My Christmas Playlist

It's long seemed strange to me that, with such a surfeit of good Christmas carols and songs available (in sharp contrast to Channukah, which only has one song and not a particularly good one), radio stations and shopping malls persist in just playing Walking In A Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bell Rock, Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, and Drummer Boy over and over again until everyone wants to throw up. With breaks for annoying kid's music like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.

No wonder some people wind up feeling grinchy. So as a public service, I have decided to offer a list of underplayed Christmas songs. Each song title is linked so that you can buy the MP3 download if you choose, although granted that could get a little expensive....

Oh, who am I kidding? You're all using Bit Torrent to download pirated copies, and nothing I say is going to change that. Go ahead, then, acquire these songs in whatever way you prefer and download them to your player. Then, when the repetition of the well-worn standards gets to be too much, you can pop your earbuds in, have an escape and remind yourself that Christmas music, as well as Christmas itself, need not suck.

Classics

• Adeste Fideles (Oh Come All Ye Faithful)
  Oh, you can get the English version if you want. But isn't it more fun to listen to the original, in medieval Latin?*
• Three Ships
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
  This and the previous are good sing-along songs because they have a ton of verses that are all sung to the same tune, and so are easy to learn. Why not print out the lyrics and go caroling?
• Hark The Herald Angels Sing
• Ding Dong Merrily On High
  Aside from the tune, what I like about this carol are the bizarre lyrics. Isn't it great that something written back in the nineteenth century includes, "Yo, yo, yo,"? It's like primitive hip-hop. Plus there's Latin in this one too. Hosanna in excelsis!
• Tannenbaum (Oh Christmas Tree)
  Again, listening in the original German is more fun.

Popular

• Mary's Boy Child
  Just in case you were confused and thought Mary had a girl.
• Petit Papa Noël
  As far as I'm aware, this hasn't been translated into English, but if it has... you know it... it's more fun to listen to in the original French. Come on. Broaden yourself culturally.
• Santa Baby
  There aren't enough sultry Christmas songs, don't you think? Here's one. Much better than the insipid I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.
• Welcome Christmas
  Yes, from the cartoon How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But it's a good tune. Why not a good tune, from a toon?

Rock

• 2000 Miles by The Pretenders
  My favourite Christmas rock song. I think I've heard it on the radio all of twice.
• A Mistress for Christmas by AC/DC
  Who the hell would want a hippopotamos for Christmas? What for? Imagine how it would destroy your house, and how much you'd have to feed it. The AC/DC boys have more sense. I have never heard this song played on the radio, much less in a mall. Why on earth not? If there were more Heavy Metal Christmas music blasting out of the speakers at this time of year (which is to say, if there were any at all), the world would be a better place. Really. Just think what a great antidote it would make for all the sickly sweet stuff on offer at this time of year.

  This song is off The Razor's Edge album, and shockingly, HMV Digital does not have that album, and therefore does not have the original version of the song. What better proof of how underappreciated it is? So no link for this one.

• A Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney
  This one gets less airtime than Happy Christmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon. That's why it's on the list.

And that's my list. If you think I've missed out a worthwhile and underplayed Christmas song or carol, please comment below. Heavy metal or hip-hop offerings particularly appreciated.

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* Medieval Latin is not genuine Latin. It is a creation of the Christian church, coming after true Latin had died. There is a tendency to use different verb forms, but more importantly, the pronunciation is altogether different, which is to say wrong. You see, nobody had invented the gramophone yet, so medieval speakers were unable to determine how Latin was actually pronounced. Scholars eventually were able to recover some (who knows how much?) of the correct pronunciation through the study of poetry (i.e. which vowel sounds were long and which were short), and spelling (for example, Caius and Gaius are alternate spellings of the same name, which shows that c's and g's were hard, not soft). But that must have happened post-medieval times.

One of the big medieval errors was to change the short terminal e into a long e (as in, Et tu, Bruté? Caesar never said it like that). Another was to pronounce every syllable. The ancient Romans didn't do that. They elided adjacent vowel sounds. The sad result of this error of the medievals is that you can't sing Adeste Fideles with classical Latin pronunciation even if you want to; with the elisions in place, it won't scan. I know—I've tried. (I majored in Classics at university.) Back

FYI: Eighties Music Really Did Suck

How do you know when you're getting old? Is it when that first grey hair appears, or the first time you groan as you hoist yourself out of a chair? Well, here's my definition: you know you're getting old when the music of your youth develops nostalgia value. This has happened to me. It's become a common thing for night clubs to have "eighties nights." That makes me feel ancient.

Is it just a matter of the eighties getting their turn? After all, clubs used to have sixties nights and seventies nights (maybe some still do) and many radio stations devote themselves to these decades. But you see, there's a difference: the eighties were musically wretched. It wasn't all Duran Duran, Thomas Dolby and Bruce Springsteen. It was also Mr. Mister, Soft Cell and Toto.

I decided that there was a need for this essay one summer evening. I was at a friend's house watching a DVD of the eighties stage musical, Chess. If no bells of recognition are going off in your head, this might help: the eighties hit, One Night in Bangkok, is from this play.

Watching this eighties play led to talk of eighties music. The youngest person in the room, a striking beauty in her twenties, mentioned eighties nights in clubs and how fun they are. I felt a moral obligation to speak up.

"You know, eighties music really sucked. People don't realize that because nowadays they only play the good stuff. They never play all those shitty songs that were on the radio when I was a teenager."

"But that's true of any decade," our hostess pointed out. "They only play the good songs from the seventies, too."

She had a point. So what is my basis for claiming, nonetheless, that the eighties sucked worse than other decades, musically speaking?

