On The Record and On The Leash

 

With:

 

 

 

                   Kitty Van Buren

 

            In this, my first edition of “On The Record and On The Leash,” I wanted to give you all a chance to get to know me.  And in lieu of some boring bio-piece, I’ve decided to give you all an insight into my beautiful little psyche.  So without any further delay, here we go.

Since it is so unbearably easy to take a pot shot at ANY genre of popular modern music that it makes me feel bile rise up into my larynx, I have begun work on a list of songs from “the golden age” that undoubtedly will give us all a reason to be glad we at least didn’t have to live through it.  Although no list of oldies could ever make me as sick as the fact that five grown men (and let me emphasize grown men) can be picked from opposite sides of the country, introduced to each other, taught dance moves and a few words to a song and be called a “boy band,” I still feel that this list holds something great for everyone.  So, it is with great pleasure I present to you:

 

The ever growing list of oldies songs I hate.

 

The one that goes “it’s so easy…like takin’ candy from a baby.”  Almost any song with the cleverly phrased “one two three” line in it is usually stupid; especially because the guy is always trying to tell you just how easy something is by singing it.  So it’s as easy as “one two three,” huh?  Well what if you’re retarded?  Doesn’t sound so easy anymore, now does it?

Anything with “ride sally ride” in the lyrics.  This is used in about five hundred oldies songs, and all of them suck.  This is one of those lyrics guys used to throw in as an ineffectual nod to other R & B artists, but they just wound up ripping them off instead.  I don’t know who the first guy to use it was, but fuck him.

“Dancin’ in the streets.”  I can’t stand “Motown” songs like this because they are based in totally un-engaging circumstances that never take place.  As if people would get along just because songs were played loudly in the street. 

“Dancin’ U.S.A.”  (See “Dancin’ in the Streets”)

The one that goes “…woman, The one that goes “…woman, oh oh oh woman, have you got cheating on your mind?”  The first in a series of songs that are obviously either sung by a midget or a Muppet.  Normal human beings don’t have voices like this.

            “Good morning star shine.”  I hate this song for many reasons.  In my opinion, it should be on everyone’s shit list for one reason alone.  Right after the refrain, the guy runs out of lyrics and starts saying “sing song sing sing… sing sing sing song.”  What?  Who the Hell does this asshole think he’s fooling with that one?

“The wanderer.”  This dude should walk his wandering ass right off a cliff.  Or maybe wander onto Dead Man’s Curve.

Anything Tina Turner ever sang or danced or looked stupid and ugly to.

“Tutti frutti” w/ or w/o on rutti.  Little Richard is terrible.  Sure he can play the piano, but so can Randy Newman.

“When a man loves a woman.”  I get an unbelievable amount of shit from people for not liking this song.  Like just because everyone’s parents play it on their anniversary I’m supposed to feel obligated to like it.  What a boring song.  I can’t stand it when a song just says the same thing over and over again. 

“Rock around the clock.”  Almost anything by Bill Haley and The Comets is subject to questioning.  This falls in line with that old David Bowie quote that says something along the lines of “it isn’t who’s first to do it, it’s who’s second to do it.”  These guys are just boring and terribly unoriginal. 

“Only you.”  This must also be sung by a midget or a Muppet.

The “nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah hey hey hey goodbye” song.  Stupid people think it’s humorous to sing this song when someone gets struck out, or when someone is insulted or gets into trouble.  Not only is this a terrible lyric for a song, but it’s the only lyric for this song!

“Whatever will be, will be (que sera, sera).”  You hear this song all the time.  In department stores, or commercials which are supposed to be humorous…like an ad where a guy is changing his oil and it spills all over him and then he gets mad – that is until we hear our funny little song.  They should use this song for a tampon commercial, or maybe one of those commercials for St. Jude’s cancer hospital – you know, the ads that come on from two in the morning until five in the morning, with all the bald kids begging you to send in money?

“My guy.”  This is a pop music anomaly.  No one seems to notice, but one of the back up singers has the most disgusting, man-like voice I have ever heard.  She sounds like a man who swallowed a horn – like one of those teachers from Charlie Brown.

