Whatever drink would quickest touch thy lips, fair lady.
Too much fucking coffee, I suspect. What is this, Barbara Walters?
My least favorite word is shameless.
If you were a Beveridge, which Beveridge would you be?
Did you drink beveridges in cawlidge?
Drymala (who happens to be the former head speechwriter for presidential candidate Howard Dean)
Wow. I knew you'd worked on the campaign, but I had somehow missed the level you were working at.
"What's your least favorite word?"
Whatever word is never spoken by your lips, fair lady.
11 - It wasn't really a hierarchy; I just wrote the most stuff. I always refer to myself as the "primary" speechwriter in bios, but that inevitably gets changed by editors.
Joe's really quite modest; it's those meddling editors who make it seem otherwise!
(But who's editing his Unfogged comments?)
Craig Windham, or Corey Flintoff?
Joe, the "White Noise" musical sounds really interesting. Hwve you talked about it here and I missed it? When will it be opening?
"What's your least favorite word?"
"Ilk." Fuckin' "ilk."
I like how the typo in 18 makes it look like TMK slipped into Old English for a second.
7 - On the topic of Caligula, I'd like to say that I can't look at Helen Mirren the same way anymore after seeing her in that fake Caligula trailer at the Whitney Biennial. From now on, I will always picture her leading naked men around by chains.
20 -- It's difficult keeping up þis persona -- I'm committed to having people believe I'm a 20th (schizoid) man though.
Can I use in-the-actors-studio as a word?
20th s/b 20th-Century. [blush]
CCP, I believe the term you're looking for is "Liptonesque".
That Caligula trailer was the worst thing I've ever seen. And I wanna be that stuff from Harry Potter that fucks you up, or 'Tussin.
Has anyone seen the uncut version of the MacDowell/Mirren Caligula? I haven't seen any version of it.
I'd don't know if it's my single least favorite word of all time, but I really don't care for the word "meme."
27 -- I'm 99% sure that that was among the movies my friends and 14-year-old I persuaded an elder brother of one of us to procure for us. No memory of the actual film itself though so either (a) I am misremembering or (b) it is not very memorable. (And it's not just a matter of the general impression of the occasion crowding out more specific memories -- I remember some of the other films quite vividly, particularly 2069: Sex Odyssey and 1001 Erotic Nights.
Liptonesque it is!
29: I've noticed that hatred for the word "meme" has really been getting around lately.
(feel free to groan)
Guccione-financed, it also had Peter O'Toole in it. And genuine x-rated scenes.
"hermeneutic"
"meme"
"best practices"
"patriarchy"
"mereological sum"
"leverage"
"basis" as in "on a [something] basis" This is why we invented adverbs, people.
Everybody seems to hate the Roz Russell version of Meme!. Is it time for a revival?
35: Anyone working on trying to put all those in one coherent sentence?
Schlitz
My first beer ever. Always will there be a place in my heart for the Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous.
I guess I should answer the questions myself.
An exboyfriend once said I'd be Tia Maria, thence my pseud. I don't know if I have an all time least favorite, but I'm not at all fond of "proactive."
40 -- thank heavens Schlitz does not have the slogan of Old Milwaukee.
In the late 1990s, the meme that 'religion is a tool of the patriarchy' began to circulate as feminist scholars began to explore on a daily basis the creation of new hermeneutics by leveraging the concept of the patriarchy as a merelogical sum against earlier best practice interpretations of sexuality as a fungible commodity.
Bravo! I can't even tell if it's not nonsense.
I loathe the phrase "going forward" meaning "later." An individual word that occasions my wrath is "souvenir" since it was the word that caused me to lose the seventh-grade spelling bee. (The winner won with "stethoscope." C'mon!)
45: EXACTLY. (I don't think it's nonsense, but it's definitely false. And awkward. 'began to'? Twice?)
A phrase that made me just crazily angry in 2002-3 was "the situation on Iraq."
It makes no sense, but revealed the cramped bullet-points-on-an-agenda thinking of just about every blinkered journalist in the business.
"bio-break"
26 - Are you planning a writeup of the Biennial for one of your sites? I have been anticipating your smackdown.
I don't think it's nonsense, but it's definitely false.
If it is nonsense I think the cause would be the portion refering to "best practice interpretations of sexuality as a fungible commodity."
I'm not sure that "best practices interpretations" makes sense nor do I think sexuality can be fungible (sex, perhaps, but sexuality?).
Perhaps it merely blurs the line between nonsense and falsehood.
Joe, the "White Noise" musical sounds really interesting. Hwve you talked about it here and I missed it? When will it be opening?
