This morning, I was in the shower listening to the radio and a Rhianna song came on, the one with the line “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excites me”. And I started thinking about the original saying and how much music has changed over the decades.
So I thought a comparison was in order. I looked up the top ten songs from 1971 and the top ten (according to the critics) of 2011 on Billboard.com.
Here are my findings (along with a line or two of the lyrics):
Number 10
1971
Knock Three Times – The Dawn
Lyrics: I can hear the music playing. I can feel your body swaying
2011
Rolling in the Deep - Adele
Lyrics: The scars of your love remind me of us. They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.
Number 9
1971
Just My Imagination Running Away With Me – The Temptations
Lyrics: I hear a tender rhapsody but in reality she doesn’t even know me
2011
Look at me now – Chris Brown featuring Busta Rhymes and Lil’ Wayne
Lyrics: Better cuff your chick if you with her, I can get her. And she accidentally slip and fall on
dick.
Number 8
1971
Take Me Home Country Roads – John Denver
Lyrics: All my memories gathered ‘round her, Miner’s lady, Stranger to blue water
2011
The Edge of Glory – Lady Gaga
Lyrics: I got a reason that you’re who should take me home tonight
Number 7
1971
Go Away Little Girl – Donny Osmond
Lyrics: I know your lips are sweet but our lips must never meet (on a side note, with the title,
These lyrics are a little “sex offenderish”….)
2011
Halocene – Bon Iver
Lyrics: We smoked the screen to make it what it was to be (What?)
Number 6
1971
Indian Reservation – The Raiders
Lyrics: They took the whole Cherokee nation and put us on this reservation, Took away our
ways of life
2011
Novacane – Frank Ocean
Lyrics: I feel like I’m Stanley Kubrick, This is some visionary shit
Number 5
1971
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart – Bee Gees
Lyrics: I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees and misty memories of days
gone by.
2011
Motivation – Kelly Rowland featuring Lil’Wayne
Lyrics: Oh lover, don’t you dare slow down, Go longer, You can last more rounds, Push
harder, You’re almost there now. Make Mama proud.
Number 4
1971
One Bad Apple – The Osmonds
Lyrics: I can tell you’ve been hurt by that look on your face, girl. Some guy brought sad into
your happy world.
2011
Niggas in Paris – JayZ and Kanye
Lyrics – I’m not even bothering
Number 3
1971
It’s Too Late – Carol King
Lyrics: There will be good times again for me and you. But we just can’t stay together. Don’t
you feel it too?
2011
Till the World Ends – Britney Spears
Lyrics: This kitten got your tong tied up in knots I see (That’s the 1st line of the song…)
Number 2
1971
Maggie May – Rod Stewart
Lyrics: The morning sun really shows your age. But that don’t worry me none. In my eyes
you’re everything.
2011
Someone Like You – Adele
Lyrics: Don’t forget me, I begged, I remember you said, sometimes it lasts in love, but
sometimes, it hurts instead
and
Number 1
1971
Joy to the World – Three Dog Night
Lyrics: If I were the king of the world, I tell you what I’d do. I’d throw away the cars and
the bars and the war and make sweet love to you
2011
Super Bass – Nicki Minaj
Lyrics: That’s the kind of dude I was lookin’ for
And yes you’ll get slapped you’re lookin’, ho.
Forty years of evolution in the music business. And that is what we get.
Thank God for Adele. That’s all I have to say about that…..
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Silence of the What-What, Wait a Minute...
When I was a little girl, there was this game that my mom and me would play.
The scene.
Mom and I sitting at a table in the food court at our local mall. While watching people, we would insert our own dialogue to stranger’s conversations that were out of our hearing. It would sometimes be sad, sometimes entertaining, sometimes angry. But it was fun. And original. It made me aware of the many varied lifestyles and issues that could be facing strangers you pass on the street. Maybe it helped me from becoming so self absorbed that I didn’t see what was going on to those around me. Whatever the effects on my personality development, it became habit.
Now, if I’m sitting at a red light and I look over and see someone with an expressive face, I automatically concoct some fictional story to go along with them. Maybe it is some lady putting her mascara on while driving. Maybe she is having an affair with a co-worker…or a crush on her married boss.
Or it could be some really old guy with a trucker’s cap on that says something like “I’m a Winner” and I automatically think of some scenario to make that true. Maybe he won a fishing contest, or the jackpot at his Wednesday night bingo game.