“Great balls of fire” and goodness gracious as well.  I get a lot of bullshit for not liking this one, too.  As if you have to like every song by someone just because they’re considered a legend.  You know, some people consider even Mariah Carrey to be a legend.  Food for thought.

Anything that mentions a river being wide or a valley being low or a mountain being high, especially when accompanied by the words “…ain’t no…” and “…enough.”  These are almost as bad as they are numerous.  Do we not have enough songs about how much love one person has for another without having to branch out into contrast and comparison?  The number of songs which use these same stale-ass metaphors astonishes me.  What a positively stirring testimonial.

Absolutely, positively “Purple People Eater.”  If I have to comment on this, you should just stop reading right now.

“Yakety yak.”  This is one of those doo wop songs that they wrote with the intention of writing a chart topper, not the intention of writing a good song.  It also incorporates one of the major and most common downfalls of doo wop which is known as the comic relief baritone.  There is always one of these guys in the group whose voice sounds like a beluga whale in mating season and they always have a part where the music stops and this dude chimes in with some smarmy two bit joke lyric that is usually more racially insulting than it is anything else.  They might as well make him say “I’sa gonna sells duh records good for ya, massa!”  You can just imagine the producer telling him to pout his lips and bug out his eyes more during the studio session.

“Splish splash.”  (See “Yakety yak”)

The one that talks about Charlie Brown and how much of a clown he is, and says "why's everybody always pickin' on me?"  (See “Yakety yak”)

"Groovy kind of love."  How boring.

The terrible classic by Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels "Devil with a blue dress on."  Among many other problems, this one incorporates many of the lame staples of unoriginal R & B music: the predictable shuffle beat, trite lyrics and way too much effort and enthusiasm to be singing a song about a girl in a fucking dress.

“Mack the knife.”  Who the Hell cares about Mack the Knife?

“That’s amore.”  What is the deal with the pizza pie reference?  Honestly.  I’m not joking in the least.  I’d really like to know.  The moon looks like a pizza?  That doesn’t sound like amore… that’s sounds like peyote.

The one that goes "...just gimme some kinda sign girl, oh my baby...to show me that you're mine girl..."

"Hit the road Jack."  (See The “nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah hey hey hey goodbye” song.)

"Hang on Sloopy."  What in the Hell?

The one about Jeremiah being a bullfrog, you know "Joy to the world."  To me, this really isn’t an oldie, since I don’t consider Three Dog Night to be oldies, and I suppose  I shouldn’t even put it on this list because I don’t have “Maggie May” on the list for the same reason, but just so that I’ve stated it… they do play both of those songs on the oldies station.  But once again, I don’t have “Maggie May” on the list.  Not because I don’t hate it… because I do.  Rather I don’t have enough time to explain all the completely valid reasons I hate it.

"Mony mony."  Whoever wrote this is a real genius.  What kind of idiot comes up with lyrics like “ride the pony, ride the pony”? 

“The doggie in the window.”  (See “Purple People Eater”)

“What’s new pussycat.”  Fuck Tom Jones and everyone who listens to him.  If I met a man and fell in love with him and married him, then found out that he listened to Tom Jones, I would set the bed on fire when he was sleeping in it and steal away into the night, never to be seen again.  I would then spend the rest of my days hunched over in the corner of a small dark room somewhere in South America and the only words I would be able to say as I rocked back and forth covered in my own drool would be “why? How did this happen? Why?”

“I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.”  Oh, how cute.  You saw your Mommy kissing a stranger and decided to make it public in a pop song.  I’ve got a great follow up to this one; it’s called “I saw Daddy Going Down on Some Dude He Met at the Mall Yesterday.”  I think it’ll be a big hit.

That terrible song that goes “…spotlight on James Brown now” and "...do you like good music? Sweet soul music."  It is impossible to type it, but this song also has that terribly overused “ooh oh ooh ooh oh oh oh oh.”   Listen to it, you’ll understand.