The Argument

For one thing, I've lived through other decades, so I do have a basis for comparison. I can vouch for the fact that the radioscape improved immeasurably once the eighties ended and the nineties began. It was great; finally we were through the bland desert of tinny electropop and into a verdant landscape of Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20, etc. The noughts were also good, as far as I could tell, though I've spent the latter half of them in a town largely devoid of decent music radio.

I can't speak with authority of the decades that preceded the eighties, since I either wasn't around yet, or was too young to tune my own radio dial. But I have some idea, at least of the sixties, because my brother had Woodstock on a set of vinyl records. Not just the best of Woodstock—the whole thing. It stands to reason that the decade's most massive, notorious concert would include artists that faded into obscurity as well as the ones who are still remembered, and it does. Many of the songs on the Woodstock album were just OK, or even forgettable, but there is not the killing monotony of sound that marked the eighties.

I don't think so, anyway. This is only my opinion, and you may well be asking yourself why should give it any credence. That brings me to my other point: I am not the only one who found the eighties to be musically monotonous. The Fifth Estate did a segment on it once. I have tried to find out which episode it was, but the CBC has been diligently at work making its web site ever less navigable and functional, and I was unable to glean anything from it. I'll have to settle for estimating that the episode aired in the late eighties to early nineties. It discussed the bland sameness that possessed radio stations in this period and the independent music industry that sprang up in response. I remember the narrator stating that many of these new outsider bands sounded angry, and they had reason to be: radio was neglecting them. Alternative bands existed throughout the eighties, but did not get played on mainstream radio stations until the nineties. Not on any that I had access to, anyway.

The Evidence

I can argue myself blue in the face on this point, but unless I can give you a listen to the sort of crud I heard as a teenager every time I turned on the radio, you are unlikely to be persuaded. And thanks to Jango, I can do just that.

Jango is a free, web-based service that lets users create their own "radio stations." Here's how it works: you type the name of a musical artist into the search box. If it's found, Jango will create a new station named after the artist (you can rename it if you want) and begin playing a random selection from that artist. But it will go one better than that. It will provide a list of similar artists that you might also enjoy and want to add to your station, and it will insert their songs into the playlist. Jango is pretty good at finding matches by style and period.

The idea, of course, is to present you with music you will like, but there's nothing to stop you from using it for other, more nefarious purposes. I found it an invaluable tool for digging up all those old forgotten bands that dissolved my brain cells during my youth. I got the ball rolling with The Thompson Twins, and soon I had a whole stack of dismal bands. Mind you, The Thompson Twins weren't the worst the eighties had to offer. (I'd tried Chalk Circle first, a band I remember with deep disgust, but Jango didn't know it.) However, Jango helpfully brought up other bands that were even lamer, and I added the worst of them until I created a station that is truly soul-destroying. I offer it here for your listening displeasure: Vivian's Bad Eighties Music. Take only in small doses, and bear in mind that this is what about three-quarters of airplay sounded like during my formative years. Condolences accepted.

To be fair and balanced, I also created a Jango station of good eighties music. This one, Vivian's Good Eighties Music, reproduces the experience of going to one of those eighties club nights.

The Playlists

Here are the playlists for my two Jango radio stations. Keep in mind that these lists do not encompass everything you will hear on these stations, since Jango inserts its own "recommendations" from time to time.

Bad Eighties Music

1. Icehouse
2. Book of Love
3. Depeche Mode
4. Johnny Hates Jazz
5. Love and Rockets
6. Mr. Mister
7. The Housemartins
8. Soft Cell
9. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
10. XTC
11. The The
12. Missing Persons
13. Berlin
14. Cutting Crew
15. Thompson Twins
16. China Crisis
17. Toto

Good Eighties Music

1. Simple Minds
2. Fine Young Cannibals
3. The Fixx
4. Eurythmics
5. Duran Duran
6. Pet Shop Boys
7. The Human League
8. ABC
9. The Cars
10. T'Pau
11. Spandau Ballet
12. a-ha
13. Bronski Beat
14. Arcadia
15. Thomas Dolby
16. Wham!
17. Yazoo

Healthy Songs

In my last entry, I presented an Honourable Mention list of songs that were a little bit off, and yet were not messed up enough to make the Dysfunctional Top Ten list. In this entry, I will finally get a little more positive and attempt to present, for contrast, a few healthy songs.

If it's so easy to dip into the pool of top 40 hits and come up with a whole whack of songs depicting dysfunctional relationships, how hard can it be to come up with a decent list of songs depicting functional, healthy relationships?

Very hard. Part of the difficulty is that there are, let's face it, way more songs about unhappy relationships than the contrary. Then too, just because a song is about a happy relationship, does that automatically make it a healthy song? Or is it just as probable that it's a load of sap?

Take Honey by Bobby Goldsboro. If one takes the lyrics at face value, the relationship was a happy one before poor Honey kicked the bucket. The same could be said for Having My Baby by Paul Anka. Apparently this couple is delighted to be starting a family. The trouble is, both these songs stink to high heaven. Especially Honey. Here's a sampling of lyrics for your delectation: "She was always young at heart/Kinda dumb and and kinda smart, I loved her so." What can one say about that but, "Oh my God?" Words can never encompass the wretchedness. And then, "One day while I was not at home/When she was there and all alone/The angels came" (Source: Bobby Goldsboro lyrics - Honey @ OldieLyrics.com). Why bother waterboarding prisoners? Just play them Honey over and over again. They'll tell you anything.

And Having My Baby is little better. Check this out: "The need inside you/I see it showing/Whoa, the seed inside you/Baby, do you feel it growing?" (Source: Paul Anka Lyrics, You're Having My Baby Lyrics @ STLyrics.com). Help!

