Songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to

In the thread called Word(s) that only ever appeared in one (hit) song, ever, Doctor Casino wrote, "'Arizona' has several times made me want to start a thread about songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to."

Perhaps this could be that thread.

As it happens, there was once an epic thread called "In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time." Perhaps you're familiar with it.

In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time

User intheblanks had written, "There's the contempt for women in songs like 'You Got Lucky' and 'Breakdown.'" Then, user campreverb wrote: "Contempt? I hear a lot of self-doubt in lines like this: Girl, if you can do better than me/Go, yea go, but remember Good love is hard to find."

My further thought involved a subset of this: a dude informing a woman that he, the singer/protagonist, is the solution to her romantic problems, and she should therefore be rilly rilly grateful that he exists. Because otherwise she would be a withered cronelike old maid.

"Let My Love Open the Door" ("you're so lucky I'm around")
James Taylor, "I'm Your Handyman"
Little Feat, "One Clear Moment"
Don Henley, "Last Worthless Evening"

There should be, and probably is, a whole counter-genre of women answering, "No thanks, Tom/James/Don/Pete, I'll actually be fine."

"without meaning to" kinda hard to navigate imo

anyway

The Beach Boys "Hey Little Tomboy"

As for "without meaning to," there are plenty of songs in which someone is obviously trying to be, or is, really a dick. This is for the ones who appear to think they're being well-meaning sensitive new age guys.

"Wild World" probably gets extra credit in this category.

"Rude"

^^^

'My Sharona', The Knack

Glenn Frey's entire career to thread

the protagonist in 'there she goes again' by marshall crenshaw comes across as super passive aggressive, idk if it's intentional though

Don Henley, yeah, is the master of this.

Daryl Hall too. Most of their classic singles are about a guy out for kicks who resents when the woman insists on more more more.

Anyone who sings 'Always On My Mind'.

I think Neil Tennant pulls it off without sounding like a dick.

My mom and stepdad danced to "You Were Always on My Mind" at their wedding reception and when I asked why on earth they would do that, they said it was because they hadn't thought to pick a song before then and didn't think very hard about the lyrics beyond the chorus. They're still married 31 years later so no harm no foul.

Yeah, I guess the Pet Shop Boys' version is the "least dickish" version, but god, that song... "hey, maybe I was a dick to you, but if it's any consolation, you were always on my mind"... jesus.

The Monkees - "I Wanna Be Free". Davy Jones sounds like an insincere douche on a number of Monkees songs, but this one take the douchecake.

I get this vibe from Paul Weller's 'I Should Have Been There To Inspire You' for some reason.

Jack Jones - "Wives and Lovers" to thread.

city and colour - "girl"

part emotional blackmail, part justification for being less than an equal partner in a relationship

'Norwegian Wood', The Beatles. Narrator tries not to come off as a serious dick while describing a situation in which he was at least a moderate dick, still manages to come off as a serious dick.

'(It Looks Like) I'll Never Fall In Love Again', Tom Jones. Singer has split with someone after they cheated on him, but goes about recounting it in such a melodramatically self serving narcissistic way that the audience suspects that they're not hearing the whole story, and that the singer is, in fact, a serious dick.

'Sunny Afternoon', The Kinks. Rich shitbag asks you to feel sorry for him, thereby coming off as a serious dick.

Woman is the Nigger of the World.

lots of John Lennon songs fit the bill here tbh

I wonder if you can, Charlie.

haha yeah, that one is particularly sanctimonious.

Jealous Guy is an interesting one. he's acknowledging that he's been a serious dick, without realising that new levels of serious dickery are expressed within the framework of his apology/ justification.

Jealous Guy... Oh man couldn't the defeners pick a better video to comment in? I'd be wary of people who don't see the passive aggressiveness there... though I can't say I'm any better for loving Lightfoot's I'm not Sayin' because I emphasize with him 'fessing up to being a dick.

Oh how could I forget... The Mountain Goats - Going to Georgia. Though to give credit where it's due he's stopped playing it live despite being one of his most popular songs.

("The Stalker's Anthem")

Neil Young's Down By The River.
Wherein Neil bewails being alone because he's killed his baby. Trying to think if its actually adressed to her too.

the entire first big pink album, though maybe it was intentional i dunno

Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To My Lovely. The pathetic whine of someone who resents that the subject of the song made something of their life while he didn't. The attempt at caustic truth-telling comes across as nothing more than burning jealousy. I hate that fucking song.

for a laugh, ah ha-ha-ha

"Every Breath You Take", if "dick" can also be used for a creepy stalker.

'Rio', Duran Duran

"Let My Love Open the Door" ("you're so lucky I'm around")

Although Townshend is a devotee to the religious guru Meher Baba, he claimed in the liner notes of his Anthology CD that "Jesus sings" on the track.[3]

Yeah, I guess the Pet Shop Boys' version is the "least dickish" version, but god, that song... "hey, maybe I was a dick to you, but if it's any consolation, you were always on my mind"... jesus.

― You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart (Turrican),

The keys are the melodies and Tennant's voice. To me he does sound like he cares about the guy on the "Tellllll meeeeee/tell me that your sweet love hasn't died." otoh the "Maybe IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII didn't love you" as the song fades is cold!

Townshend uses pop song romantic love as a proxy for spiritual love a lot, but this just made me realize that a lot of songs about "spiritual love" make the singer sound like a serious dick.

Might be why gospel is best delivered in harmony

xp see Prince's 'I Would Die 4 U'

a lot of songs about "spiritual love" make the singer sound like a serious dick.

many songs about spiritual love are about the singer's dick.

I always heard "Always on My Mind" as expressing regret for being a dick.

which version? Willie Nelson's def.

I don't think "Every Breath You Take" counts, Tuomas.

The lyrics are the words of a sinister, controlling character, who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make". Essentially, it is a song about stalking.

I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.

—Sting[7]

Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it's about the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy and surveillance that follow. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"[8] When asked why he appears angry in the music video Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite."[9]

Don't think Neil Young's "Down By The River" counts either.

How about God Only Knows?

Jealous Guy is an interesting one. he's acknowledging that he's been a serious dick, without realising that new levels of serious dickery are expressed within the framework of his apology/ justification.

totally. see also the spoken-word part in "Confessions Part II":

This by far is the hardest thing I think I've ever had to do
To tell you, the woman I love
That I'm having a baby by a woman that I barely even know
I hope you can accept the fact that I'm man enough to tell you this
And hopefully you'll give me another chance

^^ sheesh, that's awful.

re: God Only Knows: never found the speaker all that off-putting personally. naive, yes. melodramatic, check. selfish even, if i'm stretched. but mostly i just find it to be inspirited with the elation of young love.

I don't think "Every Breath You Take" counts, Tuomas.

Not Tuomas but I'm not totally clear on what the thread is asking for. In this case, the songwriter intended for the song to be from the perspective of a serious dick; I'm not sure that the protagonist himself realizes this, though.

I disagree with "God Only Knows" but surely "Caroline No" fits. Especially when hearing about the reaction his girlfriend had to it.

One of the reasons I love the p!nk song with funguy is that the character funguy portrays is such a dick! Not sure if that's intentional. It must be, surely.

Also that Olly Murs song "dear darlin, please excuse my writing - I can't stop my hands from shaking, cause I'm cold and alone tonight" is amazing and hilarious passive-aggression

Eric Clapton, "Wonderful Tonight."

Paul Anka, "Havin' My Baby." What a lovely way of saying how much you love me.

TLC "No Scrubs"

The guy the car hollering might be a dick but TLC sound like dicks too. I think there was a thread about it.

There was a reply song called 'No Pigeons' which managed to be worse.

"Oh yes son, I'm talking to you"

Basically, TLC are Brian Clough.

Under My Thumb fer sure.

Oh, god, I just heard 'No Pigeons' for the first time a week or so ago. Possibly one of the worst charting songs I've ever heard.

Heart 'All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You'

Jessie Jae 'Who's Laughing Now?'
Stereophonics 'Mr Writer'

I think Under My Thumb is definitely intentional.

great thread

"About a Girl" by Nirvana. always read to me as really passive aggressive and dismissive. Tracy Marander asked Cobain why he'd written songs about The Andy Griffith Show, masturbation, and every bodily fluid imaginable, but none about her. Cobain never told Marander the song was about her. "I can't see you every night for free" is him complaining about having to do chores ffs. the whole thing reads like a putdown, even a breakup letter.

"I need an easy friend
I do, with an ear to lend
I don't think you fit this shoe
I do, won't you have a clue"

Nirvana is a good one. Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies always struck me as passive aggressive and whiny.

heart shaped box is a really nasty song . all apologies is definitely unintentionally dickish though. honestly about a girl seems like an intentional put down too

Yeah, Heart Shaped Box is unquestionably nasty, so I guess it's not unintentionally dickish, although I always got the sense of righteousness from it. Like, yeah, I'm being a dick but I have every good reason for being a dick. Subtle distinction.

just the way you are - billy joel

but he kinda rolls with dickish generally anyway, like henley

God Only Knows.

(I kid, I kid)

Tony Christie - Avenues and Alleyways - i enjoy it as a portrait of psychotic & patronising macho vigilante

Boyz II Men, End of the Road.

k, i'm gonna come out in defence of Rio. the way i've always thought about it, the singer is bringing the character of Rio to life with each new image he introduces, creating her from scratch and embellishing her with substance and meaning in a similar way to a painter applying paints to fill a canvas. she emerges as striking and radiant -- a kind of beau ideal that didn't exist until the lyrics came together to celebrate her story. i think the singer has earned the entitlement to direct the song wherever he wishes, without straying into the dick category, given that Rio is a product of his imagination.

Oh, I've got one! Sing of Me, I'm Dying of Thirst. The way the dissenting voice is undercut in the second verse seems unintentionally dickish to me.

xp I imagined it as being sung from the point of view of a celebrity stalker

yeah, the whole "i've seen you on the beach..." verse probably does support your argument.

Oh, here's a good one:

The Kinks: Mindless Child of Motherhood

In which Dave Davies chastises some girl for ruining a good thing with him "to bear a bastard son."

Mindless child of motherhood/you have lost the thing that's good.

You're Having My Baby?

In which Dave Davies chastises some girl for ruining a good thing with him "to bear a bastard son."

If i recall correctly, in his book, he says it's about a girl that he was torn apart from by circumstance, not a girl who left him. she was pregnant with his child. He wrote a few songs about her, actually, including "Susanna's Still Alive."

always felt this way about 'the worst that could happen', like, am i supposed to sympathize with this self-centered asshole?

Ha yea that's a good one.

MAYbe it's the best thing.... FOR YOU

It has been stated that, along with "MacArthur Park" and "By The Time I Get to Phoenix", "The Worst That Could Happen" is about a relationship that Webb had had with a woman named Susan.[2] (...)

The song appeared on the list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks specifically and inexplicably listing the Johnny Maestro & The Brooklyn Bridge version, but not the 5th Dimension version, despite their note-for-note similarity.

The "without meaning to" criterion is not being observed. "Sunny Afternoon"? "All Apologies"? "Always on My Mind"? Look, ARIZONA. Songs where the singer is utterly clueless of anything except his own serene unquestioned rightness. No ironic distance, no apologies - because what would there even be to apologize for?

"Having My Baby" is a good one. "Teach Your Children" invites everyone of a certain age & outlook to join in: just look at them and sigh.

"Leaving on a Jet Plane," especially when sung by a man.

Why especially?