I haven't. I've alluded to it. But now it's getting more and more concrete. I was going to wait until we were certain we were doing it at the Fringe Festival this summer, but that confirmation should be happening any day now. So, yeah. The show's website is here.
Whoa, why did I get that error when trying to post that link?
My least favorite rhyme is that awful Cranberries song: linger/finger. Ewww.
I agree. If it's nonsense, that's the cause.
But it's not my fault that 'best practices' makes no fucking sense, it's the consultants'.
(And yes, 'best practices' seemed to inhabit all parts of speech, but that may be because everyone in my office was infected by business jargon, which takes bright people and makes them functionally illiterate.)
Hehe, I've heard some of the "White Noise" music. I was playing it, and Mr. B. listened for a minute and then said "omg, what is this??"
The music is available for all to peruse!
Let's try this again.
31: Fin du Monde! Yes!! Followed closely by Maudite, if for nothing other than the label.
52: Not the error you want to see for that link.
54: I kind of like that Cranberries song, which is fortunate for you, because it's now stuck in my head and if I didn't like it I would have to be revenged. Anyway, The Police beat them to it in "Wrapped around my Finger" (ok, now that's stuck in my head).
Let's do more least favorite song lyrics! Here are some of mine:
Where in the world
have you been hiding?
Really, you were perfect!
I only wish
I knew your secret!
Who is this new tutor?
OMG and how could I forget:
Although she's dressed to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you
(which would be funny in a Cole Porter song, but in context is intolerable)
60 - If only I didn't recognize those lyrics.
How about these:
When I was twelve my father moved out
Left with a whimper -- not with a shout
I didn't miss him -- he made it perfectly clear
I was a fool and probably queer
Well, of course, there's always "in this ever-changing world in which we live in. . ."
63 -- lalala, I can't hear you, because we all know he's referring to his beloved, whose initial is N.
"But if this ever-changing world in which we live, N, makes you give in and cry..."
Si, Becks. Yeah, I have my handwritten notes, and I only need to type them up.
world in which we live in. . ."
I've convinced myself he's singing "word in which we're living".
On preview: lalalalalalala!
bitch -- I think the lyric is "If this ever-changing world in which we're living..." -- not a beautiful lyric but more coherent than your version.
But I see SB has already said as much. And plus, I like Joe's theory.
Deja vu! I'm pretty sure we already discussed this lyric ATM.
Any song that rhymes "walk" with "talk" is an abomination, with the exception of "Girls" by the Beastie Boys.
No, No, she's right. That grated on me through the whole summer of '73, I think it was, and I can still hear Sir Paul's fatuous voice as I type.
"Walk" and "talk" are ok in "I'm Walkin'", but mostly because I think of that Chinese food commercial with the vaguely Asian chef singing about how he was "Wokin'" and "talkin' about great Chinese".
The worst, though, is "tonight" and "all right".
73 -- it was a Quik Wok commercial, IIRC.
Google thinks the previous Wings discussion took place on a thread ("Comment on Disco Hut!") with id 4219; but Unfogged does not think any such thread exists. Becks, is this something that would merit a bug report?
Okay: so the real thread is at id 4370 but I guess it was at 4219 before the move.
Google appears to have crawled the site during the week the old post/comment numbers were screwed up. I'm giving them another week or two to catch up. Our numbers are correct.
My least favorite lyrics are any verse to a song that includes both the words "waitress" and "train".
Also any song where the chorus repeats one phrase over and over again, but that phrase is NOT EXACTLY THE TITLE OF THE SONG and every time I hear the song or imagine it I feel a sense of unease as the title fails to fit into the lyrics as it should.
Example:
XTC's "All You Pretty Girls" (which contains the phrase "all of you pretty girls" about 80 times, but never "all you pretty girls")
U2's "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" (he actually says "stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it").
I don't understand why it's so important the song should not be bad/illiterate, that people try to make it better. Are we invested?
It's worth revisiting this analysis of "Bed of Roses". Hat tip to some guy from Guadalajara.
What is the actual name of that Little River Band thing that keeps wailing "reminiscing?"
Ack! Becks' complaint about "walk" and "talk" has got me fixated on a song I think might be a counterexample to her rule except I can't remember the name of it! I just keep hearing little snatches of tune from it like "You be good to me and I'll be good to you,/ I'll be happy til the day I die" and "don't want no sneakin no cheatin and peekin" or something like that and "when you walk that walk you've got to talk that talk, babe I don't want you hangin around" -- all jumbled up and misremembered! But it's very catchy and the singer has a lovely voice. Can anyone here jog my memory?
