a breeze

You know what’s missing here? Any reference to the it you’re dating. Either way, though, i suppose the back seat would be dark, so whatever floats your particular boat. Just don’t tell me too many details, okay?

But whatever’s actually going on here, disaster suddenly strikes!

There’s a light in your eye and then a guy says
Out of the car long hair!
Oowee, you’re coming with me, the local police

Yep, the police have come to take you in for…Well, whatever they take kids in for when they find them not yet having sex in a car. A semi-public display of almost-affection?

But yeah, who would have thought—a business establishment actually has someone providing security to enforce various rules of behavior? Shocking, i know. I wonder why this is the case?

Well, as it turns out, Misters Messina and Loggins are here to inform us.

And it’s all because

Take note of that, by the way—we’re about to be told the entire reason that you just got busted for PDA:

Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll
Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll

Yep, if only your mother actually danced, or if in fact your father rocked and rolled (maybe even if he merely rocked or rolled), you’d have a clean record and you wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life. Too bad for you.

At least you can blame it all on your parents rather than your own poor judgment, ’cause that would, you know, suck.

When evenin’ rolls around and it's time to go to town
Where do you go to rock and roll?
Where do you go to rock and roll?
Where do you go to rock and roll?

Well, now that you’re hanging out down at the county jail, i suppose you’re rocking and rolling in the prison yard. Don’t worry, i’ll send you a soap on a rope for your birthday.

Rupert Holmes: Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

So today we have Rupert Holmes’s “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”, the song that officially provided the musical bridge between the 70s and the 80s by virtue of being the last #1 song of 1979 and the second #1 song of 1980. This means that both decades have something to be ashamed of, but in terms of lyrical content this song belongs firmly in the 70s—not saying that the 80s would have been any better, just that songs describing the joys of the infidelity scene got a bit more subtle as disco gave way to new wave on mainstream radio.

I have to say that i can’t slam every aspect of this song—i actually like the music behind this song. It has an interesting beat, and it could function as decent non-Muzak background music in a restaurant or something. The lyrics laid on top of that music, though…Well, let’s just say they’re questionable.

Quick thought before i get to the lyrics: I don’t know any couple who has ever thought of this as “their song”. It’s possible, i suppose (i knew a couple who very seriously considered Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” as their song, so anything could happen), but if you’re a couple like that, well, nothing personal, but i don’t want to ever meet you.

And now we might as well let Mr. Holmes tell us about his life:

I was tired of my lady, we’d been together too long,
Like a worn-out recording of a favorite song.

Wow. Just wow. I mean, can we be a little more cold here?

I’m just trying to figure out how Mr. Holmes got into this relationship in the first place. Imagine: Rupert Holmes sitting in a singles bar, shirt halfway unbuttoned to show the glories of his chest hair wig, attention drawn to it by the huge gold-plated zodiac sign hanging from his neck. He sees an attractive woman at the other end of the bar, and sends her a drink (my guess, given stuff we learn later in the song: a sex on the beach). She accepts, and so he walks across the bar like he was walking across a yacht, and delivers his one best, can’t-fail pickup line: “Hey, lady. You lookin’ for someone who’ll stay with you until he gets tired of you, as if you were an overplayed hit song?”

The scary thing, really, is that she said yes.

Oh—and he calls her “my lady”. Can we just all agree that that’s an annoying way to refer to the female person you’re coupled with? You would have thought that Styx would have put the knife in this one back in 1972, but nope, here it is in 1979. Another reason i’m glad i grew up in the 80s, not the 70s.

On a perhaps more serious note, it’s worth noting that the word “lady” is ambiguous here—certainly she and Mr. Holmes are a couple, but it’s unclear what sort of relationship this is. They may just be long-term lovers, they may be living together, they may be married. I suspect that they’re married, if only because it makes the rest of the song more horrific. and therefore I’m going to assume for the rest of this that the unnamed “lady” is Mrs. Holmes to the singer’s Mr. Holmes. If you’d rather think otherwise, feel free—it doesn’t lower the horror level by more than a half-notch to do so.

So while she lay there sleeping, I read the paper in bed.
And in the personal columns, there was this letter I read:

You know how, every once in a while, you’re listening to a friend tell a story, everything’s going along nicely, and then they throw in a weird little detail that makes you say “Wait—hold on a minute.”

We’ve reached such a point here.

You’re in bed with your sleeping wife, and you’re reading the personals?

I mean, okay, so i recognize that infidelity happens—not as much as a lot of people think, but not infrequently. So the fact that you’re looking for someone else isn’t as shocking as it might be, but while you’re in bed with your wife? Dude, that’s chutzpah—and i’d like to remind everybody out there the the word chutzpah isn’t as positive a quality as a lot of people think it is.

