Randor's Song of the Week: 02.19.12

"Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat" by Paul Evans and the Curls from the album Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat / Worshipping an Idol. 1959.
    The ultimate song of cuckoldry. Not exactly the most desirable claim to fame. Perhaps most surprising is that a song from the 50s earns the title. I don't think any song recorded since comes close to the level of humiliation and emasculation described, though "Venus in Furs" (by the Velvet Underground, chump!) comes close with its springboard off the book (which would certainly win out the competition, if only 'twas in song form). Some would say I've gone too far with the claim, what with the tune's sugary sweet sound feigning some sort of innocence. Don't be fooled, I reply! The Velvet Underground may ace the proper ambiance, but I say Paul Evans went too far when he put not one- not two- but SEVEN little girls in the backseat, kissing and a-huggin' with Fred. Ignoring the 'little' descriptor for you literalists, keep in mind that minivans (not yet a family standard in the song's era) evoke the seven-passenger image-- with one up front! So basically, our sad narrator chauffeurs an orgy around the town in a wheeled sardine-can with every feeble attempt to quit or join rebuffed by the girls themselves. Not even Jon Arbuckle puts up with that kinda embarrassment!

Guest Blog: 100/100 by Djandor

Hello, everyone. My name is Jacqui, and I am a musician and sibling to Randor. My boyfriend calls me ‘Djandor’, so we’ll go with that. Why not.

This may be a little longer than some of the broski’s posts, but it’s cuz I have a serious complaint. In honor of WTF’s 100th music post, I will guest blog about TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Songs of All Time that they put out on October 24th.

I wish you could have heard my sigh.

Originally I was going to go through it and replace all of the songs I thought should be replaced, then replace the musicians with musicians I would have put in instead. I realized before I even started this task that that would be ridiculously impossible because I disagree with a majority of their list.

I don’t know which hipster they asked to write this, but it was NOT someone who actually knew (good) music (okay it looks like it was a staff-contributed thing). To be fair, Rolling Stone’s list already came out, and it is way better (even some of THOSE songs I disagree with), and maybe they just wanted to be different… Here is a link to Rolling Stone’s list

The only song from the 2010s on TIME’s list is a song and artist I’ve never even heard of. Probably because I don’t listen to a lot of popular music these days because a lot of it is sincerely crap. Okay so I just YouTubed it… yeah, awful. I mean not awful, she’s a good dancer and whatever, but… not so much top 100 songs of ALL TIME material. I mean, I would have picked Amy Winehouse over Janelle Monae any day of the week. Songs also on the list that I have complete disagreements with include (but are not limited to): Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Kanye West’s Gold Digger, Richard Thompson’s Black Lightning, Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, I GOT RHYTHM (the most annoying jazz standard of all time)… I mean with names like this I’m surprised we don’t find Justin Bieber and Jimmy Buffet on here.

Just so you know, there are definitely some songs on here I totally agree with. For example, Dolly Parton’s Jolene is a mournful tune about lost love, and heck we all like some good old-style country, amiright? Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is a given, obviously. That whole album is on my desert island top 5. I can’t even believe Funkadelic and Mahalia Jackson made it on here, but yes, they should totally be on here. The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows is easily one of my favorites (topped only by Surfer Girl, my absolute favorite guilty pleasure song of all time). Lena Horne’s Stormy Weather? Delightful. Louis Armstrong’s Stardust is very in the time, for sure, though I probably would have picked a different tune for him… That’s a hard one since he did so much for music (well, another blog for another day). ANYWAY.

Without further ado (and after the break), I pick apart the list vaguely but definitely, by taking artists I agree should be on the list but making suggestions as to which songs I would have chosen instead (TIME, are you listening?!). For the full list, see the very bottom of this blog entry or go to the source itself

Poll Results, June-Sep2010

    A rough patch of consistent posting balances out with an equal amount of Poll neglect. While we usually relish in at least two polls a month, we tried to stretch out the durations for a bit more votes and time and excuses. We've got two new up now, and depending on how the ballots fall, we may be able to return to our preferred schedule here. We'll see, but for now check out the last four completed polls with a little commentary after the jump:

Randor's Song of the Week: 09.19.10

"Baby, It's You" by Smith from the album A Group Called Smith. 1969.
    Changing gears from last week's song (via bad blood in a relationship to comfy, happy connections), we've got this groovy cover of a Shirelles' doo-wop hit. You may have heard the Beatles' version as well, for all three embodiments of the song had their own type of success. It just so happens that, although all stylings have their merits, Smith scores the goal with it for me. I don't seem to be the alone in this school of thought either, for of the trio it reached the highest on the charts at spot number five. Rightly so- lead singer Gayle McCormick just wails out those lyrics on the soul-packed back-groove. Just don't confuse them with The Smiths.

Randor's Song of the Week: 07.25.10

"A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)" by Simon and Garfunkel from the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. 1966.
    I'll direct this specifically towards the modern audience, for any oldies fanatic knows Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel better than "The Sounds of Silence" or "Mrs. Robinson". While some of the lyrics most certainly will get served flat in this generation (via culture clash of the pre-summer of love environs), the overall theme applies: the woes of an inundating society. Pop culture, politics, expectations, and social norms- BAM! It's all there and it all applies even moreso in today's world. Oh, and if you had to Google the definitions of "desultory" and "philippic", don't worry- I had to double-check for accuracy's sake. In complete layman-of-layman's terms, "desultory" translates to "half-assed" and "philippic" to "rant." Essentially then, there's another connection to a widely spectated phenomenon in the current era: half-assed rants! Much like some of my posts here, and those by others on blogs world-web wide!

Randor's Song of the Week: 06.06.10

"Talkin' World War III Blues" by Bob Dylan from the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. 1963.

Need a Lyrical Miracle! Part 2

    While this won't be as original, lengthy, and witty as the first post of the series, I found it fitting to both share and include in the set. I will again mention that a song with lame wording doesn't define a bad song, however, it certainly cannot help its case. This time, the single focus is:

"Hey Jude" by The Beatles