Friday, November 28, 2008

Songs So Cheesy I Had To Put Them On My iPod 3

And it's a teenage sadness everyone has got to taste...
An in between age madness that you know you can't erase...

I think those two lines (and one tag line to follow) really create the anxious, hormonally charged and dirty feel to this upbeat, power-pop anthem - an homage to high school lust and "the kill" - because to hear this song is to understand there is no "thrill of the chase". In fact, those lines and several others made critics dub the song (which is amazingly tame by today's standards) "misogynistic". I have to admit - when this song came out in 1979, I was a touch too young (well, actually, a touch to innocent) to really get it. "They don't what? But I do what?" Until one of my dirtier-minded friends told me. Yeah, I get it! She DOES it. Heh heh, cool. Hey Butthead, I think I got a boner.

I promised I'd break with the "70's Hard/Glam Rock" theme this week, and I have delivered. This band gave us a lot...most notably, a number one single that I'm still sick of (and is for some reason also on my iPod), and oh yeah...skinny ties. Holy shit, skinny ties. Did you wear one in the 80's? It was because of these dudes...



What the!?!? They tucked their ties into their underwear creating a sort of uber-treasure trail? Maybe you don't recognize them like this...you may recognize them on stage, though:


Okay, I gave it away with the picture. The band is The Knack. The song - Good Girls Don't. A song so cheesy it defies description. Still, I am somewhat blinded by my inexplicable love for this song, so I had to confirm it's cheesiness with my wife. She looked at me funny. "Is a bear catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Yeah, it is cheesy. But it's also awesome.

Songs so bad they need to be on my iPod

Lyrics...and ooh look! The video even! (WARNING! You may shake your head and reflexively blurt "What the f*** were we thinking back then?")

Lyrics | The Knack lyrics - Good Girls Don't lyrics

And holy bad haircuts, Batman - they're still touring! That evil Billboard #1 Hit about one of their young groupies (that was 30 YEARS AGO) carried them a long, long way! Okay, I'll admit that I do like several of their songs, and they do have some good ones. However - we live on a historic landmark that gets LOTS of outdoor wedding receptions in the summer, and I hear that "evil hit" at EVERY FRACKING ONE!
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UPDATE: I forgot to mention, notice the disparity between the "safe for radio" lyrics in the video and the actual lyrics scrolling...

2 comments:

Randal Graves said...

Heh, aren't at least half of all rock songs misogynistic?

My Sharona will never die because at the end of the day, that is a killer riff. Though I've never heard it at a wedding before.

Bull said...

Thanks for commenting.

It is a great riff - the "Highway to Hell" of it's kind.

But it doesn't make me face Australia, prostrate myself and pray like HtH does.