81 -- the actual name of that thing is "Reminiscing", and it's one of the worst songs ever.
What about "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy"?
84 -- You mean as a competitor for the title of worst ever? I don't think it's even in the same league.
"Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy" is definitely tied for worst song ever with, of course, "MacArthur Park:"
I don't think that I can take it / 'cuz it took so long to bake it / and I'll never have that recipe again.
Game over.
I was youth member of a church commitee in '69, and took a long car trip with a middle-aged guy who took the occasion to try to parse MacArthur Park with me.
In those days the young were thought to have magic powers and insight.
took a long car trip with a middle-aged guy who took the occasion to try to parse MacArthur Park with me
Worst euphemism ever.
In your eyes, I see the doorway to a thousand churches.
wtf.
It works, but it reminds me of bad high school poetry.
Once, a guy wrote be a love poem with the line "your lips glisten with the wake of a thousand fishermen." It was actually pretty good poem, that line xcluded.
I could have sworn we'd hated on it before, but maybe not:
To really love a woman
Let her hold you
'Til you know how she needs to be touched
You've got to breathe her, really taste her
'Til you can feel her in your blood
And when you can see your unborn children in her eyes
You know you really love a woman
I gently suggested later that boats have wakes, not men, and what he wrote sounded an awful lot like I was out on the docks offering my services.
94 reminds me of
Tell me, have you ever really
Really really ever loved
A woman?
"I am," I said, to no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair.
The song would be much more interesting if the chair heard, and responded.
Shiny, happy people holding hands.
And now I've got the damn chord progressions from Live and Let Die stuck in my head.
Also, it would be bad if the song weren't SO AWESOME:
Bay, bay, bay, bay,
bay, bay bay, bay,
mmm, baby I'm gonna leave you...
I ain't jokin', woman...
He ain't jokin', woman.
Worst lyrics = everything that refers to; warns of; or takes place in... "the danger zone".
96 reminds me of
To really love a woman
To understand her—you got to know her deep inside
98:
Could be linked somehow with my conviction the line from Thriller was "The chair is not my son...
It's the same song. I thought you were up to something clever.
It's made worse that the creepola lyrics are set to what my mind regurgitates as mariachi music.
fly into TOOOOOOO...
Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby?
You said you'd be coming back this way again baby.
Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby.
Oh baby. Oh baby. Oh.
95: Not so much offering, as having offered, actually.
Karen Carpenter deserves her own category.
Not so much offering, as having offered
From the X-rated version of the Prayer of St. Francis.
"Make me an channel …"
Are there good lyrics that use the same cliches you'd find in a bad lyric?
Well, she didn't write the song.
U2 deserves a mention. For any of their songs. There's always a point, usually where the third verse should pick up, where Bono just gives up on lyrics and starts yelling.
For what it's worth, I think pretty much all rock lyrics look dumb written down.
114 -- Maybe Elvis Costello's "I Want You"; that phrase is repeated over and over throughout the song, to haunting effect.
Come to think of it, the Beatles did that first on Abbey Road, with the same lyrics, even.
Bono just gives up on lyrics and starts yelling.
Better he start yelling than start singing about loose change.
115: It usually has that effect on me too. How about country, rap, and so on?
What a weird motif. It's like he got to the end of "The Fly" and "Stay" and realized he'd run out of gumballs. I bet he's great in bed.
You're so vain,
You probably think this song is about you
Don't you
Don't you
Don't you
Is it just this crowd, or is the 70s grotesquely overrepresented in the worst lyrics sweepstakes?
123: That's sick.
I'd like to add "Push push in the bush" to the 70s catagory, as well as "Billy, don't be a hero".
and...
90s: Groove is in the Heart
00s: Trapped in the closet (yes, I actually listened to the whole thing)
Whatevs. "You're so vain" is objectively good.
If by "good" you mean "pro-Saddam".
All the girls like Carly. So there.
CCP, I think it applies to country ('I love you almost as much as my truck'), too. Rap holds up a bit better sometimes, if only because the lyrics can't rely as much on melody to get by.
None of them are supposed to be read forms of art.
I liked "You're so vain" too. Is it supposed to be Warren Beatty?
126: The song speaks for itself I think.
"You had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
Well, you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and"
Of course there's a crescendo when she says "clouds in my coffee" because, well, the words themselves make you jump right out of your seat.
Now I've totally got that song in my head. Thanks!
129: I agree. Reading song lyrics as poetry is completely unfair. And I for one can't get enough of it.
You're so vain is great, especially because the lyrics are sort of paradoxical (if repetitive).
Lonely is the night
When you find yourself alone.
