All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled
Down)- Hank Williams Jr.
This song, as the title may suggest, is
about the life of a back roads country bachelor who's friends have
all found sustaining lives and significant others, away from drinking
a shitload or, as Hank 2 eloquently puts it; 'nobody wants to get
drunk and get loud'. Apparently they also don't want to 'get high on
the town'.
If you are, as I am, a committed
bachelor or a late bloomer to the ways of the woman then this is a
natural problem. The party has to end and it sucks when it does. So
lyrically the song is a semi-fair portrait of a real(ish) problem.
Except getting drunk and loud just makes it seem they don't want to
be belligerent and shit-faced young men any more, because they
aren't.
The more baffling thing though is the
way its played as a half-ballad. It is seeming to make the plight of
an overzealous alcoholic who can't move on a legitimate problem. A
problem like your lover jilting you, or if your pick-up not starting,
or if your dumb boss making you work when you had Allman Brothers
tickets and told him that several weeks in advance.
In a similar fashion Australian band
Skyhooks had an early hit about all their friends getting married.
Except they lay the problem at the feet of the wives and Father time;
'yes they're all growing old, they're all going out on the weekends,
they're all doing what they're told'.
...Or,
maybe they are just trying to compromise with an important person
they have decided to spend their lives with, the general way
relationships should work. Do you just have to shit on their
happiness because you can't down beers and do bong hits with them?
Additionally, you are probably of a similar age, maybe they are just
growing up.
Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous- Good
Charlotte.
Don't we all remember this one. The
band had carried just enough of their shitty upbringing through to
bitch about something most of us hate, rich people. Also famous
people, and their lifestyles. When this song came out in 2002 I was
too young to really appreciate the irony of the thing. The irony
should be apparent to anyone remotely familiar with the band. They
spent the entirety of a soon to be huge single, bitching about the
very thing that single would cause them to be.
The song and the album and equally
ironic album it came from The
Young and The Hopeless broke
the band, big-time. In the years since they have become less young
and
hopeless, though
more rich and
famous.
Should we rob them? I mean, they do have mansions?
New
Tattoo- Motley Crue
This song actually kicks ass. The
title track to the 2001 album shows something of a sensitive side to
the 'Worlds Most Dangerous Band'. But the lyrics are borderline
nonsensical. If you don't wish to listen it is essentially a drunk
Vince Neil calling his, like, fifteenth wife to tell her he just got
a New Tattoo. Though it emerges that the said tattoo is something
closer to a metaphor, or at least a weird Motley Crue metaphor.
I think, the tattoo represents
the poor woman he is drunk dialling, the lyrics ' one love, one
woman, you're my new tattoo' represent the commitment and exclusion
of all others that marriage calls for and the 'everyone will see my
new tattoo' shows his willingness to accept her in the course of
public life, I guess.
Then what's the problem? The
drunken tattoo as a milestone of an apparently important relationship
aside, it seems trivial for a rock star with a new wife. To the
patron in that world a new wife is like a new pillow-case. He has
laid his heart out, accepting this woman as something as permanent as
a tattoo. But there is also something insidious about calling it his
'new tattoo', implying it will one day be as old and unwanted as his
other 35 year old ex-wives.
Though hardened Crue fans will
be saying 'Nikki writes all the songs, what are you blaming Vince
for', because they are part of the same machine, and ethos. Nikki was
on his second wife when the album came out, Vince on his third. They
also both had a shit-ton of tattoos. No word on how many were 'New'.
My
World- Guns N' Roses.
Okay,
I know, this isn't really Guns N' Roses, it's just Axl Rose being
weird again. But it comes under the same banner and so I reluctantly
class it as a Guns N' Roses tune, true fans will know he added it
last minute without any ones consent (Not. Even. Slash.). But that
isn't the problem, the problem is the faux badassery put forth in the
'tune?'.
Essentially,
the world described is 'a
socio psychotic state of bliss'. Which I guess means Axl Rose is
happy being crazy. I guess the point is that Axl isn't a prima donna
who sometimes doesn't feel like playing and so fucks hard the fans
who have paid and waited to see him (and his band, I guess), it is
that he is crazy; like all good artists should be. Also, probably
that he is hardcore enough to deal with his world and no-one else is.
Trouble
is, at the time it was released, I kinda did wanna 'step into' his
world. He was a world famous rock-star on a massive tour. He made a
ton of money off that tour and album and who wouldn't want that, plus
chicks and drugs probably.
The
double trouble is, this song is super shitty and was out of line with
the other tracks on the album. It is kinda like the usually great Dee
Dee Ramone's synth-soaked, over-produced and awful rap album.
Just like the weird Spandex bike shorts existed, in his world, while the rest of the band had apparently 'been delayed by the real world' and wore bad ass garments like flannelette shirts, top hats and tight jeans.
Dear
Mr. President- Pink
O.K,
ignoring the fact that Pink should now be called 'Blonde' or some
other thing, this song is kinda melodramatic. I mean, yes the
problems she mentions exist and continue to exist beyond the Bush
administration she was criticising. And yes Pink has gone some way to
addressing those problems. But as a mouth-piece for the downtrodden,
this song leaves a little to be desired.
The
lyric 'let's pretend'... 'you're not better than me' for a start. In
2006, Dubya's approval rating was right around 30 percent,
catastrophic for a politician. Luckily, he was in his second term.
Pink, on the other hand, had that same album declared platinum and a
tour that earned 42 million in Australia alone. Who is better than
who?
The
other thing is the 'hard work' she repeats in refrain, toward the end
of the song. Pink really knows nothing of this hard work. She has
never been minimum wage with a baby on the way, nor had to rebuild
her house after bombs took them away, nor building a bed out of a
cardboard box. It would seem Pink 'don't know nothing about hard
work'.
Or
knows, literally, as much as Bush.
But
big-dicked Tommy, you all say, Pink is just the mouth-piece, Bush did
bad things and someone had to make a point of it, in art!
I
don't disagree, but I would say that Pink has no right as a mouth, or
any other, piece. She was wealthy when she made the song and knew as
much about hard work as picking outfits and learning to work the rope
in a super sexy way. Bush had a coke habit, that is hard work.
As
for, 'How do you sleep, while the rest of us cry?'. Pink cried, no
doubt, all the way to the bank.
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