When I was about 12 I absolutely hated shopping for clothes. I was in-between: not quite a teenager, but too big to be a child. Even shoes didn’t fit. I did not feel comfortable wearing a bra, but I begged to shave my legs. I was confused…and not so sure of where I fit in. Did I like make-up, or did I like Barbie’s? I don’t miss those days at all.
But now, at age 30, I find myself in a similar predicament when it comes to what I should be listening to on the radio. Is it just me, or are top twenty songs just chock full of ridiculously dumb lyrics? Or am I just too old? Now, I have to admit that I would be attending Justin Timberlake concerts and catching the So You Think You Can Dance? tour with my girlfriend Melissa if I didn’t have a one-year-old these days. Still, Justin Timberlake is one of the main offenders. I have to ignore the silliness of his lyrics to get my much-needed JT-fix when I’m driving my daughter around in my minivan. Let’s take a look: one of his most recent songs is called “SexyBack.” That in itself is weird. One word, two capital letters? Over and over he sings, “Go ahead; be gone with it.” What? And simple rhymes are bad enough in current music, but Justin has the audacity to rhyme “fast” with “lack,” which wouldn’t be such a problem if there weren’t already 11 words ending with an “ack” sound in the song, so the “fast” really sticks out.
And let’s discuss Nelly Furtado’s latest, “Promiscuous.” So, is that a positive word now? I want to shout to Nelly and Timbaland, “Go ahead; be gone with it. Just do it, already!” Unfortunately, after being bombarded with this song 5 zillion times, I started to like it. That’s the way with pop music that is mercilessly repeated on the radio. Shame on me for thinking it’s cool. And I’m not even talking about how bad it is for adolescents and their self-esteem…and so on and so on. I’m just talking about how insipid these songs are. (That will have to be a more thoughtful, part II of this article.) Speaking of Nelly Furtado, I am a little disappointed in her. I really liked her last album and found it mostly thought-provoking. To be fair, I haven’t listened to her entire new album, so maybe there is some of her old, less promiscuous self there.
Have you heard Fergie’s “London Bridge?” Um, have you been out, anywhere? Now, this one is the worst: “How come every time you come around/ My London London Bridge wanna go down/ Like London London London wanna go down/
Like London London London be going down like….” There, now it’s stuck in your head. So, I’m pretty confident that Fergie is not that innocent (a reference to Britney, another pop queen of silly lyrics), but I won’t call her promiscuous because I don’t know her personally. But why is she so angry? She speak-sings, “It’s like every time I get up on the dude/ Paparazzi put my business in the news/ And I’m like get up out my face (oh, s***)/ ‘fore I turn around and spray your ass with mace (oh, s***).” Why does she have to use so many curse words? It is too easy to do that. All she is really saying is, “I don’t have the vocabulary to be more creative.” (Do I sound like my mother?) Or, maybe Fergie just wants to sell records. I think that if I were in the public eye I would take the opportunity to say something…better. I’ll have to imagine what annoying celebrity podium I would take later (but it won’t be Kabbalah).
I have to keep picking on Fergie by addressing her non-solo artist days: What about “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas, her old group? They sing, “What you gon’ do with all that junk?/ All that junk inside your trunk?/ I’m a gon’ get, get, get, get, you drunk,/ Get you love drunk off my hump./ My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,/ My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps (Check it out).” In case you don’t know, a “hump” is a bottom and “lovely little lumps” are breasts. Romantic, yes? How many times can she say that one word, anyway? “I want this song to be 3 minutes, but I have nothing else to say. I just want to talk about my bottom, mostly, so I’ll just repeat this one word, and everyone will love it.” I imagine the Black-Eyed Peas sitting around, cracking themselves up as they wrote these lyrics down (in 5, maybe 6, minutes) and knew that they had a top hit on their hands. It’s the type of song that you want to know that your teenage daughter is hearing, so you can scream, “Honey, you are way more than your HUMP!” But, wait, I wasn’t going in that direction with this.