-Billy Squier
Only time will tell if we stand the test of time.
-Van Hagar
I hate, hate, hate that song. Just hate it.
I think something has been forgetten here. Sometimes, and maybe it's just me, but sometimes I like songs because their lyrics *are* so incredibly stupid.
For example...
I'm a rolling thunder, a pouring rain
I'm comin' on like a hurricane
My lightning's flashing across the sky
You're only young but you're gonna die
I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives
Nobody's putting up a fight
I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get you, Satan get you
...I mean, I'm not even sure what that means. But whatever it is, I'm all for it.
Back in the village
Yeah back in the village
Again in the village
Again
--Iron Maiden
Man's got his woman to take his seed
He's got the power - oh
She's got the need
She spends her life through pleasing up her man
She feeds him dinner or anything she can
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
-Alice Cooper
Wait
Wait
I never had a chance to love you
Now I only wanna say I love you
One more time...
I like this commercial with the beginning of Rock and Roll (ain't noise polution).
Well, if we're gonna do hair rock there's just no end to the terrible lyrics.
I scream you scream
We all scream for her
Don't even try 'cause
You can't ignore her
She's my cherry pie
Cool drink of water
Which is it? Ice cream, pie, or water? Jeez.
141: we may have a winner! That! ...is perfection.
143: She's pie a la mode, with a chaser. Duh.
maybe she's a watery ice-cream pie?
She loves you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah!
While you were gone I was human too.
Well, I’m a steamroller, baby
I’m bound to roll all over you
Yes, I’m a steamroller now, baby
I’m bound to roll all over you
I’m gonna inject your soul with some sweet rock ’n roll
And shoot you full of rhythm and blues
Well, I’m a cement mixer
A churning urn of burning funk
Yes, I’m a cement mixer for you, baby
A churning urn of burning funk
Well, I’m a demolition derby (yeah)
A hefty hunk of steaming junk
Now, I’m a napalm bomb, baby
Just guaranteed to blow your mind
Yeah, I’m a napalm bomb for you, baby
Oh, guaranteed, just guaranteed to blow your mind
And if I can’t have your love for my own (now)
Sweet child, won’t be nothing left behind
It seems how lately, baby
Got a bad case steamroller blues
I respectfully dissent. Steamroller Blues is a great song.
ok... what about lyrics you thought we really "heavy" when you were a teen0ager, but that you now know are completely, and embarrassingly dumb.
154: It's courageous of you to admit that man. Seriously.
"Kudos" is a pretty disgusting word.
It's courageous of you to admit that man
Hey, I let people see these late-80s pictures of me. It's not like I have any pride left to lose.
"My immortal" by ugh, Evanescence is totally going to be in the 'I thought that was deep?' category for everyone mooning over it now in high school.
(Yes, Armsmasher. College will be much cooler.)
Beverage: Moxie
It isn't cloyingly sweet. Some folks say it is bitter. I say, a bit.
Calvin Coolidge drank it. Ted Williams endorsed it. It is the perfect tonic.
Speaking of old songs, the Queen thing on American Idol? About the worst idea ever.
Who wants to live forever does not have a happy fucking ending.
Beverage: Brunello in a dusty bottle.
160: Drymala is blinded by lust, and thus refuses to acknowledge that Katharine coos and giggles her way through every song.
157: That mullet exceeds the sum my accomplishments in life.
She was the Whitney Houston wannabe? Who was off-key on her song? I don't usually watch it, but the Queen one sucked me in and I only liked Taylor that week.
I'm still kinda proud of it. The same kind of pride you have when your kid wins a medal in the Special Olympics.
I didn't see it that week. But if she was the brunette with the melisma in the Kodak theater, that was Katharine.
(I'm glad to hear you like Taylor, as do all right-thinking people.)
Anyone who objects to 149 might also object to my nominee for best lyric ever, and that would be WRONG.
Really 'heavy' stuff -- there's Yes. Ergh. And the Animals, psychedelic period, The Twain Shall Meet. I just googled that up:
Electric light shines bright But against the sun it is dim Jet airplanes sure travel fast, But how fast is the speed of light?
I think I have to commit ritual suicide now.
Ya know, I've been searching through lyrics to stuff I thought was deep when I was 14, hoping to find something embarrassing, and you know what... I was just a really angry kid. It's not bad so much as really really pissed off.
Example (that connects somewhat to the previous rape theme)
http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/crass/batamotel.html
Change/Rearrange - stretch for the rhyme while adding nothing.
I'm down on my knees/I'm begging you please - in all its appearances.