So those songs are definitely out of the running, as is anything else of excessive sappiness or outright badness. A couple of other possibilities I came up with were Danny's Song by Kenny Loggins and Hey There Delilah by Plain White T's. Danny's Song is a pleasant, easy-listening depiction of a fellow who's in love and eager to start a family with his beloved, but who has the decency not to brag about his seed growing in her. Here's the chorus:

And even though we ain't got money,
I'm so in love with you, honey,
And everything will bring a chain of love.
And in the morning, when I rise,
You bring a tear of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything is gonna be all right.
(Source: Loggins & Messina Lyrics - Danny's Song @ OldieLyrics.com)

That's nice, but it is veering dangerously in the direction of sappiness with the line about "a tear of joy." That's exaggerated. Maybe if you have a reunion with your beloved after a long separation, you'll cry tears of joy, but not if you see her every day. Can you imagine getting up every morning and crying tears of joy? Come on.

I also don't care for the line, "Think I'm gonna have a son." That strikes me as sexist. A loving father wouldn't care about the gender of his child. What if he has a daughter? Will he be able to hide his disappointment from her?

As for Hey There Delilah, it's a song about a musician who's a thousand miles away from his love, Delilah. He tells her:

Hey there Delilah
Don't you worry about the distance
I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice, it's my disguise
I'm by your side
(Source: Plain White T's Lyrics - Hey There Delila @ PLyrics.com)

I find the song moving, but all the same, it depicts a long-distance relationship. It's easy to idealize someone when you're a thousand miles away from them. If these two were to get their wish and be able to live together, who knows if the relationship would survive? It has not yet been tested.

An interesting fact about Hey There Delilah is that the song was not even written about a real-life relationship. The woman in question, an athlete, was already spoken for, but that did not stop the song writer from turning his crush into a musical fantasy (Source: Hey There Delila - Wikipedia: Inspiration for song).

So if Danny's Song and Hey There Delilah don't really belong on my list of healthy-relationship songs, what does? Well, it's a very short list. In fact, it's a "list" of one.

Lovely Day

This song, by R&B singer Bill Withers, hit the charts in 1977 and has gotten plenty of airplay ever since (Source: Lovely Day (song) - Wikipedia). It has been covered several times, and was even used in a Gap ad. There's no sap here, and not even any detail about the couple's life together. All he has to say is that when he's not feeling well, for example that "the day that lies ahead of me/Seems impossible to face/And someone else instead of me/Always seems to know the way..."

Then I look at you
And the world's all right with me
Just one look at you
And I know it's gonna be
A lovely day
(Source: Bill Withers - Lovely Day Lyrics @ MetroLyrics.com)

And that's the way love is, really. It's not about pain. It's not about suffering for the sake of your love. It's not about being "strong enough" to put up with your partner's insanity. Love is supposed to make you happy, and when you're in a healthy, genuinely loving relationship, seeing your beloved really does make you feel better, in just the way Withers describes. Trust me, I know. After many years of dysfunctional relationships, I now know. Withers describes it better, more simply and more accurately, than anything Shakespeare ever wrote in his plays and sonnets, or anything that Cyrano de Bergerac ever called up to Roxanne in her balcony as he hid in the shadows below. (What a dysfunctional relationship that was!) There will always be a place in my heart for Lovely Day.

More Dysfunctional Songs: Honourable Mention for Weirdness

Back in May, I presented my top ten countdown of popular music's most dysfunctional songs, as scientifically determined by the fact that I remembered hearing them on the radio, and thought the relationships they described sounded ever so messed up.

At the end of the countdown, I rashly promised to do a follow-up post presenting some Honourable Mentions, as well as a few, rare healthy songs. A promise is a promise, so here we go.

The criteria for my Dysfunctional Top Ten were:

1. The songs had to be big hits--popular enough to have been in high rotation on the radio, and preferably to still be heard on the radio from time to time;
2. The lyrics of the song had to scream dysfunction, either displaying an unhealthy attitude towards romantic relationships (like Love Hurts), or outright describing an unhealthy relationship (like Wonderful Tonight or Beth).

Well, the following songs certainly hit the big time in the real world, but are not quite screwed up enough to hit the dysfunctional big time. They don't scream dysfunction, but they do whisper or murmur it. Their attitude towards relationships may not be disastrous, but it is peculiar.

Like You'll Never See Me Again

This song, a hit in 2008, was written and performed by Alicia Keys (Source: Like You'll Never See Me Again - Wikipedia). This is the same Alicia Keys who came out with A Woman's Worth in 2002, a song that contains the line, "a real woman knows a real man always comes first." How fabulously retro and sexist! She may not have made the Dysfunctional Top Ten list, but if she keeps this up, perhaps she can look forward to some kind of Dysfunctional Lifetime Achievement Award.

But on to the song at hand. Keys doesn't want to be taken for granted in a romantic relationship. Who does? As she says, "Lord knows another day is not really guaranteed." So here's the formula she imposes upon her lover:

Every time you hold me
Hold me like it is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again

Aw, isn't that romantic? No, it's awful, as you will realize if you stop to think about what it would be like to actually live that way. Every time you touched the person that you love, you would have to pretend that you're never going to see them again. Imagining it as thoroughly as possible, even believing it at least for a brief period of time, would be the only way you could obey the injunction to "hold me like it is the last time." But if you could manage this, it would make you terribly sad. The more you love the person, the sadder it would make you to imagine that you're about to lose them.

If indeed, the time you have with someone is limited and another day is not really guaranteed, then you should be enjoying your time with that person rather than getting all weepy over the thought of losing them. Ironically, by not wanting to waste or take for granted the time that she and her lover have, Keys guarantees that she and her lover will waste that time, by being sad about something that hasn't happened yet. Isn't that a stupid thing to do? Songs like this should come with a warning label: "Don't try this at home."

I Touch Myself

This song was released by Australian band The DiVinyls in 1991 (Source: I Touch Myself - Wikipedia), and is the song for which they are most remembered. If you don't remember it from its airplay and video, you may be familiar with it through the movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery; It's featured in the scene in which Austin seduces the fembots.