The one that goes “together, forever, and never to part,” and also says “I’ll say a little prayer for you…” called “I say a little prayer," and anything else by Dionne Warwick.  I love a lot of Bacharach songs, but this one just doesn’t cut the mustard.  Oh, and the extraterrestrial they got to sing it doesn’t help at all.

Definitely, and without any doubt in my mind “Judy in disguise.”  Written and performed by the atrocious John Fred & His Playboy Band.  Fuck those guys.  Lemme ask you something… lemonade pies in you brand new car?  I know that isn’t really a question, but what the fuck?

The one where the guy shows just how fucking stupid public school can make you by listing all of the stuff he doesn’t know…i.e. “don’t know much about history.”  If you listen to the whole song you quickly realize this guy doesn’t know fuckin’ anything!  At the beginning it sounds like your average sappy love song, but by the time you reach the end it becomes all too apparent that this guy is just crying out for help… or if he isn’t, he damn well should be.  This fucking guy doesn’t know shit about anything.  What the fuck is he doing on the radio?

“At the hop.”  (See “Groovy kind of love”)

“Bony Marone.”  I don’t think that’s actually a song.  I think I just made that one up.  But I hate absolutely fucking hate it.

Absolutely anything by Tony Orlando with or without Dawn.  Any explanation I could attempt to embark upon would be abortive at best.

“Let’s twist again” and anything else by Chubby Checker.  Yet another case of some pathetic moron who only becomes famous by ripping off someone better and being able to play the piano.

“Monster mash.”  (See “Purple people eater and “Hang on Sloopy.”)

“See see rider.”  I hate each and every meaningless version of this stupid song.  The thing that gets to me is that there are actually people who would argue with me about my opinion of this song.  What troglodytes.

“The ballad of Jed Clampett.”  This song was actually quite a big selling single.  Can you imagine if we went around jamming out to tapes of the Perfect Strangers theme song when we were kids?  Why not?  It’s just as good.

“Incense and peppermints.”  Here’s a textbook case of some rich boys spending Daddy’s money on sequencers and other high-tech effects in order to create the genre which was being “unleashed on the world” at that time called “psychedelic.”  In reality, all of the guys who actually did the drugs these dudes were trying to sound like they did were entertaining all us “normal folk” by screaming at invisible goblins in front of Macy’s before going back to the alley for a nap.

Anything by Tom Jones.  I know I implied this before, but I really feel the need to drive this one home.  Well, maybe I did a little more than imply this before.  This guy is going straight to Hell, I guarantee it.  No one gets away with shit like this.

The “dawning of the age of Aquarius” song.  All this bullshit about the moon being in the seventh house and Jupiter aligning with Mars has just got to go.  This is from the musical called hair, which showed illuminated the ploy of modern youngsters as they struggled against a society that didn’t like their hair.  There was a terrible war going on and all these assholes can think about is their hair.  That’s the proactive mentality of the sixties we hear so much about?  Come the fuck on. 

The “ooga chacka” version of “Goin’ out of my head / can’t take my eyes off of you.”  It’s like they were sittin’ around smoking angel dust wondering how they could possibly make a great song into a terrible song, and this was what they came up with.  “Hey man, you know that chart-topping song you just released?  Well, what we need to do is, we need to ruin it.”

“Your mama don’t dance.”  Fuck this guy and fuck his Daddy and Mommy.  If this were a more modern day song, it would be the footloose song.

“The night they drove old Dixie down.”  And all the people were singing “god, I hate this song.” 

“American pie” by that fucking bastard hack Don McLean.  What a fuckin’ idiot.  I can’t go into any frat house in the Americas without being put through the gut wrenching experience of watching seventy-five frat boys launch into an all too sincere sing-along session to this song.  And it’s never genuine; it’s always brought about by some impending beer bonging or something equally trivial.  And it’s always the twenty minute version of it, too.  How tired.  This song represents everything wrong with songwriting.  People try to act like he was honoring the memory of three pop icons when he wrote it, but the song isn’t even about those guys!  Just because you slip in a few catch phrases like “the day the music died,” doesn’t mean you should be held in high regard for a touching tribute.  It means you should be chastised for cashing in on a tragedy.