It's terrible the way he's making the taxi driver wait and stuff.

"So many times I've played around... they don't mean a thing."

Because infidelity is only a problem if you give a shit about your mistresses?

Hey, babe, my many previous flings were just meaningless flings. So don't even worry about them, or worry about the fact that I'm currently going out of town again for an unspecified period of time. So, just to reiterate, I don't plan to cheat on you, but even if I did, it wouldn't be with someone MEANINGFUL or anything like that. Either way - tell me you'll wait for me. With your legs closed.

Maybe. Just guessing here.

"two sisters" seems pretty dickish if you don't know ray davies' family history.

"Getting Better" has the lines "I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved", a little much for a feel-good tune

that shitty Sergio Mendes ballad "Never Gonna Let You Go". whole thing is pretty much shorthand for - "aww fuck I left you and realized I didn't want to. sorry bout that. But hey, good news, I'm ready to come back to you now, so just wanted to let you know we're back on".

call your girlfriend to thread

Love the school of song criticism where somebody says "this is this kind of song" and then proceeds to criticize it for not being a good example of the type of song the critic just said it is. Kind of a win win for the critic there.

Ha, yeah, a song where someone openly admits "I used to be cruel" doesn't seem like an example of "coming off as a serious dick without meaning to".

If 'unreliable narrator' songs, where the singer knows the protagonist is a dick but the protagonist doesn't, count, then "Somebody I Used to Know" seems like an obvious answer.

It was early morning yesterday, I was up before the dawn
And I really have enjoyed my stay but I must be moving on
Like a king without a castle, like a queen without a throne
I'm an early morning lover and I must be moving on

Just because someone is aware of past dickishness doesn't mean they realize how shallow and dickish their *current* gesture

is

agreed.

"Call Your Girlfriend" is tough though b/c I feel like the performance/arrangement is so sad and aware of the hopelessness of the entire situation - it's like Robyn is aspiring to having this dickish blase world-wise attitude and providing the cheating partner with just the right things to say, but she makes clear she doesn't really believe any of it or that any of these three characters is going to be happy at the end. Different category of thing IMO, if not quite in the "the whole plot is that the protagonist is evil" a la "Every Breath You Take" or "Somebody That I Used To Know."

'Thank You Very Much' by Kaiser Chiefs. I can't help but wonder how they feel about that song now that hardly anyone gives a shit about 'em.

But I mean, what would make the protagonist in "Getting Better" less dickish, if not admitting his past mistakes and anger issues and saying he's trying to change?

I guess the thing is that the character thinks that just talking about his past ways, and saying he's doing better now, makes it all better. Which maybe flew for a second in 1967 (?) but certainly doesn't square right now - it's a pretty fucking easy redemption for an apparent past pattern of horrible cruelty! For me at least, the thread concept is really tied up with a certain kind of "sensitive male" voice/persona/character, which is probably why a lot of the key examples come from the late 60s and 70s... lotta overlap with blithe hippie dudes figuring that if they're free-thinking, they've pretty much solved it all and can't possibly still be assholes.

"but certainly doesn't square right now.

i.e. now we can parrot ideas that previous peoples actually had to risk something to make real & act like it's real obvious cuz we're so awesomely aware.

you'll have to show me where "it" says either:

1. "Getting Better" is a "feel-good tune"

2. that saying he's doing better now (or actually "doing the best that I can"): "makes it all better"

Good luck.

Oh hey I came up with an improvement on the "Leaving" lyrics:

"So kiss me and smile for me / Sleep with anyone you want"

Because nobody in a relationship doesn't like to be told that.

Come correct everybody.

You're very cranky about this.

The Byrds - Triad

I hear "Getting Better" the same way as Vic, I think. I never thought of "I've got to admit it's getting better/It gets a little better all the time/(It couldn't get much worse)" as a blithe feel-good sentiment.

"C is for Cookie". There are 25 other letters in the alphabet you furry blue myopic fuck

OTM. Chocolate also not getting recognized.

"You're very cranky about this."

No, I'm utterly psychotic about this. I may be a dick.

time to write a song

Can't believe nobody's said Diane by Husker Du yet. What a dick that narrator is.

Oh hey I came up with an improvement on the "Leaving" lyrics:

"So kiss me and smile for me / Sleep with anyone you want"

Because nobody in a relationship doesn't like to be told that.

cf. "Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues"

Yes thank you. Not sure either that I'll go so far as to tell Elton John's girl to wait for him.

However. A certain tendency so far would threaten to turn Sting and Stills with "If you love somebody set them free" & "Love the one you're with" into nondix

ARE YOU PREPARED TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE STING AND STILLS ARE NONDIX ?

Descendents - I'm the One

"stay" by pink floyd- the narrator spends the first half of the song trying to get a girl to sleep with him, and the second half of the song trying to get rid of her. that's pretty dickish. "octopus" by vdgg has kind of the same trajectory but that song at least is balanced out by narrator's horror that he's spent all this time trying to get to know this girl 'cos she's cute and then finds out that he's repelled by her personality.

vdgg song is all about the narrator, not the object, imo, and is quite a mature & cynical self-criticism from someone in their early 20s

although he was clearly dick enough that his wife left him & took the kid(s) a bit later so idk, self-absorbed intense soi-disant poet possibly not the most empathetic

"but certainly doesn't square right now.

i.e. now we can parrot ideas that previous peoples actually had to risk something to make real & act like it's real obvious cuz we're so awesomely aware.

― Vic Perry, Monday, March 30, 2015 9:09 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you'll have to show me where "it" says either:

1. "Getting Better" is a "feel-good tune"

2. that saying he's doing better now (or actually "doing the best that I can"): "makes it all better"

Good luck.

― Vic Perry, Monday, March 30, 2015 9:13 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW I have no idea why you're being so intense and weird about this, but it doesn't really make me feel like responding. I'm down with a friendly discussion of Beatles lyrics/performances and whether they seem dickish or not, or even a meta-discussion of what it is to apply present-day mores to forty-eight-year-old pop lyrics, but not if it's going to be some AOL messageboard sneerfest deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5o0I0faJAI

Okay, I could be friendlier about serious dicks.

Jack White's songs, in general?

Tangential thought in re "Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues": Until recently, my wife charmingly misheard the lyric "rolling like thunder" as "rolling like flounder."

That really is charming! and how I shall sing the song from this day forward.

Les Boys - Dire Straits

very relieved to see vic perry sticking up so bravely for that immensely underrated band, the beatles, and their enormously overlooked and unfairly criticized sgt pepper album

lol

straw dicking

is that anything like shrimping

no but shrimpdicking sounds like something to try too

Posts where the poster advocates shrimping serious dick and totally means to

like butterfly shrimp?

mark my words, surgical procedure for butterfly dick = future fad

Vic perry, more like dick parry the saxophonist for pink floyd

It's hard to know whether Lou Christie's Lightnin' Strikes was intended as a parody of the Neanderthal sexual politics of the era, or if the egregious douchebag portrayed in the lyric was supposed to be appealingly roguish.
Either way, great song.

xxxp - if you're talking Dire Straits, then the "everyday bloke" speaking in Money For Nothing comes across as a hell of a dick. I'm not sure he cares. Written by both Knopfler and Sting you have to hope they didn't share the same beliefs. I think?

What about 'one of us' by ABBA? always loved the song for its musicality but knowing the lyrics were written by the guys for the girls to sing makes me wonder where the stakes were at that point.

speaking of ABBA we only actually "know" the girl in "Does Your Mother Know" is flirting because the pervy older guy says she is

Climax Blues Band, "I Love You."

"Ooh babe, you got what it takes [basically, enabling my alcoholism] so I made you my wife."

heard one of these in a bar earlier tonight: Billy Joel - Tell Her About It. "But a nice girl wouldn't tell you what you should do". ugh

God help me, but this might be the one time I ever defend Billy Joel. I wouldn't say it's in any way good, and that line could've been phrased more elegantly, but the lyrics of that song are about as far from dickish as it gets (facilitate communication with your partner, don't rely on her to remind you that you need to communicate, do what you can to shore up trust). A more a propos title for the Innocent Man album might've been Couples Therapy.

xxxxxp that's more like Knopfler and Sting's self-congratulatory projection of what ordinary shmucks who deliver microwave ovens for a living and suchlike, must think about rock stars.

guess i'm not suggesting that the sentiment of the song itself is particularly dickish; his intentions are sincere, i get it. it's just so smug and presumptuous. even if i needed that kind of advice, i wouldn't want it laid out to me like that.

x-post

BB otm altho iirc the claim is that the lyrics were taken pretty much verbatim from a real-life prole observed in the wild. Christ that song is horrible. I only discovered earlier this year that the full version is like 15 minutes long & features repeated use of the word "faggot", that was a shit day :-(

xpost Yes, the idea that he's the one who has it all figured out is a little dickish on BJ's part, I will agree.

to Vast Halo:

Indeed!!! with Lightnin' Strikes. Glad you brought this one up, because this sent me off for Lou Christie info. I already loved the hit singles, especially "I'm gonna make you mine," but what a career!

In terms of the awareness of the sexual double-standard question, I presume total awareness. Not least of the reasons for this is finding out that his career-long co-writer, Twyla Herbert, was a woman in her mid-40s - I have to figure she knew exactly what she was doing. Not that I necessarily needed this info - the lyrical juxtapositions are so startling that nobody could miss the irony.

Very sad that nobody seems to have interviewed Twyla herself before she died in 2009. Did anyone try?

Oh, and the guitar solo is Velvet Underground worthy.

despite the title's claim, "I Don't Care Anymore" sounds like it is being shouted in a back garden at 3am in violation of a restraining order

it's just so smug and presumptuous. even if i needed that kind of advice, i wouldn't want it laid out to me like that.

'Tell Her About It' being framed as advice to his younger self makes it seem a bit less dickish imo ('you know I don't like watching anybody make the same mistakes I made')

Agree 'Just The Way You Are' is indefensible, tho

I'd prefer to think he really is singing that song to a clown mask on a pillow.

I only discovered earlier this year that the full version is like 15 minutes long & features repeated use of the word "faggot", that was a shit day :-(

― Finn McCoolit (wins), Saturday, April 4, 2015 10:57 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Money for Nothing" was routinely aired uncensored when the song was new, but I haven't heard it without "faggot" being bleeped out in the last decade. Every live version I've heard, even from when the record was still new, changes it to "queenie".

I love 'Money for Nothing', I should stop reading this thread before I feel compelled to defend all the songs that are being mentioned

has this article been linked to on ilx yet?

http://africasacountry.com/the-unexpected-popularity-of-dire-straits-in-north-african-tuareg-communities/

I had no idea that the unedited "Money for Nothing" was slipping out of familiarity! There was an outcry when the broadcasting industry association proposed a ban four years ago. I kind of love the song in its dickish self-congratulation but it's def dickish.

supposedly Knopfler took all of the lyrics from shit he heard in a Montgomery Ward's or something one afternoon. conversations he heard people having in the television section I think

Ha, the story is quoted in the decision that I just found, which was softened after any outcry:

The lead character in “Money for Nothing” is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He’s singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real. It just went better with the song, it was more muscular. I actually used “little faggot,” but there are a couple of good “motherfuckers” in there. I wanted to do a second version that way but I never had time. I’d still love to be able to do it. Even if just the band had it, because it would be the real version. I mean that is the way people speak. I think people still get the general idea. You can use other words that will suggest the general feel.

