C or D/S&D: Songs that are supposed to make you feel sorry for people much richer and better looking than you

I veer between feeling extremely sorry for him and thinking he's a bad man. (Sorry, I know there's another thread on this.)

The comparisons have been drawn many times between the subject of 'Long Black Limousine' by Elvis Presley and Elvis himself. The yearning to be somebody special, to be acknowledged by the people around him and the tragic fall. And the intensity of Elvis's performance I think proves the fact that he felt the song deeply, realised it had resonances in his own life. Did he know his life was on a downward spiral at that stage, even when he was making his best music?

You can probably also search some of his later 70s stuff, like 'Hurt'.

I don't find it's possible to listen to all music in the same way. Sometimes, like mark (when you turn his irony around) I can enjoy the construction of a performance, admire the artifice etc.

But I can sometimes just listen to 'heartfelt' music without having to analyse the 'filters' of the whole performance thing.

The only way to satisfy both parties, it seems, is The Crocodile Hunter: Collison Course. Thus, Steve Irwin saves the day yet again.

I think aspects of being famous probably do suck, quite a lot. Should they not be written about? When famous and rich people like Jay-Z write about the great things about being famous and rich they get accused of being empty and materialistic. What should they write about?

In response to Tom's 2nd paragraph, like I said above, rich people can write about their problems if they want, I just don't understand why people would care, outside of a morbid tabloid fascination, or maybe to make themselves feel better about their own shitty lives. But obviously, I'm alone in not caring, so I guess Pink should keep feeling sorry for herself.

As for "Just Like A Pill" it's a relationship song, and rich people's relationships suck almost as often as less rich people's.

Nick do you like Nirvana btw?

The funniest thing about the video though is the "hard" facial expressions Lopez strains to make in the segments with the MCs.

The song reminds me of those TV spots that corporations produce when they change their name, which simultaneously try to convince you that the name change will usher in a new era of innovation and growth, and that the name change means nothing and you can still trust the same old people with the same old great services. So J-Lo's changed, but she hasn't. She's rich and glamorous, but she's still Jenny from the block. She's in control, but she's hounded by paparazzi.

In any case it's weird to hear a song that whatever its musical values, was so obviously the result of a marketing meeting.

I don't have much sympathy to expend on Lopez, but I wouldn't wish that level of success on anyone. That she obviously wanted it badly does not make it any less of a bind. Now Elvis, I feel sorry for. I'm not sure he knew what he was getting into.

Weirdly though I don't think it is a marketing strategy. Anyone in marketing would have told her that doing a track which goes "I'm really real I told you" after doing a track called "I'm Real" is courting ridicule, overstating the point (and lo, everyone is taking the piss). Marketing people only care about 'realness' if the demographic do, anyway. I think it's a genuinely paranoid J-Lo impulse that makes her write/commission these lyrics.

Regardless of whether a given performer is "acting" or literally singing about themselves - the subject of pitying the rich and powerful is not really all that interesting, and at worst it's downright offensive. For the same reason I can't read novels with characters I don't care about (either positively OR negatively), I don't really have any interest in songs that are about people/issues (in this case, the "trials" of the rich and powerful) that don't deserve my attention.

Nickalicious, I have to disagree about "Turn the Page", if that's the Bob Seger song you mean. Ol' Bob was hardly a star when he wrote that one, and his self-pity sounds well-earned, evoking that now-forgotten world of the moustachio'd arena-rock gypsy. So, hurray or boo to that most rockist of devices, the "road" song? Hurray, IMO -- what else were these dudes supposed to write about?

Eh, I still don't like it...now I have to come up with a whole new reason.

Oh wait, we can feel sorry about how ugly the MoFo is

(though i happen to like the former and despise the latter with every fiber of my being)