“Short people” and EVERYTHING else by Randy Newman.  We might have touched on this earlier.  Just for fun, try explaining Randy Newman to someone who has never heard of him before.  No seriously, try it.  “So, there’s this guy… and he wears a wig made out of pubic hair… and he has these Groucho Marks glasses… oh, and he plays the piano in some bastardized Vaudevillian manner while singing lyrics even children find to be trite.  So yeah, you should check him out.”

Most Monkees songs.  I won’t elaborate just because I know you’ll want me to.

By all means “wooly bully.”  (See “Mony, mony” but substitute “Matty told Hatty” for “ride the pony”)

“Take a letter to Maria.”  I’ve got a better idea.  Take a suicide note to Maria.  Get my drift, homeboy?

The one that goes “…rock the boat – don’t rock the boat baby – tip the boat – don’t knock the boat over.”  It would be some kinda beautiful twist of fate to see on the eleven o’clock news that these two brain donors were lost at sea and presumed dead.

The one that goes “apple, peaches, pumpkin pie.”  I guess the old adage still holds true: it’s never a good idea to write song lyrics on an empty stomach.  Yesterday I wrote a great new pop song that’s sure to be a hit… its called “Baked potato, chili, cheese.”

The one that goes “all you wanna do is ride around Sally,” which belongs in the group of songs with “ride Sally ride,” in the lyrics, but it is also terrible enough to stand alone.  All she wants to do is ride around, and all you wanna do is write unbelievably predictable songs which serve only one purpose: to make me hate you!

I’d also like to include any song that references doing “tha mash pah-tay-tah.”  I can’t stand it when someone on the radio tries to tell me what to do.

“Crimson and clover.”  (See “Incense and Peppermints.”)

The one where the guy wants to tell me about the flowers and the trees and the birds and the bees and some other shit, and some thing called love.  Fuck that guy and fuck his run-on fuckin’ sentences.  Let me tell you ‘bout the grammar and the thing called proper sentence structure.

Much like the “do tha mash-pah-tay-tah” guy, I also hate all of these songs (whether they are considered soul, or funk, or whatever) that consist of a bunch of simple commands like “do the twist,” or “now, do the monkey.”  I can’t stand that.  Who do these guys think they are?  It’s like third Reich commandments not-so-cleverly slipped into pop tunes.  What is this, a fucking square dance?

“Henry the eighth”…and those goofy hermits who sang it.  These guys are also midget Muppets if you ask me.

That stupid, lackadaisical, retarded-assed, meandering fucking song that goes “put me in jail…if I fail…to give you all the love that’s yours…put me in jail…if I fail…in loving you.”  Fuck those lackluster, sappy-ass, pseudo-romantic mother fuckers.

“Oye como va.”  Fuck that song and everyone who thinks I’m wrong when I say that.  This is one of those Spanish songs that white guys are always listening to because they think it makes them more ethnic.  They drive around blasting it in their giant Ford trucks with the windows down thinking that everyone who passes by thinks they’re a real hip and open-minded vato, which couldn’t be further from the truth, Trevor.

The one that goes “sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman.”  Nothing upsets me more than when a terrible jug band becomes famous.

The one that says “together forever and never to part,” and “say a little pray for you.”  I know I already said this one, but can you really sum up how bad it is in only one or two sentences?  I really don’t think you can. 

            The one that goes “silence is golden, golden...”  If that’s true, then why the hell are you poisoning my airwaves with such ridiculous noise?  (See also “Henry the Eighth,”)

 

            Although I’ve only provided about seventy examples, I think this list will still be an extremely strong basis for arguments or possibly dissertations for anyone who is either confronted by some idiot who thinks the oldies station just can’t go wrong, stuck in an office that plays the oldies station all day (like myself), or who is maybe taking a college course about popular music… or at least I’d like to think so. 

            If you have any of your own suggestions as far as more songs for my little list here, please e-mail them to me and I will be sure to ignore them.  That’s all for now, I’ll see you all next month!