Like Cruel to Be Kind, which made number 3 in my Dysfunctional Top Ten list, it suggests a domination-submission relationship. This is also true for the next Honourable Mention song. However, while the protagonist in Cruel to Be Kind was suffering, the ladies in these two offerings appear to be quite enjoying themselves. This makes their relationships good (clean?) fun rather than dysfunctional, hence their appearance in the Honourable Mention list rather than in the Top Ten.

The singer makes a number of interesting declarations to the object of her affection. "When I'm feeling down/I want you above me," she says in the first verse. Hmm. In the second verse: "You are the one who makes me come running," like a puppy dog, one presumes. The third verse is worth quoting in its entirety:

I close my eyes and see you before me
I think I would die if you were to ignore me
A fool could see just how much I adore you
I'd get down on my knees, I'd do anything for you

Of course she'd get down on her knees; that's her job, as a submissive. The first couple of lines of that verse are a little more worrisome. Seeing him before her when she closes her eyes suggests an unhealthy degree of obsession. And anyone with such a desperate need of attention that she feels she'd die if her lover ignored her has serious self-esteem problems. Still, these could be just lines that are part of the role she has to play, similar to "Yes, Master." After all, she knows how to take care of herself when he's not around:

I don't want anybody else
When I think about you I touch myself
Oh I don't want anybody else oh no oh no oh no
(Lyrics source: I Touch Myself Lyrics - DiVinyls @ Elyrics.net)

Yes, she's enjoying herself, all right.

Perhaps because the DiVinyls were a one-hit wonder, at least outside of their native Australia, there is a lot of misinformation on the Internet about this song. Many, many lyrics sites attribute the song to Blondie. Duh, Blondie broke up in '82 (Source: Blondie (band) - Wikipedia). How could they be responsible for a 90's hit? This is one of those pernicious Internet myths, similar to the one that attributes the song Bitch to Alanis Morrisette. (It was Meredith Brooks.) And that's not the only thing they get wrong; several turn the line "You are the one who makes me come running," into "You are the one who makes me happy honey." Good grief, that doesn't even scan.

That's why I want to recognize Elyrics.net for a job well done. While zillions of other sites simply copy content from each other, thus ensuring that the same mistakes and even in some cases the same typos proliferate all over the Internet, this site took the trouble to get the lyrics right. Good job, guys.

Because the Night

This song has gone through a number of reincarnations. Bruce Springsteen wrote the original version, but was not happy with it. He gave it to Patti Smith, who reworked the lyrics and had a hit with it in 1978. Then 10,000 Manics covered it in 1993 (Source: Because the Night - Wikipedia). It is their version that gets the most airplay these days.

The song was always erotic, but Smith made it more so. Springsteen saw fit to dilute the eroticism with lines like, "I work all day out in the hot sun." (Who cares, eh?) Smith replaced that with, "Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe/Love is a banquet on which we feed."

She also added some kinkiness. Springsteen's chorus began, "Come on now, try and understand/The way I feel when I'm in your hands." Patti Smith kept that for the first refrain of the chorus, but for the second refrain, she changed it to "Come on now, try and understand/The way I feel under your command."

The sentiment apparently resonated with Natalie Merchant. When 10,000 Maniacs performed the song, she sang "under your command" in both refrains.

Stating that you are "under the command" of your lover falls comfortably into the realm of kinky. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As long as it's all between consenting adults, knock yourself out (though not literally). But it's a pity, I think, that Smith had to spoil this song for the karaoke crowd. It's embarrassing to get up there and sing about how you feel under somebody's command. I know karaoke didn't exist in 1978, but still. It's a great song, and I think it would be nice if vanilla people could enjoy it too, and even sing along, without discomfort.

But she's a strange one, our Patti Smith. Here are a few lyrics from her version of Jimmy Hendrix's Hey Joe:

Honey, the way you play guitar makes me feel so
Makes me feel so masochistic
The way you go down low, deep into the neck
And I would do anything and Patty Hearst
(Source: Patti Smith Lyrics - Hey Joe @ MP3Lyrics.org)

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That's about all I have to say about dysfunctional songs. Coming soon: compiling a list of healthy songs. Can it be done? We will see.

Is CBC Information Morning Host Terry Seguin Tone-Deaf?

Here's one for my fellow New Brunswickers:

As you may know, Bon Jovi will be playing in Moncton on June 27. CBC Radio in New Brunswick is offering a chance to win tickets. To be eligible to win, fans must record themselves "rocking out to the famed band's songs," as the web site puts it.

Well, this morning on CBC radio, host Terry Seguin played one of the entries, and it wasn't pretty. The "singers" showed themselves incapable of staying on tune for longer than ten seconds at a stretch. It was good for a laugh, but not good in any other way.

When it was over, Seguin said something like, "Wow. Not only are young people listening to the show... they hit all the high notes."

Terry! Dude! Not only didn't they hit the high notes... or the low notes... they failed to hit many of the in-between notes.

I see two possibilities. Either Seguin was just being nice, or he has the musical appreciation abilities of a rock.

Which do you think it is? Brunswickians, please weigh in on this important issue by adding a comment to this blog post. Anyone can comment, even anonymously. We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Dysfunctional Top Ten, Part 2

Time to continue the countdown I began in my last post, Dysfunctional Top Ten, Part 1.

Number 5: When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman

This song was recorded in 1978 by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, and became a hit one year later. It was not, however, written by any of the band members but by Evan Stevens, about whom I am unable to find out anything (Source: When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman - Wikipedia). Thematically, it's similar to Number 6 in this countdown, When a Man Loves a Woman, and so it's appropriate that they fall so close together in the list. Both songs assert that falling in love with a woman is something of a disaster for a man. The major difference is that Stevens is more specific: beautiful women are the problem. Still, did Percy Sledge experience his agony by falling in love with a plain woman? Certainly not. It is alleged that Sledge wrote the song after his girlfriend left him to pursue a modelling career (Source: Percy Sledge - Wikipedia).