It takes a good songwriter to pull off the whole "Face/place/trace, etc." trap well. Most have failed. "Keep It in a Cool Dry Place" is just about the only good one.
And, well, I guess I am a beverage.
Now we know why Joe was so interested in Prussian Blue: it wasn't about the underage hotties at all.
My least favorite lyrics are any verse to a song that includes both the words "waitress" and "train".
There's nothing wrong with most of those songs that a hundred dollars couldn't fix.
Listen to me, baby, you got to understand
You're old enough to know the makings of a man
Listen to me, baby, it's hard to settle down
Am I asking too much for you to stick around
Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you
Won't you wait but 'til then
When I see lips beggin' to be kissed (Stop!)
I can't stop (Stop!) I can't stop myself
(Stop! Stop!)
Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again
Nature's takin' over my one-track mind
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by the rules
When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time
If she's put together fine and she's readin' my mind (Stop!)
I can't stop (Stop!) I can't stop myself
(Stop! Stop!)
Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again and again and again and again
Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again
There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever, but 'til then
If she gives me a sign that she wants to make time (Stop!)
I can't stop (Stop!) I can't stop myself
(Stop! Stop!)
Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again and again and again and again
Lightning's striking again and again and again and again
I had to past e the whole thing in, because when I read it through I could hardly believe it.
I'd be a bottle of Laphroaig, If I could drink myself.
173:
Lou Christie from about February 1965. I was becoming aware of girls and waking up to the world and listening to the radio. The most hilarious thing is how the melody completely changes for the verses representing "good Lou"
Christie had a style, like Frankie Valli of The Four Seasons, of alternating normal tonality verses with a falsetto refrain. Did anybody else do that?
173: Yeah; that's creepy.
There's nothing wrong with most of those songs that a hundred dollars couldn't fix.
?
Christie had a style, like Frankie Valli of The Four Seasons, of alternating normal tonality verses with a falsetto refrain. Did anybody else do that?
Dell Shannon maybe?
I think it was the trend in 1961.
As for "lightning's striking again", I think I'd heard that song about 30 or 40 times before I realized the chorus had any consonants.
I thought it was somebody's name or some letters being spelled out or something.
"I! E! I! E! Agaaaaain!"
176: I think it's a pretty standard gospel trick.
I think Kiss's "Heaven's on Fire" has possibly the highest cliche-to-word ratio of any song that is objectively good.
As for lyrics that sounded quite wise at one point but make no sense at all several years later, I give you:
We've got to hold on to what we've got
It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not
We've got each other, and that's a lot
For love, we'll give it a shot
Do not even knock Livin' on a Prayer. That is some spectacular cheese.
I hope you're not suggesting that it makes sense.
Lyrics that sounded wise:
Your a star-belly sneech you suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch so you can get rich
But your boss gets richer on you
Well you'll work harder with a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers til you starve
Then your head skewered on a stake
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need my son:
re: 176
I don't know about regularly alternating, but Little Anthony of Little Anthony and the Imperials used to sing everything in this wierd falsetto lisp of indeterminate gender that is both the creepiest thing you've ever heard and strangely affecting.
cliche-to-word ratio? Let me introduce you to my little friend: Shania Twain.
Don't wantcha for the weekend, don't wantcha for a night,
I'm only interested if I can have you for life, yeah,
Uh, I know I sound serious and baby I am,
You're a fine piece of real estate, and I'm gonna get me some land,
Oh, yeah
So, don't try to run honey, love can be fun
There's no need to be alone when you find that someone
[Chorus:]
(I'm gonna getcha)
I'm gonna getcha while I gotcha in sight
(I'm gonna getcha)
I'm gonna getcha if it takes all night
(Yeah, you can betcha)
You can betcha by the time I say "go," you'll never say "no"
(I'm gonna getcha)
I'm gonna getcha, it's a matter of fact
(I'm gonna getcha)
I'm gonna getcha, don'tcha worry 'bout that
(Yeah, you can betcha)
You can bet your bottom dollar, in time you're gonna be mine
Just like I should - I'll getcha good
... with Shania, the pain never has to end.
I think you're right about Shania Twain.
I've always found these lyrics strangely interesting. I think it's possible that they might actually make sense, but I can't exactly figure out what the message of the song would be if they did:
You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way
But we are two worlds apart
Can't reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way
[Chorus:]
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
Am I your fire
Your one desire
Yes I know it's too late
But I want it that way
[Chorus]
Now I can see that we're falling apart
From the way that it used to be
No matter the distance
I want you to know
That deep down inside of me...
You are my fire
The one desire
You are
You are, you are, you are
Don't wanna hear you say
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
187: I think I just saw God.