It also has to do with the context in which a song’s received. If we walk into a hardware store and hear someone say, “Look at that motherfucker” it means nothing to us, but if you hear it in a pop song …

If you hear it in New York it means nothing. If you’re living in Tallahassee then maybe it’s a different thing. There is no way that I would expect people to receive all that in the spirit in which it was intended. They’d probably think I was just being vulgar.

http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2011/110831.php

*an outcry

M. Parkinson: Tell me about “Money for Nothing”, which is one of the most famous songs you wrote and where that came from.

M. Knopfler: Well, I was in New York, and I was in a, in a, in a kitchen appliance store, um, ah, there you go, like you are, you know [laughter in the crowd], and it had a window. There was a kitchen display in the window and there’d be a row of microwaves or, you know, cupboards and things like that, and, at the back of the store, there was a big wall of televisions, all, all tuned to MTV. And, um, there was some bonehead who worked for the store, a great big macho guy with a, you know with a checked shirt on and a cap and a pair of work boots, and he had been delivering stuff at the back and he, so he was watching MTV, and he was saying all these great lines about, you know, “that ain’t working” you know, “that’s the way you do it”, stuff like that, “what’s that Hawaiian noises”, he was saying. So, I just thought it was so classic, that I went and asked for a pen and paper and started writing the lines down, you know? And then when I started putting it to music, again that whole finger and thumb thing [Mark Knopfler started playing his guitar on stage while sitting next to the host. The familiar sound of the opening rhythm of “Money for Nothing” can be heard with clapping in the background].

Minor point of information on "Money for Nothing."

My understanding has always been that the story behind Sting's involvement is as follows: he was brought in to sing backing vocals. He ended up singing the "I want my MTV" bit using a bit of melody from "Don't Stand So Close to Me," hence is co-writer credit.

Ah, those chummy days when globally famous millionaires calculatedly wanted to be just dudes hanging out.

On Easter, I happened to be in a Christian church where they sang "Oh death, where is thy sting?" And all I could think about was the Joe Queenan line, "Oh Sting, where is thy death?"

Agree 'Just The Way You Are' is indefensible, tho

I once read an interview in which Joel mentioned that although he feels compelled to perform it when he plays live, he hates singing Just the Way You Are, because "I divorced the woman I wrote it for".
I admired his honesty, I must say; it's so rare for stars of his calibre to demonstrate any semblance of self-awareness.

lol

has enough time passed to put all of The 20/20 Experience here?

If the Temptations sang "Beauty is Only Skin Deep" to a woman's face they'd get slapped, I think today they would get charged with bullying or harassment or something it is so mean

The protagonist in that song basically says "you don't have a pretty face but I don't care; you're a great person and that means more to me". Most people wouldn't be that blunt, it's true, but I don't see how it could be seen as bullying or harassment. If anything, the fact that it seems mean probably reflects the amount of importance we place on a woman's appearance. (It wouldn't seem as harsh if a woman sang it to a man, I don't think.)

That little Clampett got his own cement pond
That little Clampett, he's a millionaire

The protagonist in that song basically says "you don't have a pretty face but I don't care; you're a great person and that means more to me". Most people wouldn't be that blunt, it's true, but I don't see how it could be seen as bullying or harassment. If anything, the fact that it seems mean probably reflects the amount of importance we place on a woman's appearance. (It wouldn't seem as harsh if a woman sang it to a man, I don't think.)

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, April 7, 2015 1:13 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe? no one seems to mind my funny valentine sung to either genre

My Funny Valentine has the singer addressing him/herself - sung into a mirror basically.

maybe originally but it's doubtful every one of the 3287893 total performers took that interpretation

I recall Charles Willeford's main character (not a nice man by the way) in Burnt Orange Heresy (1971) found it incredible that anyone could regard that song (MFV) as anything but thinly veiled aggression. I'm sure he phrased it more interestingly than that, but I don't have the book in front of me.

It's well known to be an expression of Lorenz Hart's self-loathing. When it's sung by a man it's about the man. When it's sung by a woman - it's still about the man. The preamble part of the song which is usually not sung establishes that it's about a "gent".

When it's sung by a man it's about the man. When it's sung by a woman - it's still about the man.

― everything, Tuesday, April 7, 2015 2:02 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the height of undickishness

"the preamble part of the song which is usually not sung"

Not to go on about it unnecessarily, but I do think it's a fascinating lyric. It really does make more sense, when sung by a man, to be be interpreted as introspective self-mockery.

The first time I heard this song was as the b-side of Oliver's Army - I used to listen to it a lot. The a-side of the single is credited to Elvis Costello and the Attractions while the b-side is just credited to Elvis Costello. So there's a sickly-looking, anti-glamour icon of self-loathing, isolated from his gang. Not that E.C. doesn't have more than his fair share of passive aggressive attack songs but he's also self-critical and in this case I'm pretty sure he was deliberately trying to interpret the song as being about himself.

The preamble part of the song also establishes that the protagonist views the subject with admiration and that the later part is generally good-natured. Take it or leave it - if it's omitted as it almost always is, then it unimportant but it does display the songwriter's original intended tone.

"Behold the way our fine feathered friend,
His virtue doth parade
Thou knowest not, my dim-witted friend
The picture thou hast made
Thy vacant brow, and thy tousled hair
Conceal thy good intent
Thou noble upright truthful sincere,
And slightly dopey gent"

Is the preamble really usually omitted? Ella Fitzgerald included it, which for me feels like the definitive reading.

It's hard to find any other versions with it except for Ella and the original take from the movie Babes in Arms.

I was obviously being facetious about the bullying/harassment thing

The moral of the song isn't wrong but I would say a guy telling his girl "a pretty face you may not possess" is a dick move you can't argue with

I woulda said "More Than Words" but I sure would hope they had at least an inkling of how shitty they were being

I was obviously being facetious about the bullying/harassment thing

Ha, wasn't sure.

"Spaceboy" by the Smashing Pumpkins. a song ostensibly about/dedicated to Bill Corgan's younger brother Jesse. he was born with a developmental disability and Bill had to take care of him quite a bit. he related his own sense of abandonment and isolation to his handicapped brother, who was bullied and insulted by people of all ages constantly, in front of both of them. i always thought it was sort of tin-eared and in bad taste to compare being the weird kid to having a chromosomal disorder.

Not to go on about it unnecessarily, but I do think it's a fascinating lyric. It really does make more sense, when sung by a man, to be be interpreted as introspective self-mockery.

― everything, Tuesday, April 7, 2015 2:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was also being somewhat facetious but as someone who's been on the receiving end of dudes filtering everything about how they relate to others through their own introspective self-mockery/loathing, it truly is the absolute height and pinnacle of dickishness even before it inevitably collapses into overt dickishness

Poor you.

If you're triggered by anything expressing or inspired by introspection or self-deprecation then there's a hell of a lot of popular music that you'll have to avoid.

apologies for pointing out instances of singers inadvertently coming off as dicks in the singers inadvertently coming off as dicks thread

Self-loathing introverts are such assholes, right

when that self-loathing is projected onto other people, then yes

'fraid so. Self-loathing does very often correlate with other-people-loathing. Bitter comedian examples available by the bucketful.

Thanks ILX, never knew Ella Fitzgerald was such an asshole.

"Poor you."

everything you are insufferable

new ILE board description

everything, more like dick parry the saxophonist for pink floyd

this, the most meta of threads

Jay-Z - Song Cry is ultra dickish. But you already knew that.

"Lodi" by CCR.

If I only had a dollar
For every song I've sung
Every time I had to play
While people sat there drunk

OH I'M SORRY, I didn't realize I was supposed to sit there in hushed reverence for your small-town barroom blues horseshit

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks.

Just like a typical entitled white male, expecting his poor girl to go look for him after he goes venturing in the fucking slipstream. Then he shames her into kissing his eyes? EWWWWWWWWWW!

"Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones is pretty misogynistic.

I basically find "Lodi" guy sympathetic, but that might be informed by a low-end dive bar's karaoke night I used to attend where it was a favorite song choice of one of the sad-sack bartender/owners, and he'd change it to "while you just sat there drunk."

most of Rubber Soul

After 7 - "Heat Of The Moment". A song that almost sounds like an expression of regret for being unfaithful until you realize he's singing it to the woman that he's apparently still boffing on the side.

Syreeta - "I Love Every Little Thing About You", specifically the incongruent line about holding God in higher esteem than the person she's singing about. It's like writing a letter to your mom to tell her how wonderful she is and how much you appreciate her but also just pointing out real quick that your dad is a better parent.

Badfinger's "Baby Blue" is a song-length study in a lame non-apology that shifts most of the actual blame onto the love interest for not giving him more credit: "Didn't know you'd think that I'd forget," "Did you really think I'd do you wrong," "Thought you'd realize that I would know," "How can I show you? Show me the way" -- all kinda standard stuff, but when piled up in succession you realize he basically hasn't said anything else and we're supposed to be real impressed by this. In this light, the last verse beginning with "Guess that's all I have to say" becomes downright hilarious.

Stroke 9, "Little Back Backpack" - for the entire plot, but especially the climactic outburst Your mind is lined with layers of lead / HAVE YOU HEARD ONE THING THAT I SAID?!

Richard Marx - "Hold on to the Nights". mostly "Well, I think that I've been true to everybody else but me" - aw someone hates monogamy

A sub-genre of this: 70s singer-songwriter types devoting whole songs to telling an acquaintance (usually male) how they're living their whole life wrong or in a phony dream world, or in an insufficiently liberated fashion. E.g. Hall and Oates "Laughing Boy" and "Lazyman," or Billy Joel "Angry Young Man," "James," "Captain Jack" sorta, etc.

(Obviously, all descendants of "Nowhere Man" and by extension, "Ballad of a Thin Man"-type Dylan. Simon & Garfunkel must have a couple of these that aren't coming immediately to mind.)

Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime

although it's such a braindead song I'm not sure you can say the speaker "means" to be anything

"Don't Think Twice It's Alright" is one where I really have a hard time sympathizing with the speaker -- he sounds like such a mean and bitter person beneath all the maudlin self-pity.

I think Dylan totally means to be a dick though

A lot of those "I'm an early mornin' lover and I must be movin' on" songs fit into this: "Goodbye Stranger" etc.

Xp For sure but I always took it as self-righteous or justified dickery in the speaker's eyes.

I always sort of assumed that the speaker in "Goodbye Stranger" was recognizing his dickishness but maybe I'm projecting.

A lot of Dylan songs could be retitled "You're So Dumb"

lol yes

hahahaha

Dumb ones got it in for me,
You're printin' dumb stuff in the preeeeeeeess

btw this is slightly off-topic but I recently discovered that a fun way to enjoy listening to the song "You're So Vain" is, after she sings "You're so vain!", you ad-lib a sexy "How vain am I, girl?"

lol

If God was here, He'd tell you to your face,
Man, you're some kinda sinner!

To be fair, that protagonist spends the entire running time of the song coming off as a dick.

I feel like he's at least in a gray area in certain moments. I mean, whoever sat down and wrote out the sign saying "Long-Haired Freaky People NEED NOT APPLY!" was kind of asking for it. But it's definitely true that the character is trying to troll these people so maybe "not meaning to" is off base.

Queen - 'Don't Try Suicide'

Stevie Wonder's "Superwoman(Where were you when I need you)" fits right in here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-ohttPIqco

The first part of the song is all just belittling Mary/Syreeta for her ambitions, and the second part is whining about how she's become successful and left him on his own. Aw, boo-hoo mate.