It appears that some men get a little confused about the difference between love and lust. Stevens and Sledge, and perhaps also Eric Clapton (back at Number 8), would have done well to get clearer on the point. It could have saved them some pain.

Indeed, the protagonist of this song is suffering a good deal, even more than the protagonist of When a Man Loves a Woman. Neither of them can trust their women, but this guy can't even trust his friends, as he tells us: "When you're in love with a beautiful woman/You watch your friends." Why? Because:

Everybody wants her, everybody loves her
everybody wants to take your baby home (Source: When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman @ Gunther W. Anderson's Home Page.)

He can't trust his lover. He can't trust his friends--which means, really, that he has no friends. He can't seem to trust anybody--a very unhappy position to be in.

Number 4: Beth

This ballad, released in 1976, was not a typical KISS offering, yet it became their biggest hit (source: Beth (song) - Wikipedia). Beth is another loving sufferer. Her man spends his time playing rock and roll with his bandmates while she sits at home all alone. The lyrics tell the story from the musician's point of view, as one might expect:

Beth, I hear you calling
But I can't come home right now
Me and the boys are playing
And we just can't find the sound
Just a few more hours
And I'll be right home to you
I think I hear them calling
Oh Beth, what can I do?
(Source: KISS - Beth Lyrics @ metrolyrics.com.)

The tone of the song is mournful and pitying, but I think the subtext is nevertheless detectable: Beth is a pain in the butt. The musician wants to get on with work on the sound and she won't stop phoning up and whining at him. It's quite clear where her man wants to spend the bulk of his time, and it's not with her. Indeed, by the end of the song, he breaks the promise he made in the first verse: "Beth, I know you're lonely/And I hope you'll be all right/'Cause me and the boys will be playing/All night."

One wonders about the legitimacy of Beth's complaint. We only hear his side of the story, after all. Perhaps he really is gone so often, and puts so little energy into the relationship, that it is fair for her to complain that "our house just ain't a home." On the other hand, perhaps she's too clingy and needy. Doesn't she have any friends and hobbies of her own?

What's certain is that mutual feeling is lacking. The musician simply isn't interested in spending as much time with Beth as she would like him to. Further, he's willing to lie about it. He puts her off saying he'll only be a few more hours, but ends up spending the entire night away. His promises are casually broken, her feelings not important. Surely this relationship is doomed.

Number 3: Cruel to Be Kind

This song was Nick Lowe's biggest hit, peaking at number 12 on UK, US, Canadian and Australian charts in 1979 (Source: Nick Lowe - Wikipedia). I find it frankly kinky in a way reminiscent of 10,000 Maniacs' take on Because the Night (about which more later). I might have left it off the list if I felt it simply portrayed some kind of sadomasochistic roleplaying, which may take place within a functioning relationship. However, the consensuality of the torment is in doubt.

The protagonist declares himself mystified by his love's behaviour. "You say your love is bona fide/But that don't coincide/With the things that you do." Further, "I pick myself up off the ground/To have you knock me back down/Again and again..." But the chorus is where it gets interesting. When he asks her to be nice, or to explain herself, she says:

You gotta be
Cruel to be kind
In the right measure
Cruel to be kind
It's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind
Means that I love you
Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind
(Source: Cruel to Be Kind lyrics @ lyricsmode.com.)

It doesn't sound like a good situation that this fellow finds himself in, and yet he almost appears to be enjoying himself. The song is a bouncy, infectious little number. Still, it can't be good for his self-esteem to be knocked down again and again, whether literally or figuratively, and he does profess to confusion and to being at his wit's end. So I'm going to assume this activity is not consensual, and award Cruel to Be Kind the Number 3 slot.

Number 2: Lovefool

At this point, you may be wondering if dysfunctional relationships are a thing of the past. After all, the most recent song I've mentioned so far was recorded in 1982 (Sexual Healing). Don't I wish! If there are more neurotic songs in ancient than in recent history, it's because ancient history is a lot longer than recent history. So fear not; these next two songs are more recent--and they top the list! Maybe we're getting more dysfunctional rather than less, or at least more willing to sing openly about it.

Another interesting thing about these two most recent songs is that they are both sung and written (or co-written) by women. All the previous selections were written by men. Female dysfunction is at last coming to the fore. You go, girl! To a shrink, as quickly as possible.

In this strange, very unfeminist piece of work recorded in 1996 by Swedish band The Cardigans (source: Lovefool - Wikipedia), the protagonist cries, prays and begs her increasingly disinterested boyfriend to: "Love me love me/Say that you love me/Fool me fool me/Go on and fool me/Love me love me/Pretend that you love me/Leave me leave me/Just say that you need me."

Her mother is, quite rightly, concerned: "Mother tells me I shouldn't bother/That I ought to stick to another/Man, a man that surely deserves me, but/I think you do." She appears to be saying that her boyfriend is better and more worthy of respect than she is. After all, he deserves to have her despite the fact that... he doesn't really want her that much. She, on the other hand, does not deserve the opportunity to find someone better (an opportunity she is unlikely to have if she can't let go of this guy).

It's all a bit convoluted, and to find a clearer truth, we need to look beyond what the lyrics are, on the surface, saying. She is afraid to leave him. Most probably, she is terrified to be alone, afraid that she will cease to exist without someone to see her reflection in. So she clings to him no matter what, even to the point of losing her grip on reality. She begs for the opportunity to live in a dream world, where she can pretend she is loved when she really isn't. Even that is better than the alternative.