Also, exactly what section of the personals are you looking in? Given the content of the letter it’s not men seeking men, so we might expect to it to be women seeking men. I’m thinking, though, that it’s most likely the women seeking lying, cheating scumweasels section.

Anyway, let’s see what this advertisement says. I’m going to quote it in full, just so that the annoying superficiality of it won’t get lost, and then break it down piece by piece for you. So here’s the ad:

“If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain,
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain,
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape,
Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape.”

And here’s the breakdown:

“If you like piña coladas,

I will admit right here that i’m not the best choice to criticize someone’s drinking habits, not least because i choose not to drink alcohol for a number of reasons. But i do know enough to wonder why this anonymous advertiser is looking for a guy who likes to drink what can only be described as a girl drink.

and getting caught in the rain,

You don’t own an umbrella, but you pretend that’s a virtue? Cool, let’s sleep together!

If you’re not into yoga,

Given when this song was released (the late 70s), i’m willing to not criticize this one—not being into yoga would have clearly been a virtue. Unfortunately, it’s only an even-a-blind-squirrel-finds-a-nut-once-in-a-while moment.

Or maybe, it’s an even-a-clueless-personal-ad-writer-finds-a-nut-once-in-a-while moment.

if you have half a brain,

If you’re looking for someone with half a brain, why are you advertising in the personals section instead of going out and meeting people you might really have something in common with?

Oh, wait—maybe you’re actually hoping for someone with only half a brain, as opposed to having a completely functional one. In that case, carry on.

If you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape,

At least we know now it’s actually all about the time and location of sex. Glad to see what caught your attention, Rupert.

Of course, any time i hear this line about sex in the dunes, all i can think about is one word: Sand!

Sorry, not my thing.

Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape.”

For “love”, read “expensive prostitute”.

I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean.

No, Rupert, it sounds like you’re unable to sustain a relationship. It doesn’t necessarily follow that you’re mean—in fact, it might even be merciful to duck out now rather than lead her on. However, when your stated reason for this is

But me and my old lady had fallen into the same old dull routine.

then it’s clear not that you’re not being merciful, you’re just being a jerk.

So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad.
And though I'm nobody’s poet, I thought it wasn't half-bad.

Strike that—you’re just being an egotistical jerk.

“Yes, I like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain,
I’m not much into health food, I am into champagne.
I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape,
At a bar called O’Malley’s, where we’ll plan our escape.”

I would have done this point by point like the other one, but i wanted to…Well, to be honest, i didn’t because there are too many possibilities.

First of all, Mr. Holmes, maybe this isn’t a half-bad poem, but that’s because it’s not yours—it’s largely cribbed from the poem you’re replying to. I teach for a living, and you know what we call that? Plagiarism. It’s grounds for failing a course, maybe even getting kicked out of school if the offense is egregious enough. Now here, of course, the stakes aren’t that high—it’s just about cheating on your wife and moving on to some other relationship you’ll be in for just long enough to get bored with your new “love”.

Classy.

Oh—and a couple of specific items from this “not half-bad” poem. First of all, with I am into champagne as a response to the parallel line if you have half a brain, it appears that Mr. Holmes is self-aware enough to recognize that he might not fit that part of the request. I guess we ought to give him credit for that much.

Also, consider the desperation of I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon. I mean, wow. Beyond the fact that this response probably wouldn’t actually get to her that quickly (remember, kids, this is before widespread use of the internet, and sometimes it took a whole three to four days for a letter to get delivered), there’s nothing about exchanging thoughts about starting up a relationship and the issues involved. Nope, it’s more along the lines of “I match about half of the qualifications you listed, so you will therefore meet me where i say we should so that we can go somewhere and have sex together.”

Yep, this is looking healthier and healthier.

And where does Mr. Holmes want to meet this mysterious hooker woman? Why, at a bar called O’Malley’s, of course. Sensible, i think, since the New York City metropolitan area (where Rupert Holmes did much of his growing up, according to his Wikipedia page) can’t have more than one bar named O’Malley’s, right?

So I waited with high hopes, then she walked in the place.

I’m glad to see that this mystery woman picked the right one. Even if you want to see someone fail, it’s never fun to see someone carrying a red rose with nobody there, obviously getting stood up by someone they don’t know. That’s really just a downer for those of us with hopes of developing or continuing healthy relationships.

I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face.

Small victory for him, i suppose, that he didn’t instantly recognize the curve of her Adam’s apple.

It was my own lovely lady, and she said, “Aw, it’s you.”

Yep, folks, here it is, the Clever Ironic Twist: Mr. Holmes went out philandering, but Mrs. Holmes was out doing the same thing—and they ended up with each other.

Then we laughed for a moment,

This is as opposed to recognizing that both of them had had the right instincts earlier, and it was time to head for the exits and hire divorce lawyers.