Do you guys who are talking about alternating falsetto mean, like the way Robyn Hitchcock sings "Do Policemen Sing?" Or something else?
187: Why am I thinking about this?
ok.
Narrator reaffirms narrator's love for the reader so that the reader can't accuse the narrator of *wanting* their failing relationship to fail.
I think I just saw God.
Yeah, I get that a lot.
181: I am proud to say that I knew that was a stupid song, even then.
However, when I was a little girl, I really loved "Wildfire."
Not good, bad, or cliched but for simple . . . uh . . . clarity of intention I recommend the lyrics for the macrobiotic boat album.
[Note, I've never heard any of their music, nor know anything about the band but I came across their lyrics page years ago and feel obligated to post a link every once in a while]
190: I think that makes sense, but doesn't cover all the bases.
There are three major threads to the narrative:
A) Narrator has given up on salvaging relationship with reader
B) Narrator wants relationship to work
C) Narrator does not want reader to express hope for the relationship to work
If we can assume that the entire song is directed at the narrator's ex-lover, then it makes sense that the narrator is self-importantly proclaiming that HE wishes they could still be together, although he expresses complete confidence that the relationship is over. Your basic passive-aggressive breakup strategy.
But if the song is intended to be heard by the narrator's ex-lover, why does he admit that he's being passive-aggressive and hoping she won't also say she wants the relationship to work? He's simultaneously
A) playing the victim, idealizing their relationship while crying about forces outside his control forced it to an end
and
B) stating flat-out that he hopes she doesn't follow the same strategy, because if they both say "I want it that way" they'll be forced back into the relationship that he doesn't want to be in.
I think you've successfully boiled it down to a sentence, but there seems to be a sort of conflict between internal and external monologue.
ok, first, here are my notes. The italics are my translations, line by line.
You are my fire
The one desire // I love you
Believe when I say
I want it that way // and I really like that I love you. I want it like that.
But we are two worlds apart
Can't reach to your heart // But there's a big problem that's making it impossible for us to realize that love we have for each other.
When you say
That I want it that way // specifically, our big block is that you question how much I love you all the time.
[Chorus:]
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache // Why, when some little thing goes wrong, do you say everything is all fucked up? You're so mellow-dramatic!
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a mistake // And *then* you make the leap to our entire relationship being fucked up.
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way // But the craziest thing is when you blame that whole process on me, saying I *wanted* you to freak out like that so our relationship would fail. God! And do you know why I don't want to hear that? Well, because it makes me ask...
Am I your fire
Your one desire // do you really love me?
Yes I know it's too late
But I want it that way // I *know* it's too late for you to love me, but I still want you to.
[Chorus]
Now I can see that we're falling apart
From the way that it used to be // I get it. It's done.
No matter the distance
I want you to know
That deep down inside of me...// but look; I want you to know that...
You are my fire
The one desire
You are
You are, you are, you are // I really love you…. Really!
Don't wanna hear you say
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way // Can't you grant me that I love you instead of lapsing into the same old pattern of accusation?
Oh, see my interpretation was that in the first stanza (and second verse) he was saying "I want it that way", while in the second stanza (and the chorus) he's saying "I never wanna hear you say 'I want it that way'". He doesn't want her to say the phrase, because it's his tool to get out of the relationship while blaming her for the breakup.
This is all a bit much. Songs are addressed to someone but not meant to be heard by that person. Layers of contradictory simple statements that, when taken together, are about an unresolved state of mind. This one is probably crap, but some very good ones are subject to the same type of criticism, which is beside the point.
Re: Wildfire. I laughed at that, but I was in my twenties. One of the saddest things we do when looking back is judging ourselves as if we ought to have known better. Even then, when I heard that song endlessly repeated while I delivered pizzas, I thought it would be good for the spirits of kids. Come on, like it. I'm actually liking it myself while I'm remembering it.
I think the opposite meanings of "I want it that way" is meant to exaggerate the mistake of the lover, as if to say "no, I didn't want it that way, I wanted it THAT way... believe me when I say."
197: Agreed. It's still fun though.... on both counts.
I like the rhyme scheme in this song:
Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking the drag
Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his.... chest now
He takes off her dress now
Let me go
And I just can't look
It's killing me
And taking control
--The Killers
No more clever than:
Miss Suzy had a steamboat,
The steamboat had a bell.
Miss Suzy went to heaven,
The steamboat went to..
Hello, operator....
etc.
If Harold Bloom can write three or four books about how the author of the Bible created a fascinating "God" character but gave him shockingly inconsistent personality traits, then we can do this. There is nothing outside the text, you know.