Whatever, you get the picture.
So, the other day, I’m sitting in Lowe’s waiting for some blinds to be cut for my grandmother-in-law’s Christmas present. And I start creating inner dialogue for the few people working there.
The lady cutting the blinds was this short, thick Hispanic woman that looked completely miserable. So every time she would lower the skill saw thingy ma jig, I was internally cursing about how bad this fucking job sucks.
There was another woman, older, looked like she should’ve been retired, up on a ladder restocking some cleaning supplies. So I was thinking that SHE was thinking, “If they only knew that just because I’m old doesn’t mean I know jack shit about Pine Sol, they wouldn’t stick me with this bullshit assignment.”
And then there was a flamboyantly gay man in a blue smock that was heading to the gardening center. “What? Just because I’m gay, do they think I give a shit about flowers?” In my fantasy world, I made him an awesome gamer that kicks everyone’s ass at “Modern Warfare”. (That is a game, isn’t it?)
And I thought, what an awesome movie this would be. A little like “The Office”, but with traces of “The Good Girl” without being all boring and shit. We could create a cast that embodies the characters that we run into every day.
I’m pretty sure that stereotypes exists for a reason. Maybe they are not always, always true, but a high percentage of the time, they are dead on.
We could include a hot steamy affair, one with the barely legal cashier boy and the hard ass manager lady that walks around in heels even though she works in a home improvement warehouse. Who is currently, not to her knowledge, being stalked by the lighting associate….that has a basement similar to the one in “Silence of the Lambs”.
You get the picture.
We could have a romantic comedy/thriller/faux documentary, with even a little bit of Sci-Fi thrown in if we make the forklift driver psychic. It would be epic.
Damn. I missed my calling. I should be writing scripts for Hollywood.
The scene.
Mom and I sitting at a table in the food court at our local mall. While watching people, we would insert our own dialogue to stranger’s conversations that were out of our hearing. It would sometimes be sad, sometimes entertaining, sometimes angry. But it was fun. And original. It made me aware of the many varied lifestyles and issues that could be facing strangers you pass on the street. Maybe it helped me from becoming so self absorbed that I didn’t see what was going on to those around me. Whatever the effects on my personality development, it became habit.
Now, if I’m sitting at a red light and I look over and see someone with an expressive face, I automatically concoct some fictional story to go along with them. Maybe it is some lady putting her mascara on while driving. Maybe she is having an affair with a co-worker…or a crush on her married boss.
Or it could be some really old guy with a trucker’s cap on that says something like “I’m a Winner” and I automatically think of some scenario to make that true. Maybe he won a fishing contest, or the jackpot at his Wednesday night bingo game.
Whatever, you get the picture.
So, the other day, I’m sitting in Lowe’s waiting for some blinds to be cut for my grandmother-in-law’s Christmas present. And I start creating inner dialogue for the few people working there.
The lady cutting the blinds was this short, thick Hispanic woman that looked completely miserable. So every time she would lower the skill saw thingy ma jig, I was internally cursing about how bad this fucking job sucks.
There was another woman, older, looked like she should’ve been retired, up on a ladder restocking some cleaning supplies. So I was thinking that SHE was thinking, “If they only knew that just because I’m old doesn’t mean I know jack shit about Pine Sol, they wouldn’t stick me with this bullshit assignment.”
And then there was a flamboyantly gay man in a blue smock that was heading to the gardening center. “What? Just because I’m gay, do they think I give a shit about flowers?” In my fantasy world, I made him an awesome gamer that kicks everyone’s ass at “Modern Warfare”. (That is a game, isn’t it?)
And I thought, what an awesome movie this would be. A little like “The Office”, but with traces of “The Good Girl” without being all boring and shit. We could create a cast that embodies the characters that we run into every day.
I’m pretty sure that stereotypes exists for a reason. Maybe they are not always, always true, but a high percentage of the time, they are dead on.
We could include a hot steamy affair, one with the barely legal cashier boy and the hard ass manager lady that walks around in heels even though she works in a home improvement warehouse. Who is currently, not to her knowledge, being stalked by the lighting associate….that has a basement similar to the one in “Silence of the Lambs”.
You get the picture.
We could have a romantic comedy/thriller/faux documentary, with even a little bit of Sci-Fi thrown in if we make the forklift driver psychic. It would be epic.
Damn. I missed my calling. I should be writing scripts for Hollywood.
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