So many things are BUGGING me right now. A lot of them are song-related, which is the downside of having a radio in the kitchen: on one hand it significantly improves my attitude toward kitchen chores, but on the other hand after I’ve heard Adele’s “Someone Like You” for the thousandth time, it is REALLY BUGGING ME that she would behave that way and think it was okay. The part that bugs me most, I think, is the lyrics “for me it isn’t over.” I get what she’s trying to say, but if her ex is married to someone else, it IS over for her too. She may not have GOTTEN over it, but it IS IN FACT OVER. FOR HER. Sometimes it lasts in love, and sometimes you need a restraining order.
Another song bothering me is the Justin Timberlake one where his greatest compliment is that looking at his loved one is like looking in the mirror. Wow, that’s pretty fantastic praise. Also, he feels that no other girlfriend would have helped him get more famous than this one did, so. It reminds me of a sermon my dad did back when he was a pastor, making a distinction between two types of love songs/poems/letters: the kind that celebrate the loved one, and the kind that celebrate the loving one. “What do we know about the loved one, after reading this?,” he’d ask, to demonstrate the distinction. In this case the answer is, “That he or she is dating someone who thinks very highly of himself.”
Wait, that reminds me of another one: I wrote earlier that I really liked Katy Perry’s song “Dark Horse,” but over time that’s evolved into liking the sound of it but really disliking the lyrics. SHE IS SINGING ABOUT HOW AWESOME SHE IS. That is the whole point of the song. Then she gets another singer to sing about how awesome she is, too. If I were considering dating someone who sang that song to me, I’d be like, “You know, maybe it would be better if YOU played with your OWN magic and I found someone who considered themselves mortal.”
I try not to listen to the lyrics too much because I find myself disliking many songs. And I get it is hard to put words to music and have them make complete sense but sometimes the lyrics are just lazy.
Dark Horse drives me BATTY. My insanity is derived from the fact that I am not certain she knows what Dark Horse even means since it has nothing to do with magic and Aphrodite and all of the other mystical/supernatural things she refers to in the song. Saying she’s “coming at you like [an underdog]” doesn’t make much sense in relation to the rest of the song because in the rest of the song she is SO AWESOME no one can resist her, which, to me, is the very opposite of a Dark Horse.
Justin Timberlake’s Mirror drives me crazy for the reasons you mentioned. I hate it.
I used to hate Dark Horse too, but it turns out that Ren thinks the guy says, “Mr. Gummy Bear” instead of “There’s no going back,” so now I love it. If you listen to it, it DOES sound like he’s saying “Mr. Gummy Bear.”
I misheard Lorde’s “we’re on each other’s team” as “we’re only selfish teens.” I like my version better. Also, I have little patience for a 17-year-old to be “kind of over” something as a repeated hook.
Haha! Way better lyric!
True that swistle. & what about Katy Perry’s new birthday song?! Leave it to her to make birthdays dirty. And who in the bright blue blazes would possibly be turned on by the phrase “big balloons”? Abhorrent euphemism.
I haven’t actually heard any of these songs, but my 9-year-old listens to some of them, some of the time. So just to play devil’s advocate, maybe Katy Perry and others are not singing them to a lover, per se, but to a bunch of pre-teens? Who are singing along, and identifying with being awesome? In a dark-horsey kind of way, whatever that is? I don’t want to be too earnest about this and I don’t want to excuse the inexcusable (which it sounds as if JT’s lyrics really are — gag) but I am just wondering. A modest amount of poppy “hey grrrrrl I’m great” with 9-year-olds singing along seems okay, maybe. I am ready to be contradicted.
Oh my gosh… I can’t even turn on the radio in the car anymore thanks to hearing my six year old sing this from the (sure to be a classic) Pitbull/Kesha song “Timber”
Face down, booty up, timber
That’s the way we like to-what? timer
I’m slicker than an oil spill
She say she won’t, but I bet she will
Gahhh… ear porn in the mini-van.
The kids are getting very used to spending the morning school commute with NPR, because no, no, no, no! I just can’t handle it. Too bad, too, because I love a catchy pop tune.
(ps. – When I was 14 years old, my dad hastily clicked the radio off when Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” came on the radio. I will never forget the look on his face. Now I get it.)
I love dumb pop radio music and I love that I get to enjoy it with my two kids. Katy Perry’s lyrics often go too far in the dumb (or sexually ignorant) direction but on the other hand sometimes they make me cry (while feeling like a chump). I really like the chorus of Dark Horse but that rap break in the middle is embarrassing!