Of course, this was the 70s, when occurrences like this were what counted as romance-with-a-capital-R. And why was it so romantic? Well, because our star-crossed lovers had finally realized that they had so much in common that they simply had to be meant for each other.

As-bloody-if.

But you know what? After thinking it through, i think i’ve come to that same conclusion, myself—and they’re welcome to have each other, too, as long as they promise not to breed. Is it a deal?

and I said, “I never knew…
That you liked piña coladas,

Let’s think for a moment about what conversations between Mr. and Mrs. Holmes must be like. I mean, imagine when they first met at the seedy singles bar you just know they met at, and Rupert was trying to impress his lovely lady by buying her drinks…

“Hey, lady. You want some wine?” “No, i don’t really like wine.” “Dang!”

“How about a martini?” “No, i don’t really like martinis.” “Dang!”

“How about a rum and Coke?” “No, i don’t really like rum and Coke.” “Dang!”

“How about a beer?” “No, i don’t really like beer.” “Dang!”

“How about a gin and tonic?” “No, i don’t really like gin and tonic.” “Dang!”

“How about a cosmopolitan?” “No, i don’t really like cosmopolitans.” “Dang!”

“How about a fuzzy navel?” “No, i don’t really like fuzzy navels.” “Dang!”

No wonder things were going badly—it never occurred to him to say “So i’ve noticed you drink like a fish. What kind of drinks do you like, exactly?”

I mean, i’m no marriage counselor, but it seems to me that such a very low level of communication is likely to result in relationship issues down the road.

and getting caught in the rain.

I can kind of understand not knowing she liked this if they lived in, say, Yuma, Arizona. Otherwise there’s really no excuse.

And the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne.

Apparently he never asked her if she liked champagne, either. Maybe they first hooked up on the night of New Year’s Day and their meetup at O’Malley’s was at noon on New Year’s Eve, so they never toasted the new year in together?

Or maybe this is just a really ill-thought-out lyric? Yeah, that.

If you like making love at midnight,

We turn once again to the Holmes household. They have the day off, and we join them in the morning…

“Hey, lady, it’s nine in the morning. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s noon. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s three in the afternoon. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s six in the evening. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Now it’s nine at night. Wanna make love?” “No.” “Dang!”

“Well, it’s 11:50 at night and that was the Tonight Show monologue. Guess we’ll go to sleep now.” “Okay.”

Seriously, did these people ever have a real conversation?

in the dunes of the cape.
You’re the lady that I've looked for, come with me, and escape.”

And this time i promise i’ll read the user’s manual first, or whatever a guy does to know what kind of drinks you like. And maybe i’ll be a little more discreet when i decide to look for a little something on the side.

And so then we get the chorus on a repeat and fade, leaving us with the horrible, horrible realization that these two ended up together happily ever after.

Please excuse me while i go dry heave.

The end.

America: A Horse With No Name

Today i’m going back to the 70s, if only because i need an easy target—and my target this time is the song “A Horse With No Name”, released by the band America in 1972. This was America’s first single; it was also their most successful one. You may feel free to draw whatever conclusions about the band you like from those bits of data.

According to the Wikipedia page for this song (there’s a Wikipedia page for everything!), “at first the group thought it too corny and took some convincing to actually play it”. I wonder why?

Let’s find out.

On the first part of the journey

Apparently the narrator of the song is taking a journey somewhere. We don’t know where or why, but i’m willing to let that slide—starting a story in the middle of the plotline is such a well-accepted literary convention that it even has a Latin name (in medias res, for those of you keeping score at home). Hey! Maybe that means we’ll be treated to some high-end literature-type stuff in this song!

Or maybe not.

I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds
and rocks and things.
There was sand and hills and rings.

Okay, so there’s a lot of life surrounding you. This makes sense, since even in the arctic tundra there’s a pretty decent amount of biomass.

So, Misters America, what sort of life are you surrounded by?

Well, let’s see…there are a bunch of plants and birds.

Okay. Not very specific, but good to know. What else?

Um, there’s rocks.

Rocks? Excuse me, did i hear you correctly? I thought we were talking about the life you were surrounded by, yes?

Um, right. Okay, so maybe not rocks. But there was a whole bunch of life around—you know, lots of things.

Things? Wow. You know, maybe we should stop talking about life—just tell me about the landscape—that would fit in with the whole “rocks” idea, i guess.

Okay, i can do that! There was sand…um, and hills…and, uh, rings.

Rings? What in the world…? You know, let’s just give up on the whole description thing—i think that’s pretty much done. Maybe we should move on to what you did, okay?

(By the way, in all seriousness, the rhyming of rings with things here really bugs me. First of all, if you have to resort to using things as the basis for a rhyme, you’re just not trying hard enough. If you have to resort to rings as a description of a landscape to manage a rhyme with things—well, the reason you’re not trying hard enough is that you’re a hack lyricist.)