I even have a pet peeve with the sweeter top ten. Take James Blunt, for instance. Who doesn’t love “You’re Beautiful?” Well, I do, unless I start listening to the words. “My life is brilliant./ My love is pure./ I saw an angel./ Of that I’m sure.” I guess it’s the “Of that I’m sure” that doesn’t sound so great to my ear. Then he goes on to sing in that sappy voice of his, “She smiled at me on the subway./ She was with another man./ But I won’t lose no sleep on that,/ ‘Cause I’ve got a plan.” Let’s ignore the fact that it should be “any sleep” rather than “no sleep.” What I want to know is if any of you guys ever hear him explain his plan? Maybe he just wanted to keep it to himself, or maybe he needed a rhyme with “man.”
And what about Lenny Kravitz? I want to like him, I really do! When his songs come on, I initially get excited before remembering what first grade poem he is about to sing. These lyrics are from the song “Fly Away:” “I wish that I could fly/ Into the sky/ So very high/ Just like a dragonfly.” Excellent work, Lenny. You get a gold star.
Listen, I know the 80’s (Ah! The 80’s!) probably didn’t offer that much more in terms of what I’m looking for in a song, and clearly I have high standards. At least there was a little mystery in 80’s music; there weren’t so many overtly sexual lyrics, so there was a little more creativity. Remember finding out what “She Bop” really meant? Wasn’t that an exciting day? Or “Relax?” Or “Turning Japanese?” (If you don’t know that one, see “She Bop.”) Or when you finally figured out the metaphor in Prince’s “Little Red Corvette?” Wait a minute, aren’t all of his oldies in some fashion about “little red love machine(s)?” (Look, if you’re just hearing this for the first time, I apologize for taking away the innocence of your childhood.)
So, what would satisfy me? I have to say that while I do enjoy bouncing along with trendy pop music, and truly do have a history of dancing on bars at bachelorette parties, I have also been a huge fan of girl-music. You know the type; I loved Lillith Fair. My first favorite was Tori Amos. I still believe her album “Little Earthquakes” is a masterpiece, but my now-husband banned my listening to any of this type of music in his presence because it made me too “gloomy.” I prefer to say that it made me “deep.” Anyway, even this music grates on my nerves now sometimes. Somewhere between changing diapers and finally taking a shower I find I don’t have time to lose myself in the possibly profound words that those women are singing. Instead, I find myself listening to the sweetened up classical music of Baby Einstein yet again….
I worry about what is next for me regarding what I should be listening to, at my ripe old age of 30. I’ve thought about switching to the wittier country music – and just bought The Wreckers’ newest alternative country CD, which I think is good – but I’ve never been a huge country fan. Still, I was in my car today when a country song came on and I thought the words were pretty entertaining. It was Carrie Underwood singing “Before He Cheats” and she was talking about slashing the tires and carving her name into the leather seats of a cheating ex-boyfriend’s SUV. Doesn’t anyone remember that moving on successfully is the best revenge? Jeesh. Still, it was funny. Apparently Jesus only took Carrie’s wheel temporarily, because destroying someone else’s property doesn’t seem so Christian.
When I was 12, I knew I had to kiss childhood behind and become a teenager, and that was scary. But I made it through my teenage years practically unscathed. I hope to make it through this life challenge as smoothly. But what’s around the corner: Barry Manilow? Barbra Streisand? Celine Dion? Nope, I don’t think I’m ready for those. I have found a lovely “Adult Contemporary” cable channel on TV, and that seems to be helping my dilemma. Simply put, I really just love the power of words. I could scream if I hear “girl” rhymed with “world” in one more song (i.e. Please don’t sing Madonna’s “What It Feels Like for a Girl” to me, because she repeats again and again, “Do you know what it feels like for a girl/ Do you know what it feels like in this world/ For a girl.”) Don’t get me started on song titles that say “dat” instead of “that,” or “da” instead of “the.” By the way, I have a great deal of respect for Kelly Clarkson, who, when interviewed by Ellen Degeneres, explained that she was not responsible for the name of her song being sold to the public as “Since U Been Gone” rather than “Since You’ve Been Gone.” Sweet Kelly’s mama was an English teacher, I think.
All right, I’ll admit that maybe I just need to lighten up. Does anyone ever really expect pop songs to meet high standards of literary merit, anyway? It doesn’t matter how much the English language is butchered, or how much pop songs lack in inspiration, I think I just may be listening to Justin Timberlake-types until I am 80 (or at least 45). I will probably embarrass my daughter to no end (but at least I’ll know what she is listening to). And I will yell, “Honey, you are so much more than your (fill in the blank)!”