Wildfire. And his cousin, A Horse With No Name (it felt good to be out of the rain). earworms disguised as horses.
And sometimes, songs should keep to cliches. Here's a slice of a song I liked as a young man. Take note of the uncomfortable verb noun pairs.
[...]
You’ve been out there
Tried to mix with those animals
And it just left you full of humiliated confusion
So you stagger back home
And wait for nothing
But the solitary refinement of your room spits you back out onto the street
And now you’re desperate
And in need of human contact
[...]
[*Whistle*] Harold Bloom reference! Penalty: thirty yards.
I haven't read all of the comments. I'm being kicked out of the library, but I did want to second Cala's criticism of "leverage." I have no sense of hopw that word is defined in the non-engineering, actual lever sort of way, i.e. teh business jargon version.
I rather like the word "basis," though not in the adverb replacement sense. The tax concept is practically sublime.
Cala meant leverage as a verb. It's unobjectionable as a noun. Is saying you're going to lever something not standard? Not that I'm suggesting it as a substitute. The worst thing about jargon isn't that it's a substitute for better terms, it's that nothing should be put in it's place.
"Leverage" is used as a verb to mean something like "to use a resource to our advantage against something else". One thing that is often leveraged is assets.
I suppose it's supposed to be evoking memories of Archimedes and how one little lever could move The WorldŽ. But it puts me mostly in mind of a teeter-totter with the CEO on one end, and dropping heavy boxes of printouts onto the other to leverage him into the air.
Cala,
I had the sense that it meant about what you said. "We're going to leverage [i.e. use as leverage] our knowledge of the the cash cow production to become the market leader in yogurt beverages," but I swear that it's morphed beyond that.
I think that I might have even heard someone refer to leveraging the playing field.
It sort of reminds me of cantilevered, you have these little bitty assets on the ground and then you take out a loan and put more stuff on them and you take out another loan with them as collateral and you get a bigger slab on stuff on top of that etc. etc. until it all comes crashing down FOOF.
Have I got the concept of leveraging your assets right?
idp -- while 'lever' can be used as a verb, it is not a very common usage and certainly it would not have the meaning intended by today's jargonauts when they use the term 'leverage'.
Matt -- yes that sounds right, although generally the FOOF part is not discussed. You are balancing a small amount of collateral against a large debt by positioning the fulcrum close to the collateral.
positioning the fulcrum close to the collateral.
Hott!
Only women bleed --Alice Cooper
Allegedly, Cooper once introduced that song with the remark "You know, not even Lloyd Cole has a song about mensturation."
I think Kiss's "Heaven's on Fire" has possibly the highest cliche-to-word ratio of any song that is objectively good.
No, I'm fairly certain that that award goes to Madonna's "Crazy for you." Every word in that song is a complete and utter cliche--and that's what's so great about it! (As far as "objectively good," the Material Girl deserves the approbation at least as much as Kiss.)
Hands fucking down the Doors win the "when you were a teenager, which band did you think was 'heavy'" contest.
If so, my condolences.
until it all comes crashing down FOOF.
I'm imagining Matt knocking over a block tower. FOOF!
I also think I need to work 'FOOF' into my dissertation somehow. ("The metaphysical structure grows to accommodate various and sundry exceptions until it all comes crashing down FOOF.")
The verb usage of Leverage might be part of a greater linguistic phenomenon of transforming nouns into verbs that mean: becoming the type described by the corresponding noun root.
Ie.
“We can leverage it.”
“I could goof on that all night.”
“Let’s mortgage the house.”
Possibly related to the more complex…
“Dude, you totally just jumped-the-shark.”
I'm imagining Matt knocking over a block tower. FOOF!
I'm imagining an accounting ethics class that is more fun than any actually existing one.
217: I think has more in common with businessmen not knowing enough words. Hence 'impact' into a verb, 'leverage', 'best practice.'
An accounting class that than which none more fun can be conceived?
193 - The "Foonote Feshist" song makes me think they'd fit in around here.
Cala, are you trying to ont this class into existence?
FOOF.
t3h acc0unting 3thics cl4ss th4t th4n wh1ch n0n3 g8r c4n b3 conc3iv3ed would b3 gr3at3r if it 3xist3d in R34L1TY!
FOOF.
w0u1d b3 t3h gr4t3r. pwn3d.
f00b3h! 3xist3nc3 is n0t t3h pr3dicat3!
T0T4L PWN4G3!!!111!!!
224 is just awe-inspiring.
As a writing instructor, I feel almost powerless in the face of "impact" as a verb. The new management's proclivity for business-speak (to a bunch of English department writing instructors, no less) conveys the impression that Resistance Is Futile and that in the future only frizzy-haired, cat-owning spinsters will ever object.