Despite the sentiments I still think it's a great song, though

I feel a similar tension with a number of Beach Boys songs (e.g. 'Caroline, No') that are simultaneously gorgeous and lyrically dickish.

Hi, I just thought of one;

Are You Sure - The Allisons

This was the british eurovision entry in 1958 or whatever. The singer/protagonist has basically been given his marching orders, so to amuse himself he says goodbye in a number of different languages in an off-hand manor, and then tells the girl that she's bound to have regrets by the following day, and how miserable she will be. On the other hand, he's indifferent to it all but is basically giving her one last chance to change her mind. See, Phil in "Don't you want me" is casting himself as the swine, whereas in this they are casting themselves as concerned but mature fellas. But they are actually dicks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_9L2XZ-0Xk

1961, beg puddin'

The whole of Pet Sounds is passive-aggressive dickishness, isn't it? I think that's one of the reasons I've never really liked it.

There's a strain of conservative chauvinism running through the entire Beach Boys catalogue. 'Hey Little Tomboy' is another example that immediately comes to mind.

"Ballad of Ole' Betsy" has got to be the worst of those:

"Betsy was a lady and that she will remain/
Betsy took some beatings but she never once complained"

Yes I realize Betsy is just a *car*, but the implications couldn't be any more obvious

(and that would have otherwise been such a nice song in that campy, corny, yet lovable early Beach Boys style)

The whole of Pet Sounds is passive-aggressive dickishness, isn't it? I think that's one of the reasons I've never really liked it.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, October 8, 2015 7:44 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I do like it, but there's something a little bit M'lady about the speaker in most of the songs, and it kind of walks the line between coming of age and just sexual/relational stuntedness, which is also maybe hard for me to separate in my mind from Brian Wilson's own persona.

You could also read "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)" as slightly dickish.

Again, fine line between the romance of silence and "I don't feel like listening to you, woman"

There's a strain of conservative chauvinism running through the entire Beach Boys catalogue. 'Hey Little Tomboy' is another example that immediately comes to mind.

― Skin Boherts (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:47 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How had I never heard of this until now? Wow, this is the dregs.

TBF, the bulk of their post-Love You discography is pretty much the dregs, if for generally less creepy reasons.

How Deep Is Your Love is pretty unpleasant.

Bee Gees or Calvin Harris?

Bee Gees (although it was hearing the Take That cover that made me mention it).

Paul Simon - "Something So Right"

I guess Simon is going for a humble and self-aware persona but ends up sounding conceited imo:

When something goes wrong
I'm the first to admit it
...when something goes right
well it's likely to lose me

Drake's whole lyrical persona on his weepies sort of rides that "the dickishness is meant to be visible here" line, but "Hotline Bling" really is just gross as all hell.

38 Special - Second Chance

the smug "why can't we forget about the past" when it is significantly more work for the wronged party

"please forgive me, and forget it, I was wrong and I admit it" - wow, how big of you

"this heart needs a second chance" - most annoying chorus ever

red house painters, "cruiser", due to this verse:

Won't you whisper in my ear?
You look so good against my mirror
And you're my baby full of joy
You're my erotic brown eyed toy
You're my exotic black haired toy

'Are you sure?' By The Allisons might be the earliest one here.

She wants to break up, he's very 'oh well never mind' and telling her she might want him back tomorrow. Its the non-committal lyric and delivery (and the 'funny' way of saying goodbye in various ways and languages) that add to the unintended dickishness

Strange that "You Were Always On My Mind" is mentioned upthread. Isn't the entire point of the song an admission of guilt?

Yes.

"The Dangling Conversation," Simon & Garfunkel. Maybe more of a douche than a dick.

I would say "Take Good Care of My Baby" is pretty sweet until this o_O line:

"So, take good care of my baby
Be just as kind as you can be
And if you should discover
That you don't really love her
Just send my baby back home to me"

Oh yeah, that's a good one.

prolly mentioned, but 10cc - i'm not in love

"Into The Night" by Benny Mardones comes to mind. "She's just sixteen years old, leave her alone, they say." I had to google him to see if he wound up in prison.

Christ, it gets even worse as the song progresses:

She's just sixteen years old
Leave her alone, they say
Separated by fools
Who don't know what love is yet

But I want you to know
If I could fly
I'd pick you up
I'd take you into the night
And show you a love
Like you've never seen - ever seen.

It's like having a dream
Where nobody has a heart
It's like having it all
And watching it fall apart
And I would wait till the end of time for you
And do it again, it's true
I can't…

if you haven't seen this thread:

benny mardones - "into the night" 1980 version vs. 1989 version

haha that thread is classic

Benny is now married to a former Miss Denmark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8jYIvd6O1Y

So weird, I was gonna revive this earlier today but saw that Lou Christie's 'Lightning Strikes' was already mentioned. 'Please wait for me, because you're totally the woman I want to settle down with. It's just that I have a loooot of other chicks to bone before that day comes. You understand.'

Ctrl+F 'Weezer'.. 0 results?! If we're talking dickish as in being completely misogynist and objectifying, Cuomo takes the cake:

I know that you're thinking I'm trying to score
But deep in your heart you know that I'm more
Than a cad or a scoundrel, now that I've found you
I don't want to lose you, how can I prove to you
That I am sincere, you don't need to fear
I'm not like the others, I'll be like a brother
I will protect you, never disrespect you
But if you need love then I'll be here to sex you

And

I'm so glad I got a girl to think of even though she isn't mine
I think about her all the day and all the night it's enough to know that she's alive
She says I give her sweaty palms she almost had a heart attack
The truth is that I’m just as scared I don’t know how to act
I wish that I could get to know her better
But meeting up in real life would cause the illusion to shatter
I carved her name into all the trees
Sang a song down on one knee
Looking at the underwear page of the Sears catalog like when I was 14
I’m levitating like a magnet turned the wrong way around
I’m like an Indian Fakir tryna’ meditate on a bed of nails with my pants pulled down

All of 'Accross the Sea' etc etc etc

The Stone Poneys - If I Were You

If I were you
I'd be happy just knowing that
Somebody loved me
If I were you
I'd be sad that somebody was
Lonely without me
If I were you
I know just what I would do
I'd fall in love too

If I were you
I'd have been in love all along
And for a song I'd just up and leave
Everything that I had behind
I wouldn't mind it
If I were you
I know just what I would do
I'd fall in love too

I believe
A love like mine
Just can't be taken lightly
And in time it will win you over
You will see
That my love won't wither like the others
You're never going to get a better offer

If I were you
Then I wouldn't cry all the time
I'd open my eyes and I would see
There is someone so in love with me
That's all that I need
If I were you
I know just what I would do
I'd fall in love too

Richard Marx, Hazard

Oh he done it alright

if i were you - the anthem of Nice Guys

kevin ayres, may i

I just came in off the street
Looking for somewhere to eat
I find a small cafe
I see a girl and then I say

May I sit and stare at you for a while?
I'd like the company of your smile

You don't have to say a thing
You're the song without the sing
The sunlight in your hair
You look so good just sitting there

May I sit and stare at you for a while?
I'd like the company of your smile

piss off you creep

wow ewww

Something tells me that his formal request is rhetorical.

no u may not

I'd like the company of your terrified rictus

Haha, I love that song but "piss off you creep" is totally the correct answer.

creepy but also a little sad imo

Any song from the second Weezer album.

And a couple from the first.

And some from the albums after, too.

Surely 'No One Else' is self-aware, OTT dickishness. The fact it's followed up by it's own answer song is revealing

'Butterfly', on the other hand though

Any John Mayer song probably fits this thread. Daughters, Body is a Wonderland, No Such Thing (Because I Am An Affluent White Guy) etc.

WAiting on the world to change would fit even more if it just came out now

"activism just happens, maaaaaan"

bohemian rhapsody

"Session Man" by the Kinks

"He's not paid to think just play"

i get that it's "satire" but that line especially makes Ray Davies seem like a rockist jerk.

he's taking the side of the session man while calling him a brainless tool

plenty of session guys happily agree that they are paid to play and not think. Could probably include Nicky Hopkins in there as well, I would guess, given that he plays on the track and it's about him.

I think it was just cos he hated Jimmy Page

Maybe I'm Amazed -- it starts out fine but I get a very bad vibe from "Maybe I'm a man, maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something/that he doesn't really understand."

When it comes to Kinks songs that make Ray Davies seem like a jerk, 'Session Man' isn't even on the list, IMO.

I don’t know if Lennon qualifies as he always came off as a dick and it seems like he was conscious of it half of the time.

lol, never noticed the bolded line, my suspicion was correct, speaker is a total dick:

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you
Maybe I'm amazed at the the way you pulled me out of time
And hung me on a line
Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you
Maybe I'm a man and maybe I'm a lonely man
Who's in the middle of something
That he doesn't really understand
Maybe I'm a man and maybe you're the only woman
Who could ever help me
Baby won't you help me understand
Maybe I'm a man and maybe I'm a lonely man
Who's in the middle of something
That he doesn't really understand
Maybe I'm a man and maybe you're the only woman
Who could ever help me
Baby won't you help me understand
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I leave you
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me sing my song
Right me when I'm wrong
Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you

I mean it seems to me like the whole song is an elaborate rationalization/apology for using someone and being ambiguous and non-committal when you know they want commitment.

"All Things Must Pass" maybe? I mean, it's beautiful and sounds universal, but it's also, "I dumped you out of the blue, but don't worry, you'll get over it."

Joe OTM

Isn't this really most Wedding Present songs? Or the whinier Field Mice stuff.

working class hero - lennon

Paul Williams - To Put Up With You

Don't think I'm not impressed with your looks
'Cause I think that you look just fine
And don't think that I haven't considered you, girl
Or the fact that you could be mine
Yes I'd like to hang around
But I'll have to let you down
I just haven't got what it takes
To put up with you

Any of the songs like 'Let's Hear It For the Boy' or 'You've Got What It Takes' (I know there are others) wherein the singer celebrates their love by frontloading the song with all of their lover's faults. Thank you for telling the world that I'm an impotent dogface with no sense of rhythm. I love you, too.

Backstreet Boys - As Long As You Love Me

He doesn't care who you are, where you're from, what you did, as long as you love him.

In summary: 'Blah blah blah cool story about that time you went travelling round Australia, now let's screw'

I always heard it as "hey, look, the past is the past. So you've been arrested for stalking a few times. So you went out of your way that one time to hit that cat with your car. I don't hold that against you, baby. Just don't forget my birthday and shit, and we're good."

I always heard it as a confession of having pathologically low standards.

My Lean Baby, sung by Sinatra (lyrics by Roy Alfred) is slightly wtf.

My lean baby - tall and thin
Five feet seven - of bones and skin
But when she tells me maybe she loves me
I feel as mellow as a fellow can be

She's so skinny - she's so drawn
When she stands sideways - you (would) think (that) she's gone
But when she calls me: "baby" - I feel fine
To think she's frantically, romantically mine

She's slender, but she's tender
She makes my heart surrender
And every night, when I hold her tight
The feeling is nice - my arms can go around twice

My lean baby - she's so slim
A broomstick's wider - but not as trim
And when she starts to kiss me - then I know
I love her so, I'll never, ever, let her go

My lean baby - strange to see
And all that nothing - it belongs to me
And though she may be scrawny - she's ok
Because I wouldn't want her any other way

She's so skinny - she's so drawn
When she stands sideways - you (would) think (that) she's gone
But when she calls me: "baby" - I feel fine
To think she's frantically, romantically mine

I chased her - and I caught her
Then a diamond ring - I bought her
(hey) the diamonds shine - the ring is so fine
But here is the twist - she wears it right on her wrist

My lean baby - she's so slim
A broomstick's wider - but not as trim
And when she starts to kiss me - then I know
I love her so, I'll never, ever, let her go

My lean baby - tall and thin...
(do-do-do-do-do,...)