When you lose your grip on reality, you begin the dangerous slide into insanity, and that appears to be happening here. Although she declares in the chorus "Leave me, leave me/Just say that you need me," she concludes in the second verse, "I don't care if you really care/As long as you don't go." So, leave... but don't leave. No wonder she also declares in the second verse, "Reason will not lead to solution/I will end up lost in confusion" (Source: The Cardigans - Lovefool lyrics - Lyrics on Demand). You already are, honey.

It is interesting to note that her mother, although wanting to help, does not appear to have a better conception of a healthy relationship than her daughter does. Consider that mother says she should, "stick to another man." What does this mean? Usually, "stick to" is a colloquialism meaning to stay with what you currently have. But this woman doesn't have another man. If she did, she'd be comfortable letting go of the one who no longer loves her, knowing that she wouldn't have to experience the terror of being alone, even temporarily. The fact that she clings so desperately to the current disinterested man indicates that there is no one else.

So what does her mother mean? The only possibility left, as far as I can see, is the more literal meaning of the word: find another man and stick to him, cling to him, glue herself to him. Mother does not see the clinging and terrible neediness as a problem, only the choice of target. But then, if mother had been capable of modelling a healthy relationship for her daughter, she wouldn't be in this position. We get our conception of relationships from the earliest relationship we witness: that between our parents. If our parents had a dysfunctional relationship, we are liable to waste years of our lives duplicating the sort of relationship we witnessed. In short, we are screwed, as is this unfortunate creature.

Number 1: Strong Enough

This Sheryl Crow single hit number 5 in the US in 1995. It has since been covered by Cher, among others (maybe because she couldn't resist covering a song by an artist with a name so similar to hers?) and the Dixie Chicks have performed it live. Travis Tritt, whoever that is, recorded an answering song, Strong Enough to Be Your Man. God help him. (Source: Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow song) - Wikipedia.)

This song takes a little time to get into its dysfunctional stride. The first couple of verses seem not so unreasonable: "God, I feel like hell tonight/Tears of rage I cannot fight" and "Nothing's true and nothing's right/so let me be alone tonight." Fair enough--she's having a really bad day. Everybody has those from time to time.

But things deteriorate from there. "I have a face I cannot show/I make the rules up as I go." And worse: "When I've shown you that I just don't care..." Don't care about what? Presumably the man himself. What else could this refer to? And then the chorus: in spite of all this, "Are you strong enough to be my man?"

This is so wrong on so many levels. First and foremost is the implication that a strong man will stay with a woman who treats him like crap. (Maybe "do you have low enough self-esteem to be my man" didn't scan well enough?) Then there's this plea: "Lie to me/I promise I'll believe/Lie to me/But please don't leave." That makes two songs that frame lying as a positive thing, something that allows the relationship to keep limping on instead of getting a decent burial. This is actually a first-rate portrayal of how people behave in dysfunctional relationships: there is little openness or honesty. Instead, anything that allows the status quo to continue is embraced, being it lying to your partner or to yourself.

And as if that isn't enough, she attacks his manhood! Later in the song, the refrain changes to, "Are you man enough to be my man?" She is saying that if he leaves her, despite the fact that she's inconsistent and crazy-making ("I make the rules up as I go") and has shown him that she doesn't care, not only is he weak, he's not a real man. Whoa, talk about manipulative! And certainly, immature people in dysfunctional relationships are manipulative. They basically have to be, because once they've given up on honest, open communication, they have no other way to get their needs met.

On a side note, the site where I looked up the lyrics allows comments, and the first comment claims that this song refers to Sheryl Crow's trials with breast cancer. According to commenter kooki, "she's asking her boyfriend if he is strong enough to understand what she's going trhough" [sic]. I say, bullshit. It's plausible if you look only at the first two verses, but beyond that the theory falls apart. What about "Lie to me/I promise I'll believe"? What about "I've shown you that I just don't care"? How does that fit in with cancer?

It doesn't. Furthermore, while Sheryl Crow was diagnosed with breast cancer fairly recently--in 2006 (see Wildflower section of Sheryl Crow - Wikipedia)--Strong Enough came out in 1994. So, nice theory, and self-serving for any Sheryl Crow fan, but... totally wrong. Sorry.

If this and other comments are any indication, fans do sense that there is something about these lyrics that is not entirely kosher. There are several attempts to explain away or gloss over the troubling aspects of the song. Some of them are quite amusing, and not just for the bad grammar and spelling, so if you've got a little extra time, you might want to read a few. See Sheryl Crow - Strong Enough lyrics @ sing365.com.

While the other songs in my list are dysfunctional in just one way, Sheryl Crow serves up a smorgasbord of immaturity and messedupedness in this wonderfully multilayered paean to relationship dysfunctionality. For this, Strong Enough is the hands-down winner.

So that's it for the dysfunctional countdown. Readers, if you see yourself in any of these songs, I hope you will take action. Remember that, whatever Sheryl Crow might say, sometimes the strongest thing you can do... is leave.

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Coming Up: Later, I hope to have an Honorable Mention section, and perhaps a list of all those wife-beating songs I ended up leaving out of this list. I would also like to present a list of healthy songs, as contrast. Unfortunately, it will be much shorter. I don't expect to even have ten. So stay tuned for more song discussion.

Dysfunctional Top Ten, Part 1

Do you ever listen to a popular love song, perhaps something that's in heavy rotation on the radio, and think, wow, that is messed up?

OK, maybe you don't, but I do. Popular songs often portray, if not celebrate, remarkably immature, neurotic and generally dysfunctional attitudes toward romantic love and relationships. I have long thought it would be fun to compile a Dysfunctional Top Ten list. Well, I finally got around to it.

