You know, I had really hoped current pop music would improve after my earlier post on the subject. As luck would have it, industry gurus do not read my blog. However, people searching for “why does Rachel Ray’s voice sound bad” and “waistband of underpants showing” evidently do, so there is that.
But! I have this news flash: Pop music has become even worse. God help us, Ke$ha was apparently only the tip of the iceberg. Without further ado, I present to you Springtime Pop Lyrics: The Anatomy Edition.
California Gurls, Katy Perry, featuring Snoop Dogg
California girls, we’re unforgettable
Daisy dukes, bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin, so hot will melt your popsicle
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
California girls, we’re undeniable
Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock
West coast represent, now put your hands up
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
You know the popsicle thing is the result of the songwriting team’s need for a phallic double entendre somewhere in the song. Banana? Candy bar? Stonehenge? The brainstorming was going decently, until Snoop Dogg arrived at the studio and everyone had to stop to explain what a double entendre is. And honestly, there’s nothing like explaining “double entendre” to a 39-year-old man with unfortunate braids to really take the fun out of the concept. You can almost hear Katy Perry saying, “Oh, screw it. Just make it popsicle. And will someone come over here and FORCE MY DAMN BREASTS BACK INTO MY SHIRT.”
Today Was a Fairytale, Taylor Swift
Time slows down whenever you’re around
I can feel my heart
It’s beating in my chest
Did you feel it?
I can’t put this down
Well, all I can say about that is THANK GOD. Taylor seems like a sweet girl, and I’d hate to think of her having a heart beating anywhere but in her chest. Then again, it might be beating somewhere else, but we’ll never know. I mean, would you go around telling people if your heart was beating in your shin or your elbow?
Exactly.
Carry Out, Timbaland, featuring Justin Timberlake
Let me get my ticket baby, let me get it line
I can tell the way you like it, baby, supersized
Hold on, you got yours, let me get mine
I ain’t leavin’ till they turn over the closed sign
Take my order cause your body like a
Carry out
Let me walk into your body until you
Hear me out
Turn me on, my baby don’t you
Cut me out
Turn me on, my baby don’t you
Cut me out
Now I know I should be concentrating on the whole treating-a-woman-like-she’s-a-fast-food-order thing. Yes, yes. Offensive, demeaning, imbecilic. But the thing I just can’t get past is this image of Jessica Biel and Cameron Diaz leaning on each other for support as they roar in hysterical laughter. “Did Justin just say SUPERSIZED?” screams Cameron, tears running uncontrollably down her cheeks. “YES!!!” answers Jessica, a fresh wave of guffaws knocking her to the ground.
Sigh. That’s it. From now on, it’s instrumental songs only. I mean it this time. Until the summer lyrics post, in which I will totally reveal how I have broken that promise. In the meantime, do me a favor and buy me some Adam Lambert tickets.
I’d like to thank the Academy. Of Bad Parenting.
April 12, 2010
In retrospect, I really should have known better.
Aura has inherited a great many things from her father, including a love of coffee-flavored foodstuffs and an inclination to snicker at me when I am at my most threatening. She also shares his tendency to become completely and utterly submerged in the lyrics of a song. New songs, songs that especially strike their fancy, songs with an unusual tempo—one note and both Adam and Aura are goners, listening and memorizing with a fierceness last witnessed in certain Nordic warriors. Their posture goes slack, their mouths gape a bit, and conversation (at least on their end) screeches to a halt.
Honestly, the trance can be a bit startling the first time you witness it. But once you get used to it, you find yourself almost impressed by such pure, unadulterated absorption. Seriously: I’ve mentioned rogue rocket ships and flying cows and free milkshakes, with zero response. I did once snare Adam’s attention by yelling, “Look! Megan Fox is driving the car next to us, NAKED AND HANDING OUT BEER!” but later efforts proved that was a one-trick pony.
Given all of this, I really have no excuse for what happened a few days ago. In my limited defense, it was a beautiful day and I had just picked up Aura from preschool and we had the car windows down, encouraging the spring breezes to mess up our hair. When a hip-hoppy R&B song came on, I just left it, and we car-danced, or at least I did. I knew the song wasn’t going to be age-appropriate, but she was distracted and we were happy and there might have even been a rainbow and some frolicking elves. It was that nice of an afternoon.
Then we parked. As I was releasing my seatbelt, Aura piped up, “Mommy, what does sex mean?” For a second, the whole thing was a bit like a paper cut, when the shock of the unexpected pain makes the world go momentarily silent. Still in the driver’s seat, I swooned as images of second-grade navel piercings and a prepubescent subscription to Cosmo flooded my brain.
Then I recovered, for that is what GOOD PARENTS DO.
After a few unsuccessful starts, I found an explanation that satisfied us both, at least temporarily. “Oh! Sex? Sex is just a silly way some people say the number six. Isn’t that SILLY?” Once I started, it was like I couldn’t stop. “Just like some people say foove for five! One, two, three, four, foove, sex! IT’S SO SILLY, ISN’T IT?”
Days later, I don’t know what scenario scares me most: that Aura sees through the deception and asks again, or that she presents her newfound counting schema at school. As much as the resulting preschool progress report will pain me, I’m rooting for scenario #2. So what if she gets an Unsatisfactory in the Number Identification category? Screw ‘em. When she gets homes that day, I’m so going to give her a high foove.
Maybe I just need practice, darn it.
February 1, 2010
This afternoon, Aura and I were running late for some appointment or other when we had to stop at a traffic light. Once the light turned green, the car in front of me still didn’t move. “Motherfucker!” I exclaimed, smacking the steering wheel with my palm.
Then I realized what I had said. And I waited.
We hadn’t gone more than a tenth of a mile before it came. ”Mommy?” Aura asked from the backseat. “What’s a fucker?”
“Oh!” I answered. “Oh, ho!” Then I bought a little time pretending to adjust a mirror. I think I put the window up and down a few times, too. Finally, I said, “Nothing, honey. I was just saying that the man in front of us was a really bad driver.”
This, my friends, is the main problem with being bad at swearing. After years of experimenting, I have accepted that I am a poor curser and therefore hardly ever swear at all, minus an occasional damn after stubbing a toe or a hissed shit when Adam has let the TiVo override Desperate Housewives in favor of Iron Chef or women’s surfing or who the heck (see?) knows what.
As far as I can tell, there’s neither a deep psychological reason nor a superficial snobbery associated with my inability to let ‘em rip. It all seems to boil down to the fact that I sound completely stupid when I try. And it’s not like I don’t try. Whenever Adam and I have an argument that escalates into yelling, I’ll throw in an “ASSHOLE!” or even a “BASTARD!” just to hear if I’ve gotten any better. But I never have, plus Adam just stops screaming back and instead cries with laughter and that’s just infuriating.
I don’t think there’s a solution, really. And I’m pretty much fine with not being able to swear well. It’s not as if it’s one of the finer points of womanhood, anyhow. But still: It seems like it should be easier.
Oh, well.
In the meantime, I implore all of you: Be careful driving. Roads these days are fraught with fuckers.