Lobo - Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend

She was gonna be my wife
And I was gonna be her man
But she let another guy come between us
And it shattered our plans

Well, Rhonda you caught my eye
And I can give you lotsa reasons why
You gotta help me Rhonda
Help me get her out of my heart

entire song is about Rhonda being a rebound

yup. and she's just "gotta" provide this emotional labor, cause he's bummed. he does declare that he can give her "lots of reasons why" this might actually be worth her while, but we don't hear them. bummer cause it's an amazing song.

yup, absolutely a rebound.

Barbara Ann is similar in theme. Both see the Beach Boys stumbling around tipsy and desperate at the party, pinning hopes and dreams on various women, believing if they reciprocate then everything will be okay

although i know Barbara Ann isn't an OG BB's song.

"Didn't I (Blow Your Mind)," though obviously a towering classic, is kinda one of these.

Ghostbusters theme.

Look I get what Ray is trying to do. But he's making Janine's job hell.

Look at the reasons he urges you to call:

*Something strange in your neighborhood (Like...a robbery?)

*Something weird and it don't look good (Like a crazy guy ranting with a megaphone?)

*If you're seeing things running through your head (Like...an acid trip?)

*If you're all alone (da fuq?)

Like the only valid reason he gives id the invisible man in the bed. Poor Janine is probably referring customers elsewhere all day

The Turtles, "Happy Together"

(That "My Lean Baby" song is amazing, btw)

From Sammy Johns 1973 hit, "Chevy Van":

"I gave a girl a ride in my wagon
She crawled in and took control
She was tired as her mind was a-draggin'
I said get some sleep and dream of rock'n'roll

'Cause like a princess she was laying there
Moonlight dancing off her hair
She woke up and took me by the hand
She's gonna love me in my Chevy van and that's all right with me

I put her out in a town that was so small
You could throw a rock from end to end
A dirt road main street, she walked off in bare feet
It's a shame I won't be passin' through again"

At least he waited for her to make the first move.

The singer in “Wham Rap” encourages being unemployed and has contempt for working people trying to make ends meet (“Hey jerk, you work. This boy’s got better things to do!”).

Rather that than Mick Jagger's contempt for the unemployed and 'lazy' & belief that work can 'kill poverty' in Let's Work.

pretty sure it turned out he did have better things to do with the time the dole allowed him to develop his skills, too

The dole is a vital part of the nurturing of new artistic talent, its destruction has robbed the country of a good deal of talent, however there will always be normies and no need to be rude to them just for doing their thing, see also Too Much Too Young.

tbf there are like twenty lines of the NPCs attacking and degrading him before he finally snaps in response with the outrageously extreme verbal assault “hey, jerk”

Ha, I didn't know George Michael rapped about the joys of collecting unemployment in 1982.

I’m on Michael’s side here. There are better things for a young person to do with their time than fuck with the toad Work.

tbf there are like twenty lines of the NPCs attacking and degrading him before he finally snaps in response with the outrageously extreme verbal assault “hey, jerk”

This is an amusing comment, but is anyone attacking & degrading him? It sounds like GM is the one an assault most of the time (other than the few lines of ”Get yourself a job!”).

(Also, in the context of the video at least, those few lines of nagging are coming from the protagonist’s parental units.)

love this revive

i often think about how confusing the lyrics to my favorite late period Bee Gees song are:

I couldn't figure why
You couldn't give me what everybody needs
I shouldn't let you kick me when I'm down
My baby
I find out everybody know
That you've been using me
I'm surprised you
Let me stay around you
One day I'm gonna lift the cover
And look inside your heart
We gotta level before we go
And tear this love apart

Chorus:
There's no fight you can't fight
This battle of love with me
You win again
So little time
We do nothing but compete
There's no life on earth
No other could see me through
You win again
Some never try
But if anybody can, we can
And I'll be, I'll be
Following you

Oh girl, oh girl, oh baby I shake you from now on
I'm gonna break down your defenses
One by one
I'm gonna hit you from all sides
Lay your fortress open wide
Nobody stops this body from taking you
You better beware, I swear
I'm gonna be there one day when you fall
I could never let you cast aside
The greatest love of all

(Chorus x 3)

xp Bow Wow Wow did this idea in '81 with "W.O.R.K. (N.O. Nah, No My Daddy Don't)" but I guess their take is more inspirational than insulting unless you take it the wrong way

This is an amusing comment, but is anyone attacking & degrading him? It sounds like GM is the one an assault most of the time (other than the few lines of ”Get yourself a job!”).

I only heard the song today but in this version, the line Mr Snrub quotes comes up pretty early in the song before he even quotes anyone nagging him. The speaker is being a bit of a dick but I also get the feeling that he means to.

Reeling all morning from the Jagger "Let's Work" lyrics. I bet the production sounded very modern coming out of the studio monitors. I'm sure Mick was thinking, "let's knock this out quick, spontaneous, like "Monkey Man", but in the spirit of the day. 'S'not 1969 anymore." And he'd totally forgotten Prince having a "Let's Work" song in his opening set a few years back.

before he even quotes anyone nagging him

he's responding to unquoted criticisms though - "You can't tell me that I'm not," "So you don't approve - well who asked you to?"

Those criticisms may be all in his head, though -- the way I hear it, he's just be projecting them onto the "Hey, everybody" he's addressing.

FTR, here's the original version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyHQgiem8c

In the streets
In the cars
On the underground
If you listen real hard
You can hear the sound
Of a million people
Switching off for work
Well listen Mr. Average
You're a jerk

I'm loving the deep dive into Wham! lyrics, but as someone else commented, I think GM does actually mean to come off like a dick.

"Young Guns", from the same album, mines similar anti-norm territory:

When I saw that girl upon your arm,
I knew she won your heart with a fatal charm.
I said "Soul Boy, let's hit the town!"
I said "Soul Boy, what's with the frown?"
But in return, all you could say was
"Hi George, meet my fiancee"

Modern Lovers - I’m Straight

I know what you mean but I'm pretty sure the song was expressly designed to annoy hippies.

“Now, look, I like him too...”

luv that line

While we're on the subject of George sounding like a dick, what about "Everything She Wants"?

"Now you tell me that you're having a baby / I'll tell you that I'm happy if you want me to..."

"You say it best when you say nothing at all" ?

ouch

Someone suggested the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon upthread, but that really overlooks the irony and the ambiguity, both of which were clearly intended.

i've been rocking the first Buffalo Springfield album a lot and it's great but FULL of these, e.g. "You won't accept the fact that I'm not ready for the death of our forever love"

"get some sleep and dream of rock'n'roll"

I used to listen to AFN, and the dj that was on right before Wolf an Jack would use that line as his sign-off. Never knew that's where it came from!

Yeah, AM radio reception was always ropey

I love Emmitt Rhodes album but the sentiment on this song always makes me rmde:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEuiyOcGfz8

It Takes Two, in which Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston go to great lengths to make single people feel really fucking miserable.

One can have a broken heart, living in misery
Two can really ease the pain like a perfect remedy

You're single and depressed? Suck it, loser!

One can go out to a movie looking for a special treat
Two can make that single movie something really kind of sweet
And one can take a walk in the moonlight thinking that's it's really nice
But two lovers walking hand in hand is like adding just a pinch of spice

Oh you think you're happy being on your own? Nope!

counterpoint: no one can ever break your heart if you stay single forever, whereas someone's liable to break it again if you get back the dating game after a breakup

also movies are better alone

Someone suggested the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon upthread, but that really overlooks the irony and the ambiguity, both of which were clearly intended.
Bingo. By the poster's logic, you could accuse Randy Newman of being a dick in most every song.

My Lean Baby, sung by Sinatra (lyrics by Roy Alfred) is slightly wtf.

My lean baby - tall and thin
Five feet seven - of bones and skin
But when she tells me maybe she loves me
I feel as mellow as a fellow can be

She's so skinny - she's so drawn
When she stands sideways - you (would) think (that) she's gone
But when she calls me: "baby" - I feel fine
To think she's frantically, romantically mine

She's slender, but she's tender
She makes my heart surrender
And every night, when I hold her tight
The feeling is nice - my arms can go around twice

My lean baby - she's so slim
A broomstick's wider - but not as trim
And when she starts to kiss me - then I know
I love her so, I'll never, ever, let her go

My lean baby - strange to see
And all that nothing - it belongs to me
And though she may be scrawny - she's ok
Because I wouldn't want her any other way

She's so skinny - she's so drawn
When she stands sideways - you (would) think (that) she's gone
But when she calls me: "baby" - I feel fine
To think she's frantically, romantically mine

I chased her - and I caught her
Then a diamond ring - I bought her
(hey) the diamonds shine - the ring is so fine
But here is the twist - she wears it right on her wrist

My lean baby - she's so slim
A broomstick's wider - but not as trim
And when she starts to kiss me - then I know
I love her so, I'll never, ever, let her go

My lean baby - tall and thin...
(do-do-do-do-do,...)

― MaresNest, Wednesday, May 23, 2018 12:57 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

What in the ever-loving fuckity-fuck is this?!?!

good lord

Seconding (only seconding!?) Stills' "Love the one You're With." Sounds like the hoariest of pick-up lines. "And if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." Barf.

Dion's "The Wanderer" is pretty dire on this front, too.

"Oh well, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down
Where pretty girls are, well you know that I'm around
I kiss 'em and I love 'em cause to me they're all the same
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em they don't even know my name"

Yeah, you should be so proud, Dion.

the hollies' "hey carrie anne"

You were always something special to me
Quite independent, never caring
You lost your charm as you were aging
Where is your magic disappearing?

LOL, There's dozens of those 'ramblin' man/no woman can hold me down and didn't I tell you that once?' songs in folk and blues.

(xp)

xxpost My theory re: 'The Wanderer' is that the Rosie tattooed on his chest (you know, the one he loves the best) has the last name Five-Fingers.

(hey) the diamonds shine - the ring is so fine
But here is the twist - she wears it right on her wrist

So his 'lean baby' is an ethereal figment of his imagination?

I kiss 'em and I love 'em cause to me they're all the same
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em they don't even know my name

When you're a celebrity they let you do it.

(xp) What?

"my lean baby" possibly based on "has anybody seen my gal? (five foot two, eyes of blue)"

(xp) What?

Her corporeal form is so slender as to be ghostly, borderline nonexistent.

My wife's so skinny her wedding ring fits on her wrist seems to be the joke there.

I know, I'm just taking it a step further to emphasize its bizarreness.

I don't think it's that bizarre, it's just a bunch of skinny jokes corralled into a comic song.

More revives need to start off with “What in the ever-loving fuckity-fuck is this?!?!” IMO

More Sinatra songs should have started off that way, as well.

Dion knows he's being a dick:

Oh, well I roam from town to town
I go through life without a care
And I'm as happy as a clown
And with my two fists of iron but I'm going nowhere

Re. “My Lean Baby”; there seems to be a point where the Singer /Protagonist Sounds Like a Dick Without Meaning To genre encroaches onto Accidental Randy Newman territory.