In order for a song to make the list, I decided, it must be both dysfunctional and a big hit, something that was, and preferably still is, played over and over again on the radio. That helped narrow the field; there may be lots of incredibly screwed-up, obscure songs out there--in fact, I know there are, having listened to Black Flag--but I didn't have to worry about them. If it wasn't something that most people have heard on the radio, it didn't count.

Even with these criteria, I ran into problems. At one point, it appeared that songs about beating or killing women would dominate the list. There are a lot of such songs, and some of them are extremely popular. Granted that beating your wife or girlfriend is dysfunctional, and killing her even more so, I didn't want such extreme stuff to take attention away from the subtler, more everyday ways that people make their relationships miserable.

What to do? I toyed with the idea of selecting just one song to represent all the musical wife-beating. But that didn't work out. For one thing, how do you choose between Run For Your Life by The Beatles and Only Women Bleed by Alice Cooper? Any such selection could only be arbitrary. For another, where would it go in the list? If I put such a song anywhere other than first place, I would be guilty of minimizing such abuse. But if I made it number one, I would have the same problem as before, with showy wife-beating taking attention away from everyday neurosis.

I decided that wife-beating deserves its very own category. Perhaps later I'll do a separate post devoted to the Battering Top Ten, if I feel like it. I make no promises. Anyway, this is why there are no wife-beating songs in the list. And now, on to the songs.

Number 10: Love Hurts

I'll 'fess up--this song may be dysfunctional, but I love it. What a great ballad. Still, it clearly was not inspired by a happy, healthy relationship.

I've always thought of this as a Nazareth song, so I got a surprise when I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered that it was first recorded by The Everly Brothers in 1960. That's 15 years before Nazareth did their version. Apparently I'm not the only one who loves it--Wikipedia's list of covers of Love Hurts is so extensive they had to use a table to hold it, a table that extends over four screens. (See Love Hurts - Wikipedia.)

Most people have been through bad relationships at some point in their lives, and can identify with the lyrics: "Love is like a cloud/It holds a lot of rain" and "Love is like a flame/It burns you when it's hot." Sure, sometimes it's like that. However, in the bridge, the protagonist denies that it can ever be otherwise. "Some fools rave on happiness/Blissfulness, togetherness/Some folks fool themselves I guess/But they're not fooling me," he says, and then concludes, "Love is just a lie/Made to make you blue." (Source: Love Hurts lyrics @ stlyrics.com.)

To claim that love hurts in certain situations, with certain partners, is fair and accurate. To claim that love can never make you happy, that it is in fact a lie, earns you a place in the Pantheon of Dysfunction.

Number 9: Why Do Fools Fall In Love?

This song was first recorded way back in 1956 by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, but has been covered by multiple artists since then, including Diana Ross, who covered it in 1981. (Source: Why Do Fools Fall in Love (song) - Wikipedia)

The song asks, essentially, since we can take it as understood that love can only be a bad thing, why are people stupid enough to get into it? This question, why do fools fall in love, is juxtaposed with questions about things that can be taken for granted: Why do birds sing so gay? Why does the rain fall from up above? The implication is that the foolishness of falling in love is as much an incontrovertible fact of life as the birds singing and the rain falling. (See Why Do Fools Fall in Love lyrics @ metrolyrics.com.)

It's this attitude that earns this song the Number 9 spot. Why Do Fools Fall In Love? and Love Hurts have a similar message, but at least in Love Hurts, the protagonist makes a case for his conclusions. The second verse of Love Hurts begins, "I'm young, I know/But even so/I know a thing or two/I learned from you." His condemnation of love is based on his own experience. That makes Love Hurts a notch less dysfunctional than Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, a song that not only doesn't make a case but never considers the possibility that anyone might see things otherwise.

Number 8: Wonderful Tonight

Ooh, I'm going to get in trouble now. So many people love this song and think it's sooo romantic. And it's Eric Clapton. How dare I criticize the guitar god? Well, I don't care. This song is a train wreck.

The first verse is largely about the woman's appearance and her attention to it: "She's wondering what clothes to wear/She puts on her makeup/Brushes her long blond hair." After all that, she asks him, "Do I look all right?" like an insecure child seeking validation for her existence. Yes, he assures her, "You look wonderful tonight." And that's what it's all about, as the second verse reveals: "We go to a party/Everyone turns to see/This beautiful lady/Walking around with me." He's already focused laserlike on her looks in the first verse, and now he returns to her looks in the second verse and states it flat out: she's beautiful. Can there be any question of this man's priorities? He's with this woman because she's beautiful. No doubt he loves looking at her--he appears to be watching her intently in verse one as she fixes herself up--but he also loves knowing that other people are looking, seeing him with his delicious little trophy wife draped over his arm. There's no indication that anything else matters.

I think it's interesting that we know only one specific thing about her appearance: she's got long blond hair. That's important. Blond hair is highly valued in our society, especially on women's heads. If she had brown hair, she wouldn't have the same cachet. I wouldn't be surprised if he dumped a brunette to go out with her.

The bridge goes, "I feel wonderful/Because I see the love light in your eyes," (pardon me while I puke,) "And the wonder of it all/Is that you just don't realize/How much I love you." (Source: Wonderful Tonight lyrics @ lyricsfreak.com.) Well of course she doesn't. For one thing, she's terribly insecure, as her question in verse one made clear. For another, he doesn't love her, he loves her looks, and she probably senses that.

Songs that come right out and knock love are, to my mind, less dysfunctional than songs that describe or celebrate troubled relationships with no apparent awareness of how dysfunctional they are. For its chilling portrayal of a shallow, status-seeking man and his beautiful but desperately insecure wife, this song earns the eighth spot.

Number 7: Sexual Healing

I didn't plan for Wonderful Tonight and Sexual Healing to come out next to each other, but I'm happy they did, because they both make me twitch with revulsion. Sexual Healing is a song about a guy who won't let his lover get a good night's sleep because he "needs" to get laid.