My oldest daughter thought that *maybe* the singer of All of Me was also the singer of Talk Dirty To Me. Hahahahaaa
I have legitimately never heard any of these songs and now feel like I’m not missing anything. This is what comes from only listening to the same 3 channels on XM radio ever. And Disney music. Carry on, pop listeners.
This makes me grin. I love your worldview.
Every time I hear Dark Horse (which is quite catchy) I think, Katy perry is using metaphors she does not understand.
Agree on JT too, he is adorable and I like Mirrors, but it’s actually kind of insulting. He loves her because she’s just like him…or has no depth and only reflects his wonderfulness? Either way not good
Man the Mirror song lyrics have bugged me forever. Sorry but narcissism isn’t romantic or attractive.
For awhile there were a bunch of songs on the radio by various men in which they were declaring that one thing they love about the person to whom they were singing was that she didn’t like many things about herself and was insecure. Every one of them made me hostile.
Okay yeah, that JT song is GROSS. Who even says that? It’s like saying, “I can’t date myself so I did the next best thing: I dated a girl who reminds me of myself.” (If you’ve ever seen Parks and Recreation I totally just read that last sentence in Tom Haverford’s voice as I was typing it.)
I’m a little more forgiving of Katy Perry’s lyrics, since it could be interpreted as personal empowerment/confidence boosting song–in other words, it doesn’t HAVE to be about Katy Perry; it could be about whoever happens to be singing or listening to it. I think Nicki Minaj does a lot of that: she sings/raps a lot about how great she is but then encourages other girls to be self-confident and to love themselves too. I’ve never really seen Katy Perry really go out of her way to spread that message, though, so who knows.
That Adele song drives me nuts. It’s very pretty until you realize that she’s basically a stalker.
If it helps, the Justin Timberlake song is about his grandparents (heard during an interview) so that might paint the sing in a different light for you. Someone mentioned the “ear porn”…YES! Drives me nuts!
I was totally going to make the same comment. It’s about his grandparents’ great marriage. Personally I think the song is sweet.
HOWEVER- the Katy Perry song someone else mentioned…the birthday one…DISGUSTING. Ugh. I hate how catchy her songs are bc deep down they’re actually awful. All of them.
It’s interesting that so many people see JT’s song as vain. I hear it as him watching her to see her reaction to his behavior, and how to be a bigger man, not pop star.
Cheating songs/books/movies always make me ragey-pants. I HATE Dr. Zhivago for that very reason. Adele’s song makes me crazy. “Run to You” by Bryan Adams? HATE.
*ehem* all of which is to say, yes. I am on board with hating song lyrics.
Can’t stand Katy Perry!
I am cranky about EVERYTHING today, so I’m more than willing to join in, but I don’t know any of these songs, because I’ve apparently been under a rock (or just listening to the Billy Joel channel on Sirius Satellite with my daughter a little too much). Katy Perry seems like a twit, though. I’ll just leave it there.
There is this very catchy (and raunchy) song by Jason DeRulo that drives me nuts. The chorus says “Been around the world, don’t speak the language. But your booty don’t need explaining.” WHY is it “explaining” when it should CLEARLY be “translating”? It drives me crazy EVERY TIME I hear it. And then it gets stuck in my head for weeks at a time.
The topic of drinking came up in the car the other day and my 8 yo daughter declared she couldn’t understand why anyone would get drunk. I explained that some people consider it fun. Her response?
“Boys trying to TOUCH your JUNK is FUN?!?!”
I was confused for a beat then realized the connection:
“You’re conflating two things: life isn’t always a Ke$sha song. Though the two things can happen simultaneously, people get drunk all the time without anyone trying to touch them inappropriately. It’s not automatic.”
Agg, Katy Perry. She is always messing up metaphors. But her music is so catchy and fun. Yet I always end up wanting to punch her a little bit.
I had one boyfriend that during what would have been a sweet moment told me that he hoped I ‘made all the other girls jealous by being (his) girlfriend’. I had to stop and think about whether he was trying to be funny. He wasn’t.
I was just recently discussing Adele’s new “Hello” song with someone and trying to explain why I hated it so much. My thing is this: Adele, you have to STOP bothering your ex. Not only did she drop by to tell her ex it isn’t over for her, (Someone Like You) now she is calling constantly to discuss the breakup. Listen, sweetie…if you’ve literally called a thousand times and he is NEVER home, it’s because he has Caller ID.
SAME. I was thinking she needs a good friend to be like, “No, honey. Stop calling. Stop. No more call.”