Day four of the first Annual Music-Blogging Week

As I retroactively announced yesterday, this is Music-Blogging Week (and you didn't even think to buy your celebratory tortilla shell, did you?), so here's the fourth installment. It's a topic that has already been covered, and excellently, by Dave Barry, but I think I've stayed away from all his examples. Herewith begins our exposition of a subject near and dear to my heart: dumb rock lyrics.

Now, although I love popular music, I have no delusions about the majority of the songs being anything but confections, and I don't have a problem with that. Break most popular songs, even classic, venerated songs, into their component parts, and you'll usually get to a pretty simplistic, borderline stupid core. Let's take the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever," which contains lines like, "No one, I think, is in my tree. I mean, it must be high or low." Or what about Bob Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie," with its "Well, I got the fever down in my pockets." Dude, I had pocket fever once, and I thought I was going to die. Then I just took off my pants, and everything got better.

It's not just rock, of course. John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" includes these lines:

"Boom, boom, boom, boom
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh, oh, oh, oh
How, how, how, how
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, now, now, now."

If you've ever heard the song, you know it's impossible to remain seated, or at least remain seated and still, when you hear it. Man gets right down to your spine with the beat and that voice. It's a great song, but that's not exactly Shakespeare. So there's some stupidity, weirdness, artiness, what have you, in plenty of songs that are otherwise great. I'm not talking about them.

I'm also not going to get into the "There's a bathroom on the right," school of misheard lyrics, although there's a rich vein there, too. I'm talking about moments where either the songwriters just had a weak moment that exposed their not-smartiness, or just didn't care enough to work harder.

For instance, there's the Marshall Tucker Band's "Fire on the Mountain." Great song. It was an AM radio staple in the seventies, and I still listen regularly to it now. But this part has always bugged the incipient grammar Nazi in me.

"Shot down in cold blood by a gun that carried fame
All for a useless and no-good, worthless claim."

Hate to break it to the boys from South Carolina, but useless, no-good, and worthless are all synonyms. It's redundant, repetitive, supernumerary. Whoa. I just became Jackie Chiles for a second. Work hard, boys, is what I'm saying.

Back in the seventies, as a trombone-playing member of the Samson High School Band (*cough* first chair *cough*), I loved Earth, Wind & Fire. Danceable songs with a horn section? I'm there, dude. At least, I was. But even back then, when I wasn't quite a full-blown grammar Nazi, one of their songs always bugged me. Specifically, "After the Love Is Gone," and not just because it was a slow love song. What bothered me was the line, "Never knew that what was wrong, oh baby, wasn't right." Really? Then you probably need to be told that what's hot isn't cold, what's young isn't old, and what's dead isn't alive. Should have paid better attention in English, my friend.

Bad Company thought enough of the song "Bad Company" to name their band after it, or vice versa. I don't really know which. Either way, if a song is also your band's name, you need to stomp a mudhole in it, brand-wise. Big Country, for instance, made what I consider to be the quintessential almost-bagpipe-containing song by a Scottish band of the eighties with "In a Big Country." But in their eponymous song, Bad Company wrote, "I was born, sixgun in my hand."

I understand hyperbole, symbolism, creative license, all that. But this isn't a case of Robert Earl Keen singing, "This old porch is a steamin' greasy plate of enchiladas, with lots of cheese and onions and a guacamole salad." This is a man claiming to have been the world's most difficult delivery as a child. "Mrs. Junkins, the good news is that you're fully dilated, and the baby is in perfect position. The bad news is, the ultrasound shows that he's packing heat."

Moving on, I must point out a shortcoming of one of my favorite songwriters ever. I recently named Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy" as one of the five albums that defined me on Facebook. I still remember putting that LP on my cheap Panasonic stereo (that also recorded 8-tracks!), reading the lyrics sheet, and being mesmerized by Zevon's weirdness and ability. I still maintain that "Lawyers, Guns and Money" is the best, pithiest, song title in history, and that, "Little old lady got mutilated late last night" from "Werewolves of London" is the best alliteration ever in a rock song.

But Warren, bless him, wasn't infallible. In the song "Jungle Work," which I love, Zevon wrote, "We parachute in, we parachute out." I get the parachuting in part, but how exactly do you parachute out of a place, WZ? Is that a secret, Rusty Shackelfordesque technique known only by the NSA?

More than likely, all of these examples came about from a songwriter being pressed for time, or just worn out from trying to come up with good lyrics. That's why I've always appreciated Alice Cooper's honesty in "School's Out."

"Well we got no class
And we got no principles [or principals, depending on whom you cite].
We ain't got no intelligence.
We can't even think of a word that rhymes."

But my award for the all-time, gold-medal, world-class example for not-even-trying lyrics has to go to Oliver's "Good Morning, Starshine."

"Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below."

So far, so bad. It's insipid, but not epic stupid just yet. Yet.

"Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early-morning singing song."

You know, most songs are singing songs, Frances.

But while the verses are insipid, the chorus is pure lyrical drivel.

"Gliddy glub gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla
Nooby abba naba
Early morning singing song."

I've rented a couple of "WKRP in Cincinnati" DVDs, and the commentary to them includes the fact that the ending theme (the part that sounds like it begins, "Hand to 'em bartender, what tonight I hit the hair") is just gibberish. The producers needed an end theme, and they told a band to just get in there and crank out something. The end product sounded like it was being sung by Boomhauer's musical cousin. (That's two "King of the Hill" references in one post. I am on fire, I'll tell you what.)

But I'm willing to bet that James Rado and Gerome Ragni, the writers of "Starshine" according to Wikipedia, actually meant to craft that "Tooby ooby walla" garbage. I have no problem seeing them hammering out lyrics.

"What about 'Sooby dooby dalla'?"
"No, no, man! This is supposed to be an anti-establishment song. You're talking pure corporationspeak. It should be 'Tooby ooby walla.' Now THAT's a lyric they'll be singing when the revolution comes."
"I'm hip, man."

The outro is not quite as Seussian, since they actually use real words, but then they string them together so it sounds like Nell singing Gershwin.

"Singing a song
Humming a song
Singing a song
Loving a song
Laughing a song
Singing a song
Sing the song
Song song song sing
Sing sing sing sing song."

It's good, but could you work a few more "sings" and "songs"? That'd make it really good.

I could go on ("MacArthur Park" and "Muskrat Love" spring to mind, although I think Dave mentioned them in his book), but I don't want this post to reach Michener length. Feel free to submit your own suggestions in the comments section. I'll post a follow-up if I get enough responses.

And now, I have to tooby ooby walla on outta here. Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the starshine. Ooby.