BMX Bandits wrote Your Class in response to Love The One You're With. Not sure off the top of my head how many answer songs there are to those by dick protagonists, but I would suspect a fair few

From the wiki page on Tom Rapp's 1973 album, "Stardancer":

"Love/Sex" is a riposte to Stephen Stills' "Love The One You're With", containing the line "Love will get you through times of no sex / Better than sex will get you through times of no love",

re: "My Lean Baby" and "accidental Randy Newman," Cliff Richard's "Living Doll" may also qualify:

Got myself a cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin', livin' doll
Got to do my best to please her just 'cause she's a livin' doll
Got a roamin' eye and that is why she satisfies my soul
Got the one and only walkin', talkin', livin' doll

Take a look at her hair, it's real
If you don't believe what I say, just feel
I'm gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk
Can steal her away from me

Now that is creepy!

Turns out Mark Lindsay, of "Arizona" fame, was shaming hippie chicks as early as 1967!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgFj1ThNCfY

Now you went away, you were taking the big trip
Parted with appropriate sighs
Well and now you come back girl and you're talking so hip
Got that glassy look in your eyes

Oh, Mo'reen, girl you look so clean
But I know, Mo'reen, you're not what you seem

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51agE-BHwyL.jpg

look you have to assume he's talking about the sweater/scarf combo

Ctl-f "Waitress in the Sky"

I thought he was meant to, as discussed on the other thread.

#MoreThanOneThread

I'm sure he knew he was coming off as a dick but I think he underestimated how seriously dickish he sounds

Isn't the story that his sister was an air hostess/stewardess and the song was from the point of view of one of her antagonists?

I wonder what she thought about it

some of my irritation with this song stems from its misogyny and some from its being such an earworm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0aRVlWEuo

First, she tells her fiancé that she only got the other guy's letter "yesterday"; implying she didn't have time to respond before his train arrives. But later, in the bridge, she says: Well I never answered his letter / I just couldn't tell him that way.... Sounds like she's not being entirely forthright about when the letter arrived?

Second – I get why she didn't want to tell the guy in writing that she's engaged. But couldn't she at least pick up the phone? Her plan is to be standing there when he steps off the train; show him the ring on her finger; and leave him standing in Penn Station with a duffel bag on his shoulder and his d--k hanging out?

"Yesterday" can mean "the recent past", rather than the day before today.

“Yesterday, I got this letter”? I don’t think she’s speaking poetically!

Unreliable narrator. The singer is telling the story from the psych ward, where she was committed after enduring the traumas described in previous Shangri-Las songs and suffering a nervous breakdown.

think perhaps we need another thread along the lines of "would these lyrics stand up to scrutiny in a court of law?"

It's one of my favourite songs ever, but Todd Rundgren's version of sensitivity in "Hello It's Me" is maybe a little self-serving:

Think of me
You know that I'd be with you if I could
I'll come around to see you once in a while
Or if I ever need a reason to smile
And spend the night if you think I should

"after enduring the traumas described in previous Shangri-Las songs" omg

As I was walking down the street one day, a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, and I said, 'Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?'. And then he hit me really, really hard right in my stomach. I don't know why.

Ha yeah that one definitely fits.

you wouldn't have understood him if he'd told you, what the fuck even is "25 or 6 to 4"

He's just a freshman in the quad puffin' on a doob and suddenly being all 'whoa, what even is time, man?' and trying to share his newfound wisdom with unamused passersby

'25 or 6 to 4' is a chronicle of his acid phase

He's a Staples regional vice president now iirc

It wasn't just "a man" who came up to Robert Lamm, it was "The Man".

a shame Cetera did not mention these inane stoner sidewalk chitchats among the "street sounds swirling through my mind."

a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch

And I showed him the watch that was on my wrist which was part of my arm that was attached to my body

And I suggested that he could use the eyes that were in his eye-sockets that were in his head, and thereby determine the time that was on my watch which was on my wrist that was part of my arm and therefore attached to my body

was thinking of this thread when I was listening to Beefheart's "My head is my only house unless it rains" the other day
another in the long line of love song turned stalker anthem

I'll let a train be my feet
If it's too far to walk to you
If a train don't go there I'll get a jet or a bus
Because I'm going to find you
You're going to see my shadow soon around you

I walk the meadow plains
Water deserts are my eyes until I find you
I won't sleep until I find you
I won't eat until I find you

I can feel you out there moving
You're mine, I know I'll find you

a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, and it was a Swatch so I told him what the time was in Swatch Internet Time, @624, and he said does anybody really care about Swatches? and I said yeah, they have stores in most airports, somebody's gotta

I know this is neither the time nor place but 'asked me what the time was that was on my watch' is my underrated nominee for most tortured English language construction in pop music.

In the Beefheart song, though, there's no indication that the subject is trying to evade the singer. It always brings to mind someone looking for a lost animal to me.

Or for that matter, an animal looking for a person (although the singer does mention having "arms").

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back

How quickly we forget about them, with that happy singalong chorus!

But she comes back in the next verse (at least, I’ve always assumed that was her in the Kingston bar—

though how did they get from Kingston to Baltimore?

and was the Kingston in question the “ unincorporated community and census designated place (CDP) along the border of South Brunswick Township in Middlesex County and Franklin Township in Somerset County, in New Jersey, United States”?

It’s “Kingstown,” as in the capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, duh

You’re right—what about Kingstown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, then? Google maps tells me no bars remain, though the place features a defunct mill (now a garden center)….

Sorry I just don’t see Springsteen hanging out around a defunct mill

lol

Survivor, "The Search Is Over": just what did he put this poor woman through?

You followed me through changes
And patiently you'd wait
'Til I came to my senses
Through some miracle of fate

I was living for a dream
Loving for a moment
Taking on the world
That was just my style
Now I look into your eyes
I can see forever
The search is over
You were with me all the while

needs a response song

"The search is over
I found a better man named Lyle"

The Monkees - "I Wanna Be Free". Davy Jones sounds like an insincere douche on a number of Monkees songs, but this one take the douchecake.

― Gimme Gimme Pop Secret (Old Lunch), Friday, March 27, 2015 5:20 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Heard it again this morning, and the lyrics really need to be beheld:

I wanna be free
Like the bluebirds flying by me
Like the waves out on the blue sea
If your love has to tie me
Don't try me, say good-bye

I wanna be free
Don't say you love me, say you like me
But when I need you beside me
Stay close enough to guide me
Confide in me, whoa-oh-oh

I wanna hold your hand
Walk along the sand
Laughing in the sun
Always having fun
Doing all those things
Without any strings to tie me down

I wanna be free
Like the warm September wind, babe
Say you'll always be my friend, babe
We can make it to the end, babe
Again, babe, I've gotta say
I wanna be free

I wanna be fwb

Except you have to be there for me when I need you. And willing to go the eff away when I don't. I'll keep you posted, babe. I wanna be free.

The Byrds - Triad

― kornrulez6969, Monday, March 30, 2015 6:55 PM (six years ago)

Came here to see if this one was ever mentioned (it super qualifies). I've actually never heard the Byrds version - I do love the song when Grace sings it, it's so ridiculous.

I guess Come Up the Years (another JA fave) also belongs here - though I don't think Balin & Kantner's "narrator" really cares how he comes off. He needs help!! 'Fore he falls apart!

"Triad" by the Byrds is gorgeous, despite the lyrics.

Thx - just checked it out, and I agree (though it's maybe a little static-feeling). The Crosby demo is actually really nice...! Neither of these have the sleazy, transparently manipulative vibe that I love about the Airplane's take, though. (Crosby's demo is so "sensitive," he almost has me going... like yeah, let's try it, Dave! I'm all in!)

The line I most love in this song is: "...and in time, maybe others." The protagonist can't help but telegraph the full extent of his horndog master plan!

Wind Beneath My Wings

Butterfly in the sky? Pssh.
I can go twice as high! (smirks)

lol I did the exact same thing Le Bateau Ivre did 5 years ago, searching for and marveling at the lack of Weezer

Rod Stewart's 2018 opioid crisis cash-in 'Didn't I' deserves some kind of award for pulling this stunt. it seems like he's trying to set a tone of tough love wrt to a father's inability to steer his child away from self-destructive choices, but he comes across as if he's waiting for her to wake up from her coma so that he can be certain his taunting and guilt tripping are actually getting through to her

There are times to remember
And times that I wish to forget
Our time together was tinged with love and regret
Oh, my girl
My sweet, sweet little girl

Didn't I try to tell ya that life was for living?
Oh, didn't I?
And wasn't I the guy who said 'stay away from that tribe'?
Oh, wasn't I?

Is this anti-semitism?

And didn't I try to tell you 'that's stuffs gonna kill ya'?
Oh, didn't I?
But you thought it was cool and I was just an old fool
Oh, look at ya

You left home for the city with Hollywood stars in your eyes
Now your mother, God bless her, cries herself to sleep every night
Oh my girl, my sweet innocent girl

Didn't I search the streets for the beggars, pimps and cheats?
Oh, didn't I?

"goddamnit, Fiona, I took cocaine up the ass in 1978, so I'm pretty sure I know a thing or two about drug culture"

And didn't I try to guide you to a baptism of fire?

"baptism by fire" = abusive parenting style

And didn't I try to warn ya 'bout that folk in California?
Oh, didn't I?
But you said 'daddy, please don't worry, I got friends out there who love me'
Now look at ya

can't stand the way he repeats her words back to her in a mocking tone as if he's a 7-year-old playground bully

(Bridge: Bridget Cady)
Oh baby, come back home, we can work this out
There is no blame
I wanna hold you close and stroke your hair and share your pain

at this point mommy swoops in to do a little damage control. "there is no blame" despite the fact that daddy has already blamed his daughter, her friends, and an entire state for her predicament

Didn't I do the best for you, try to make you stay in school?
Didn't I?
Once I was your hero but I went from ten to zero
Oh, didn't I?

accurate summation of Rod's career trajectory

Now listen
For a roll on the dice you nearly paid the ultimate price
Oh, didn't ya?
Now I stand by your bedside, watching you fight for you life

Where's the innocence? (Where's the innocence?)
Where's the future? (Where is the future?)
Where the beauty? (Ooo)
Where's the promise? (Where is the promise?)

bleah

Where's the innocence? (Where's the innocence?)
Where's the future? (Where is the future?)
Where the beauty? (Ooo)
Where's the promise? (Where is the promise?) Where's the innocence? (Where's the innocence?)
Where's the future? (Where is the future?)
Where the beauty? (Ooo)
Where's the promise? (Where is the promise?) Where's the innocence? (Where's the innocence?)
Where's the future? (Where is the future?)
Where the beauty? (Ooo)
Where's the promise? (Where is the promise?) Where's the innocence? (Where's the innocence?)
Where's the future? (Where is the future?)
Where the beauty? (Ooo)
Where's the promise? (Where is the promise?)

Wonder if this song is (with a gender switch) directed at his son who appeared on Celebrity Rehab.

Sounds like he’s singing to a member of the Manson family

I've not heard that Rod Stewart song before

Is it actually called "I don't mean to come on as a serious dick, but"

…you broke my heart”

“Have I Told You Lately that You Disappoint Me?”

Ok I am thinking about Wilson Phillips' song "Hold On," which is generally a supportive and caring message.

But then you get the line "You've got no one to blame for your unhappiness (no baby); you got yourself into your own mess."

Seriously? Fuck you, Carnie. You don't know anything about my life. For all you know, I'm unhappy because my parents were tortured and killed on the orders of Bashar Al-Assad. Then my few possessions were stolen by a crooked Turkish border agent. Pretty sure I've got people to blame.