I don't have a cat. Yet.
I would, alas, be a bourbon and diet with a lime, and I hate when people want to "touch base."
I don't have a cat. Yet.
But you do. You have the cat than which no Jackmormonhavinger can be conceived.
Great Scott, the libertarian argument is sound!
Go to it, libertarians. Those ponies aren't going to ont themselves.
JM: Speaking of you and disliking poor language usage, how could the duty to nitpick Charles Bird have fallen to me? I also wondered why the Magic Meatman hadn't mentioned it, but conjectured that he was following his "don't start none none, won't be none" doctrine. Since AFAIK you have the opposite posture with regards to Charles, I remain mystified (other than something crazy like "You were away from blogs for a day or two.").
What does a Pony bring on the open market these days?
Oh, w/d, it's so complicated. Quixotically, I have undertaken a kind of pedagogical project in re Bird, which requires appealing to his better instincts, where I can find them. I'm picking my fights where I think he can be persuaded to listen to them. (And, wierdly, "Hating on Charles Bird" has taken on a life of its own, even though everyone involved at any level agrees that we need to switch servers, change the software, rename the site, etc.) You were quite right about the grammatical structure there, though.
I have to admit I couldn't understand the early part of that multicultural thread at HoCB and still don't understand how people of mixed ancestry got worked into it.
I always liked the song "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, until I actually listened to the words. "If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal; If her daddy's poor, just do what you feel." WTF? Sounds like the Duke lacrosse team's slogan.
Another really creepy song is Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Claire," in which the singer sings about lusting after a kid he's babysitting for: http://tinyurl.com/oyzbs . (Indeed, he's lusting after his niece, if you take Claire's reference to him as "Uncle Ray" literally.) Yuck.
I always liked the song "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, until I actually listened to the words. "If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal; if her daddy's poor, just do what you feel." WTF?! Sounds like the Duke lacrosse team's slogan.
Another really creepy song is Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Claire," a song about the singer's lust for the kid he is babysitting. Indeed, he's lusting after his niece, if one take's Claire's reference to the singer as "Uncle Ray" literally. Yuck. For those unfamiliar with the song, see http://tinyurl.com/oyzbs
Whoops. I thought the comment had vanished into the ether, so I rewrote and reposted it.
I'd probably just be beer -- some kind of lager.
Just yesterday I read a website advertising 'webinars' which is my current least favourite word. It's an abomination against all that is decent.
Management-speak, in general, is hateful. Anyone who uses 'progress' as a transitive verb deserves to be up against the wall when the revolution comes -- 'Chet will tell us all about how his department has been progressing our third-quarter objectives'. The OED tells me it's been used that way in the past but it's still sick-making.
Possibly related to the more complex…
“Dude, you totally just jumped-the-shark.”
I beg to differ. If we are postulating that jump-the-shark has evolved from a verb phrase to a noun, then back to a verb, the proper construction would be: “Dude, you totally just jump-the-sharked.”
225: I think "impact" as a verb is actually sounding a little quaint these days.
You know what word I really hate? "Luscious". It sounds like a flood of saliva is about to burst from the speaker's mouth, inundating the table on which sits the luscious fruit. I imagine daffy duck or elmer fudd trying to say luscious.
233: neither, exactly, did I. LJ's from the deep South originally, and I've just resigned myself that there are some race/sex things about the South that I may never understand.
225: Careful, Jackmormon, it's a slippery slope. Soon, you'll start criticizing people for listening to Howard Stern or reading trashy tabloids. Only, you'll say that Howard Stern is icky and that all escapist needs can be met by watching Masterpiece Theater.
This is my loon roommate--only she has curly hair which looks rather shockingly and literally like shit. (The only reason that I haven't moved out is that the rent is dirt cheap.)I just read Jane Austen in Scarsdale, a retelling of Persuasion. She was overjoyed when the normal, sane roommate moved in with a cat. There was a description of someone in that book which went something like, "She was the sort of person who liked women better than men and cats better than people." That is my housemate to a tee.
She recently complained via e-mail to someone else that we turned the hot water heater up two notches while she was away on her Easter travels, i.e. a couple of days at her Dad's house 30 miles away. We did it, because the water was often lukewarm, and it's an old boiler, but it was simply not SAFE.
Pre-emptive oneupsmanship: I can't watch Masterpiece Theater because, of course, I don't have a TV.
234: But the remix completely omitted the best line! "Have a drink, have a drive"
JM -- No problem, Smokes tunes it in on the bar TV.