But let him speak for himself: "Get up, Get up, Get up, Get up, let's make love tonight/Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, 'cause you do it right." These lyrics make me want to yell, "Leave her alone, dammit! She's sleeping!" Has it ever crossed his mind that maybe his lover doesn't want to be roused in the middle of the night for sex, that maybe she'd rather sleep?

Apparently not. It's all about him. "Baby, I'm hot just like an oven/I need some lovin'." He's got a keen awareness of his own needs, as the lyrics make clear. He goes on to add that when he's not feeling well--say that "blue tears are falling," or his "emotional stability is leaving" him--he knows he can get relief from her and her services. "If you don't know the thing you're dealing/Oh, I can tell you darling that's it's sexual healing."

I'm sure I read somewhere, although I'm not sure where, that the mark of a sexual addict is that instead of learning to deal with his problems, he escapes them by seeking sex. He doesn't care particularly who it's with (although if he's got a steady lover, that's obviously convenient), he doesn't care about connecting emotionally with his sexual object, he cares about getting his fix and making his feelings go away. Gaye describes this grasping, selfish stance so well: "You're my medicine/Open up and let me in" (Ugh!)

I knew most of this song's lyrics, certainly enough to disgust me, but reading them in their entirety has been illuminating. Apparently I missed a bit of ad lib about masturbation. The sites are divided on whether he says, "Please don't procrastinate/'Cause I may have to masturbate" (Sexual Healing lyrics @ stlyrics.com) or "Please don't procrastinate/It's not good to masturbate" (Sexual Healing lyrics @ metrolyrics.com). If it's the latter, Sexual Healing should be higher up in the Top Ten list. (What's wrong with masturbation? Any man who wakes his woman up from a sound sleep demanding sex needs to become better acquainted with it.) If it's the former, it fits in well with the overall selfishness displayed throughout the song.

But enough. If I read any more of Gaye's lyrics, I'll have to go take a shower. Let's move on.

Number 6: When a Man Loves a Woman

I guess this is a classic. One comes across it often. When I looked it up on Wikipedia, I was surprised to find out how old it is. It was first recorded in 1966 by Percy Sledge. (See When a Man Loves a Woman (song) - Wikipedia). It has been covered by several artists, including Montreal-based singer Luba. What was she thinking? I wondered at the time.

I hate this song. What a negative portrayal, not only of love but of women. "When a man loves a woman... she can bring him such misery," he tells us. According to this song, nothing could be a bigger disaster for a man than to fall in love with a woman. He won't be able to keep his mind on anything, he'll spend his last dime, sleep out in the rain... sounds like a good argument for turning gay, doesn't it?

After all, Sledge assures us, all that abuse and badness is only going one way. "When a man loves a woman, he can do no wrong... he can never own some other girl." (Source: When a Man Loves a Woman lyrics @ stlyrics.com.) Own? I assume he means sleep with. A man in love, he appears to be claiming, is incapable of cheating. This should come as quite a surprise to the many cheated-on wives who have had to listen to that old chestnut, "It didn't mean anything."

Personally, I find the song misogynist, if subtly so. Unlike Led Zeppelin, Sledge didn't go in for starkly condemnatory statements like, "The soul of a woman was created below" (from Dazed and Confused). But the message is clear that falling in love means that the man--that saintly man who is incapable of doing wrong--is going to be used, abused and cheated on. Not a glowing endorsement of women as a gender. Also interesting is the use of the word "own" in relation to women (or "girls") and its suggestion that sex puts a woman in a one-down position.

Still, it's got a good tune, one that a powerful singer can have some fun with, as Luba did. This probably accounts in large part for its staying power.

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Oh my goodness, I'm only halfway through and I've topped 2000 words. That's enough for now. Look for the other half of my dysfunctional countdown in a few days.

The Weather Inside Is Frightful

Christmas is coming, and you know what that means: unpleasant stuff pelting down upon you whenever you venture out of the house. No, I'm not talking about snow. I love snow. I'm talking about Christmas songs.

Not all Christmas music is bad, of course. There are a few carols I quite like, such as "Come All Ye Faithful" and "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In." Even in the category of popular music, there are some worthwhile offerings. Take "Two Thousand Miles" by The Pretenders, or the heart-warming "Mistress for Christmas" by AC/DC.

You just don't hear those songs, that's all. Oh, maybe now and then on the radio. But if you walk through a shopping mall, or go to a restaurant, what you are going to hear are songs that weren't even good the first time, like "Jingle Bell Rock" or "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." (By the way, does this song have the dumbest lyrics, or what? "He'll ask us, 'Are you married?'/ We'll say, 'No man'"--what are they, sixties hippies?) Even worse, you'll hear certain well-worn "favorites" played over and over and over again. There are Christmases when I think that if I have to hear Little Drummer Boy one more time, I'm going to disembowel myself just to stop the pain.

Overplaying of certain songs is one major cause of seasonal pain. Another is Singing... Too... Sloooooowly. Why do they do this? I wonder if there's a misconception that a song sung much more slowly than it was meant to be sung is soothing and relaxing, rather than irritating, as in fact it is.

Both male and female vocalists may be guilty of the pointlessly, annoyingly extended song. Another phenomenon is unique to the female vocalist: singing in a sweet little cutesy-poo voice, all full of whisperiness and sighs. These girls remind me of Jewel, only worse.

The irony is that the holiday of Christmas has more good songs than any other holiday I know. So why do merchants choose to play so much of the wretched stuff? Are they unable to tell the difference?

I suppose the best thing you can do at Christmas time is buy one or two excellent Christmas albums, hole yourself up in your house with your stereo, and don't come out again until boxing day. In the process you can save yourself a lot of money and fight another phenomenon that plays havoc with the holiday: rampant consumerism. Your local non-trampled Walmart employee will thank you.