Though imagine it’s directed at John and Brian.

Hmm. I would say that in the Wilson Phillips oeuvre, the best zing against their parents comes in "The Dream Is Still Alive," which starts out as "Hippies were cool," but throws this elegant bit of shade:

Not so long ago in a purple haze
People dreamed out loud they were not afraid
They stopped the war but not the dying
Some got a little bit lost along the way

But not quite right for this thread because that last bit is intentional.

It's about the only U2 song I can countenance, but "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", I mean, "I went through hell and high water just to be with you, and for what?!"

Phil Oakey's bit in "Don't You Want Me," though the duet structure leavens it.

Maybe the character in Don't You Want Me isn't intentionally a dick, but surely Phil Oakey knew he was writing him that way.

It's about the only U2 song I can countenance, but "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", I mean, "I went through hell and high water just to be with you, and for what?!"

A save for "I Still Haven't Found...": The "you" is God? Note that elsewhere, a romantic partner appears in the third person, as "her."

Xpost!

toxic divinity

A save for "I Still Haven't Found...": The "you" is God? Note that elsewhere, a romantic partner appears in the _third_ person, as "her."

Xpost!

_A save for "I Still Haven't Found...": The "you" is God? Note that elsewhere, a romantic partner appears in the _third_ person, as "her."

Xpost!_


I think the lyric is just about “not finding it” in erotic love.

-in-

Well, you have to think that Bono is a shitty lay, so that makes sense.

okay thanks for soiling my water

Well, you have to think that Bono is a shitty lay, so that makes sense.

No serious dicking, for sure.

Hasn't Bono had the same girlfriend/ wife since childhood? So I can imagine his grasp on wooing, romancing, and heartbreak is tenuous.

Perhaps because of that, for Bono, romantic love is a metaphor for religion, and his "love" songs are almost always religious in character. Cf. "She moves in mysterious ways," that's a little too on the nose. Some of the same for Al Green, who has said "You Ought to Be With Me" was never about a woman.

Some have suggested that for Marvin Gaye, sexual freedom and human freedom are metaphors for one another.

In actuality, romantic love is a metaphor for the Mexican Revolution. Which was itself a metaphor for pizza.

She Looks Like Me,With
Plastic Jewels,On Low Rent Crown,IN TACKY VERSION OF BOB’S (“THE DRESS” ) MACKIE…SINGING”STILL HAVENT FOUND WHAT IM LOOKING FOR” FLAT🤮

— Cher (@cher) June 11, 2022

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/624-the-problem-with-ed-sheeran-and-nice-guys-like-him/

Maybe the character in Don't You Want Me isn't intentionally a dick, but surely Phil Oakey knew he was writing him that way.

Definitely. I remember an interview where he mentioned how bemused he is when people tell him it's one of the great love songs: "It's about coercion."

"I'll Be Doggone," an amazing composition/performance/recording, is unfortunately one of these:

I'll be doggone if you ain't a pretty thing
And I'll be doggone if you ain't warm as a breath of spring

And if we live to be a hundred years old
If you ever let that spring turn cold
Then I wouldn't be doggone
Hey, I'd be long gone

Like, okay buddy, we're both a hundred but sure, go play the field.

Well, every woman should try to be
Whatever her man wants her to be
And I don't want much
All I want from you
Is for you to be true to me

As well, all my life, I've thought Marvin Gaye then put the cherry on top by muttering "fetch me a drink" during the fade-out. But it's actually "catch me a train," which does admittedly fit the overall conceit better.

some low-hanging fruit here. I only just now heard this song for the first time - it was a US number one hit in 2000, and as such is covered today by Tom Breihan in his Stereogum column. someone in the comments called it “the ultimate incel power ballad”:

Somewhere there's speaking
It's already coming in
Oh and it's rising at the back of your mind
You never could get it
Unless you were fed it
Now you're here and you don't know why
But under skinned knees and the skid marks
Past the places where you used to learn
You howl and listen
Listen and wait for the
Echoes of angels who won't return

He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why

You're waiting for someone
To put you together
You're waiting for someone to push you away
There's always another wound to discover
There's always something more you wish he'd say

He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why

But you'll just sit tight
And watch it unwind
It's only what you're asking for
And you'll be just fine
With all of your time
It's only what you're waiting for
Out of the island
Into the highway
Past the places where you might have turned
You never did notice
But you still hide away
The anger of angels who won't return

He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why

nice eh? but wait, Mr Vertical Horizon felt he hadn’t been enough of a serious dick without meaning to yet, so he thought he’d spell it out some more in the final chorus:

*I am* everything you want
*I am* everything you need
*I am* everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
*I say* all the right things
At exactly the right time
But *I* mean nothing to you and *I* don't know why
And *I* don't know why
Why
*I* don't know

excellent pick imo. also never actually noticed any of the words to the verses past the first line, and they really do compound the judging/patronizing jerk portrait. it's particularly striking since (at least based on their other two hits off that album), Mr. Vertical Horizon is otherwise an evasive and vague lyricist to the point of near-incoherence...

Even in the 70's this was a bit of an eye-roller, this lil' tidbit from "Summer Breeze":

And I come home from a hard day's work
And you're waiting there
Not a care in the world

I always thought Lou Bega came off like sort of a dick. Does Angela know about Pamela, Monica, Rita...?

I always kinda thought Adele came off like a dick in Hello, especially this line...

Hello from the outside
At least I can say that I've tried
To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart
But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart anymore

Like leave the poor guy alone, you broke his heart and he's happy now and you're upset he isn't hurt anymore?

lol, the Vertical Horizon song basically described me in my late teens/early 20s. very much an incel anthem (I was v much an incel then myself), the whole "I am empirically the right match for you because I check off all of your imaginary boxes, ergo this proves you should be with me and are wronging me by choosing someone else!"

also, to me, "saying the right things at exactly the right time" isn't a synonym for "being a comforting person", I know it's a common turn of phrase, but to me it's always read so transactional. "I rehearsed the things that I've been told are the things i should say to you when you are upset, ergo now I should get something out of it in return, right?".

I thought that song was about Jesus?

Omg, the explanation from the band even worse

I was in love with this girl, and she was just a broken person. She kept turning to everyone except me for love and acceptance, and I wanted so much to help her. I wanted to be the one to give her everything she wanted, but I couldn't. She just couldn't accept it from me, and it was that pain, that led me to creating the song.

I have no words for how repulsive that song was and remains. Truly genuinely nauseating.
🤮 to infinity
He’s that guy with the poster boards in Love Actually but a little worse bc that was a character. This fool is real.

she just couldn't accept it from me

there is something deeply wrong with every sentence in that explanation

If you can't feed your baby (yeah, yeah)
Then don't have a baby (yeah, yeah)
And don't think maybe (yeah, yeah)
If you can't feed your baby (yeah, yeah)
You'll be always tryin'
To stop that child from cryin'
Hustlin', stealin', lyin'
Now baby's slowly dyin'

Pretty Woman, in which Roy Orbison claims he 'needs' a woman he's only just seen, threatens to cry if she ignores him.

a classic trope, similarly employed by James Blunt in Beautiful

and then there's come live with me by heaven 17, where the 37 year old singer does seem to be terminating his relationship with a 17 year old, though not without regrets, and the chorus is entirely unrepentant.

(i heard all three of these on the radio this weekend)

Do They Know It's Christmas

Yeah lol Ethiopia had been predominantly Christian for more than a thousand years when that song was written

YACHT GUY: there's a world outside your window,

Song is obviously a metaphor for the cocaine business

"Gentle on My Mind" Glen Campbell ... actually about 20 of his 60s hits which were all about movin' on and the chicks dealing with it. "You're Young and You'll Forget" particularly sympathetic.

That's an old folk/country trope - the ramblin' man who can't be tied down.

yeah, but he goes pretty hard

Indeed, this put me in mind of Led Zep's "Ramble On", which fits the thread's premise rather well. The protagonist is making his excuses (after a "pleasant stay") and announces that he's actually on a mission to free his true love, who has been kidnapped by [checks notes] Gollum and Sauron.

On my way, I've been this way ten years to the day
I gotta ramble on, I gotta find the queen of all my dreams

So, this happened ten years ago, but he's no closer to rescuing her and has somehow found plenty of time to sit around boozing with his latest host (""Our health" we drank a thousand times"). What an asshole.

maybe he's an elf, they live for centuries so they see time differently

always thought it was something about "feet dragged a thousand times," which i guess doesn't help his case either.

Leslie Gore, “Judy's Turn to Cry”

She doesn’t sound too concerned about the poor “other guy” who got a knuckle sandwich!!

(plus, this song suxx)

(also, releasing an “answer song” to your own single feels thirsty AF)

I mean it's kind of a song cycle, if only she'd have written more songs re: Judy

(well, released, not written)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFqzTcWTBE

I can't believe I never cited Leslie Gore itt! Both of the Judy songs are perfect examples. The protagonist comes off as somewhat of a sociopath, but also that was just kind of a thing in a lot of songs from the girl group era.

was listening to let's hear it for the boy and tbh the boy does not come off as a v nice person, he don't talk sweet, he ain't got much to say, he's no romeo, he's watching every dime... if it was a friend of mine I'd be like well maybe there's even better boys out there

singer seems ok though

! Relatedly, a friend of mine recently pointed out that in Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract," almost every attribute used to describe the dude is negative.

He's messy, he's broke, he steals the covers, he smokes, etc.

"Let's Hear it for the Boy" and "Opposites Attract" are interesting bookends, to be sure.

In 1958 Tom Lehrer had a prescient song, "She's My Girl," meant to be a kind of response to these two songs.

In the spoken intro here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfJiVwfoRkU

Lehrer notes that there was (even then) a trope of women singing about guys who they loved even though they were repulsive and unsanitary.

He thought "She's My Girl" would be a useful corrective from the other perspective.

Granted, Billy Joel was only 10 years old at the time and therefore had not yet written "She's Always a Woman."

(xpost) Very true, I always thought that her boyfriend actually doesn't sound like much of a catch. On a similar note, there's a song that was an inexplicably huge hit across Europe in 1996:

My love has got no money, he's got his strong beliefs
My love has got no power, he's got his strong beliefs
Freed from desire, mind and senses purified

I always think, (a) he must be great fun at parties, and (b) he'd fit in really well on ILE.

'Freed From Desire' has had a big resurgence in the last five years largely though being played at football matches - feels like the 'new' 'Seven Nation Army' in this respect.

How did that come about? You do still hear it on the radio, but I can't see any particular connection with football.

My wife, who's French, had a big "MIND BLOWN" moment hearing that on the radio recently and understanding the lyrics for the first time. Growing up, this and every other English song was of course sung along to with "nanananana" only.

How did that come about? You do still hear it on the radio, but I can't see any particular connection with football.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freed_from_Desire#Usage_in_football

re. 'Freed From Desire' being a football chant, the words can be easily changed to something football related, and then everyone can join in on the na na na bits. really started to take off when the Northern Ireland fans sang "Will Greg's on fire, your defence is terrified" during the Euro 2016 finals, other fans started copying it. I think the N Ireland fans were being a bit ironic as Will Greg didn't play much?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNf2l9SuHHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOgJniA-2PE

The male in "Let's Hear It For the Boy" seems to be a shy guy who struggles to express himself but whose feelings are strong. If anything, the singer's attitude is a little patronizing.