The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz

This would be as opposed to a fly with an oink?

and a sky with no clouds.
The heat was hot
and the ground was dry

The heat was hot?

This is even more amazing than the fly with a buzz.

This isn’t like saying “the water was wet”, which i can almost see as an acceptable literary device to drive the point home—this is like saying “the wetness was wet”. This isn’t purposeful redundancy, this is grasping desperately for rhymes.

Oh—and incidentally, i can grok meeting a fly with a buzz, but meeting a sky with no clouds? Randy Newman once described this song as being “about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid”.

Yep.

but the air was full of sound.

Presumably from the flies with their buzzes, and the birds that presumably have their tweets.

Oh, and the things. With their, um…sounds.

I’ve been through the desert
on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain

Me, i actually like the rain. Deserts make my skin go all itchy and flaky. To each their own, though, i suppose.

In the desert,
you can remember your name

Now, even though i don’t like deserts, i have been in a handful of them—and in none of them was i subject to any sort of realization of my own name greater than i’ve had anywhere else.

That is, this is a completely pointless observation for the song to make.

But this means the horse has no name, but the narrator does—it doesn’t seem quite fair to the horse, does it?

But at least we’re given a reason you can remember your name in the desert. Ready for it? Here it is:

’cause there ain’t no one
for to give you no pain.

Um, okay. Right.

The only way i can make sense of this is that it’s some sort of statement on the horror of negative experiences in life, a claim that the only reason we’re able to have any sort of memory, the only reason we’re in fact able to claim any sort of individuality in our own existence, is because we can occasionally escape the pain that is ordinary human experience.

Well, either that or the authors of this lyrics were desperate for a rhyme for “name” and this was the best they could come up with, so they tried to make it sound deep or something.

I figure the latter is more likely.

Oh—and the grammar of “there ain’t no one for to give you no pain”? Obviously, this song was written by someone from Appalachia or the Deep South, areas where such grammatical constructions are part of the native argot, and as such when they’re sung they reflect some of the gritty realities of poverty and social tension found in those regions.

So…True fact: This song was actually by Dewey Bunnell (one of the members of the band). Another true fact: Dewey Bunnell was born in England to an American father and a British mother. Yet another true fact: Mr. Bunnell even went to high school in England, not in some part of the Southern or Appalachian regions of the United States.

If you think all of these facts through, then you’ll likely come to the same conclusion about that line as i have, which is, in a word: Poser.

(And remember kids, “poser” is only one letter removed from “loser”.)

La la la lalala la lala la la la.
la la la lalala la lala la la la.

I’ll readily admit that the harmonies are pretty sweet in this section of the song—but when the most coherent part of your song’s lyrics involve twenty-four repetitions of the syllable “la”, well, you just might be in a bit of trouble, you know?

After two days in the desert sun
my skin began to turn red.

Once again, i’ve been in the desert, and on a cloudless day this would likely actually take about an hour, maybe even as little as five minutes at midday.

Just another clue that Misters America appear to be singing about stuff they have no idea about.

After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed.

So you’ve got a killer sunburn, and you’re thinking the desert is fun?!

Dude, there are easier ways to satisfy your masochistic urges, okay?

And the story it told of a river that flowed
made me sad to think it was dead.

Actually, if you’re looking at a dry river bed in the middle of the desert, you’re most likely looking at an arroyo (a.k.a. a wadi). Arroyos are nowhere close to dead—they’re an important part of desert ecosystems. But then again, you’re unable to describe your surroundings clearly, so maybe we should cut you a little break here.

We then hear the chorus again, which is followed by an actual plot development:

After nine days, I let the horse run free
’cause the desert had turned to sea.

Right—’cause, you know, horses are never able to function next to the water. No use at all. Ever. Nope, they can’t do a single thing near water.

There were plants and birds
and rocks and things.
There was sand and hills and rings.

Yeah, i guess it’s an attempt to say that the desert and the sea aren’t as different as we think they are, but come on—what’s up with rings in the sea?

The ocean is a desert
with its life underground
and a perfect disguise above.

No, it’s not. First of all, the ocean is wet, the desert is dry. Second, the ocean has fish, and fish are vanishingly rare in the desert. Third, this lyric is just a silly attempt to seem deep by spouting nonsense.

Under the cities
lies a heart made of ground
but the humans will give no love.

And this is the big payoff—an environmentalist message tacked onto the end of the song.

But you know what? I don’t care. This is a dumb song, and so now any sort of good Misters America had hoped to do with this lyric gets to be stupid by association. Nice job, dudes.

Finally, on a different subject: Lyrics, Weakly will be taking next week off, since i’ll be three-quarters of the way across the continent at a conference on the teaching of linguistics. To keep your attention, though, when the blog returns on 22 January i’ll be taking us through what I consider the most horrific love song anyone ever sang to his wife. Ever.

So you have something to look forward to.