Sounds like he’s good at fucking

Yeah, I think that's part of the implication (not sure why we're being asked to cheer that, though; seems like a private matter).

let's hear it for the dong

songs where the protagonist has a serious dick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJncHEZ3URs

“Banks of Sweet Primroses” qualifies, at least in the versions I know, but is also totally baffling. Narrator hits on a beautiful lady who appears to be weeping, promises that he’ll fix everything if she will grant him “one small relief.” Then she reveals that the narrator, who apparently didn’t recognize her, is in fact the cause of her weeping, and plans to go off to some lonesome valley. Final verse:

So come all young men who go a-sailing
Pray pay attention to what I say
For there's many a dark and a cloudy morning
Turns out to be a sunshiny day

I always thought "No Scrubs" was mean

dylan's don't think twice is a piece of self-justifying, smug, passive-aggressive, deep cuntography.

if dylan meant to be a dick with don't think twice, it's only because he knows no other mode of being.

to wit:

I once loved a woman, a child, I'm told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul

Goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say, "Fare thee well"
I ain't a-saying you treated me unkind
You could've done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time

"Don't Think Twice It's Alright" is one where I really have a hard time sympathizing with the speaker -- he sounds like such a mean and bitter person beneath all the maudlin self-pity.

― five six and (man alive), Thursday, August 27, 2015 9:10 AM (seven years ago)

I think Dylan totally means to be a dick though

― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, August 27, 2015 9:17 AM (seven years ago)

(It may be true that Dylan "knows no other way of being," but that fact doesn't necessarily shoehorn a "purposefully dickish" song into qualifying for this thread...?)

my contention here is that dylan cannot be purposely dickish because he has no idea what being not-a-dick would mean.

I always thought "No Scrubs" was mean

― frogbs, Wednesday, June 28, 2023 12:28 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agreed. Total classist bullshit. As a poor guy in 1999, it really stung.

When I first read about the Vardy's on fire chants as shared above, I briefly thought they were to the tune of Eno's "Baby's on Fire" and this then stuck in my brane for weeks, and still comes back when I see his gurning fizzog, or indeed his wife.

"Semi-Charmed Life"

Jamie Vardy of Leicester
Looked at the samples that we sent
And furrowed his brow

I always thought "No Scrubs" was mean

― frogbs, Wednesday, June 28, 2023 12:28 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agreed. Total classist bullshit. As a poor guy in 1999, it really stung.

― peace, man, Wednesday, June 28, 2023 7:03 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this can't be real

I took the song at knocking aggressive guys down a peg, overconfident dudes who want to do nothing but big-up themselves and talk about how badass they are, aggressively catcall/harass women *while they're driving*, and are completely full of shit.

I remember a friend of mine being really offended by this song back in 1999.

like yeah she knocks dudes who live at home or don't have a car but she also calls out dudes who have shorties and don't love them, people who scream at women out the sides of cars, people who talk about all the things they 'want' (or things they're gonna do) but never actually do it or have any intent to do it.

yeah, exactly. if you've ever met a scrub, you know. she's not saying "fuck poor dudes"

she's talking about self-awareness more than anything

If you don't have a car and you're walking
Oh yes son, I'm talking to you

like yeah she knocks dudes who live at home or don't have a car

she is very specifically knocking poor people there

sure if you want to ignore the context that fits into and frame the song as a JP Morgan-nose thumbing, sure. and that it's directed at cocky men who pursue her and harass her aggressively and talk a big game about how big they're going to make it, but don't actually do anything but sit at home and play video games instead of looking for a job or blowing all their money on needless shit instead of saving it to get things like...a car.

If you live at home with your momma
Oh yes son, (I'm) I'm talking to you (baby)

babies can't live alone dummy

itt - ppl who know what scrubs are and ppl who don't

lol Evan

ppl who know what scrubs are and ppl who don't

Hence the song title, "Know Scrubs"

lol

"Oh Boy, Scrubs (That's Where I'm a Viking!)"

I hope those no scrubs girls eventually found some classy guys cruising up Peachtree St in Atlanta

Not to be all enlightened centrist here but I think the song can be a basically right on paen to telling overconfident sexist dudes to fuck off while still mirroring some of the poverty-as-a-moral-failing shit that was basically everywhere in the pop culture of the time.

I try to like black music, but I just can't get over how it doesn't conform to my white middle class sensibilities!

Rise up, 99%, against this classist tyranny

posts where the poster/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to

no i definitely meant to :)

I totally agree with you, fwiw

I think the white middle class is also anti-Scrub

They also dislike poors

They’re only mean Trotskyists and revisionists

They

peace man, I honestly don’t think Chilli was talking about dudes like you, you don’t seem like a scrub

One can read "no scrubs" as punching up. Like, you think you are hot shit and you have a lot to offer, but you live in your mom's basement and you need your friend to drive you places because you are actually broke and going nowhere.

One can also read "No Scrubs" as a blanket dismissal of dudes who have aspirations, but have a ways to go.

Even in this slightly more charitable reading, the dude in question still needs to up his game before he approaches someone of TLC caliber. It's not just money; it's independence and competence.

So Scrubs is like the opposite of Let’s Hear for The Boy

So Scrubs is like the opposite of Let’s Hear for The Boy

Maybe! I would rather be with the guy described in "Let's Hear it for the Boy" than the guy described in "No Scrubs."

Cf. Erykah Badu, "Tyrone."

In 2020, Chilli revealed the song was inspired by seeing Full House stars Dave Coulier and John Stamos driving by:

One day we’re out walking, and (Coulier) and Stamos come driving by, and you know, Coulier leans out and tries to holler at us from the passenger side of the car. To be honest, I didn’t know who he was at first — I just saw a bunch of hair and a bright, patterned shirt, but then it clicked and I was like, ‘Is that that corny motherfucker, Uncle Joey?’ So I started jotting down some lines, and the rest is history. He was talking like Popeye for some reason, and had this beaver puppet… that part didn’t make it in the song.

Dave Coulier is quite the muse

I was gonna say – if he truly inspired both "No Scrubs" and (as rumored) "You Oughta Know," that's like the antimatter version of some king sh!t right there.

Big Prick Energy

Alanis didn't mention the beaver puppet either!

A Scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly/
Often carries a beaver

He was talking like Popeye for some reason, and had this beaver puppet…

I guess the Olsen Twins must have been making all the money

True of most John Mayer songs, but “you’re going to live forever in me” is a capstone song in this theme

https://thehardtimes.net/culture/tlc-confirms-that-no-scrubs-was-also-written-about-dave-coulier/

this appears to have been picked up by some AI articles, and will thus now be true forever

Dave Coulier has an album called “Songs in the Key of Beaver”

I mean look, that's why I mentioned it. I don't *think* TLC meant to come off as condescending of poor people but it kind of comes off that way

technically speaking TLC didn't write the song either, it was written largely by two members of Xscape for them to record and then they gave it to TLC instead

^^ see bringing that up is a scrub move

I could have written the song, I have amazing songwriting talent, but was too busy working on three even better songs, you're gonna love em when they come out.

In the front of the club I see this girl like, "Yo love"
Thought she said thug but she called me a scrub

This ain't my Benz there, it's my man's, yeah
But this ain't my car like that ain't your hair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tt5DE4hbYY

Talking of Roy Orbison. I know we're supposed to feel sympathy for Roy in this song but what a whiny deluded sap he is. She's obviously not that into you, Roy, develop a backbone why don't you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtgnsOXoAVM

Lehrer notes that there was (even then) a trope of women singing about guys who they loved even though they were repulsive and unsanitary.

Is “My Funny Valentine” the origin of this trope?

First example that jumps to mind is The Crystals “He’s Sure The Boy I Love” (“He doesn't hang diamonds 'round my neck/And all he's got is an unemployment check”).

What’s great about “Give Him A Great Big Kiss” is that the Shangri-Las are clearly turned on by his “dirty fingernails”, no qualifiers needed.

Of course the male versions of this trope are the ones that are truly nasty e.g. “You Got What It Takes”:

You don't live in a beautiful place, no
You don't dress in the best of taste
And nature didn't give you such a beautiful face
But baby, you got what it takes.

Who could resist such buttering up?

Also, as mentioned upthread, the Temptations “Beauty’s Only Skin Deep” (yeah, yeah, yeah):

Now, good looks, I've learned to do without
'Cause now I know it's love that really counts

and

A pretty face you may not possess
But what I like about you is your tenderness.

You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
And that's alright with me

…And here’s why

(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care

(…kind of the flip of Great Big Kiss, where she loves that the guy is cool)

reminds me of the thing you can find in some old r&b tunes where the male lead singer loves his girl because she's either too fat or too skinny, thus reducing the chances that somebody will try to steal her

"If You Wanna Be Happy" by Jimmy Soul took that concept to #1 in 1963. Kinda funny that the song was written by a married couple, together with a third writer.

lol god that song

I still hear it at public joints, it is so cringe. It's not even a good song.

Bono

Which one

Daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car (at the moment, but I guess you could argue the "without meaning to" clause in that era, so more generally, just Bono.

)

Great song though

Dang now I have an image in my head of Bono and Cher

Songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick

The lyrics to The Jets - "Rocket 2 U" are really funny, every verse is just a list of all of the things the protagonist cannot do, doesn't understand how to do, or will not do

And the chorus is basically "I am an idiot and kind of useless but I can fuck all night, it is actually the only thing I can do" lol

Climax Blues Band - “I Love You”

Classic woman-as-savior-of-the-lost-soul-male-genius song, not a single line about what she’s really like, only about how she fulfilled her duty in talking this piece of shit off the ledge.

The Turtles, "Let Me Be".

"Don't try to plan me or understand me / I can't stand to be understood"

Good, because there's nothing to understand, you're a pompous whiny dick, end of story.

Ha, attempt to rewrite It Ain’t Me Babe

See I think "It Ain't Me Babe" almost doesn't fit the category because he clearly intends dickitude.

Compare "Rambling Man" or "Free Bird" or "Goodbye Stranger" for basically the same message.

I just mean that it was the Turtles follow up single to their cover of It Ain’t Me Babe. Sounds like dumbed down Dylan lyrics.

PF Sloan I think?

Adding to the Beach Boys coverage itt, "Girl Don't Tell Me" is quite the little bundle of grievance. Like, okay, I get it, she didn't write you after your fling last summer, and you're bummed. But maybe take it as a life lesson and don't go on a creepy tangent about her short shorts and all the going-out she must have done during the school year. Gross.

Dr. Hook's "More Like the Movies" is one long extended "apology" where every "sorry" strikes me as deeply insincere and manipulative:

I guess the dance is over now
So you just courtsey and I'll bow
And ask the band to play us Auld Lang Syne
Then I'll just take what's left of me
Right back to where it used to be
And you'll go sail your magic carpet, far across the sky

I wish I could have made it
More like the movies for you
Some pretty Technicolor way it's never been
I'm sorry when I kissed you
You only heard me whisper
You never got to hear those violins
Did you girl?
No, you never got to hear those violins, no

The castles that you built so high
Were just too steep for me to climb
And I guess these dirty streets of mine
Were just too rough for you
I wish I could've helped you see
Just one of your sweet childhood dreams
But though I tried, I could not make not one of them come true

And I wish I could have made it
More like the movies for you
Some pretty Technicolor way it's never been
I'm sorry when I kissed you
You only heard me whisper
You never got to hear those violins

Add Dr. Hook's "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" to thread also

I never got to hear those violins, no