Just Because I Can Do the Things That You Do

A woman I work with is always talking about "earworms." Songs like Found a Peanut, the theme from Pinky and the Brain and anything by Juice Newton. I get them too, I know I posted about one not so long ago (but won't go find it in fear it will be stuck in my head all night.)

... but it's too late. I just got a Michigan commercial that goes "Let's go Krogering... Krogering.... Krogering..." running around in there.

Anyway, for me even worse than earworms are bullsh!t lyrics. Things that make me insane because I want to argue with the person who wrote them.

I just spent a few hours at a neighborhood bar writing a story and Johnny Cash "I Walk the Line" came on. I stopped writing and had to listen and remember what the lyrics actually were. What does he mean "Because you're mine, I walk the line.?" Walk the line in terms of drinking and gambling? Most Johnny Cash songs are about that bad boy stuff ... sometimes he even kills a man just to watch him die. But this one seems to just be about monogamy. I can handle that: he's not putting the responsibility for his good living on the good woman who gives him good loving. Monogamy might be hard to maintain for a lot of people over the course of a lifetime, but it's far from crazy in our culture to promise to be true. It's perfectly reasonable for Johnny to walk the monogamy line because he has a partner. Whew,I'll be able to sleep tonight.

This did remind me of my top irritating lyrics though. I can't tell you how many hours I've fumed about these.

Joe Jackson Breaking Us in Two:
You don't do the things that I do
You want to do things I can't do

Okay, so she doesn't do things he does, implying ability but unwillingness. And yet she wants to do things he can't do. As if he's trying and is just incapable of meeting her impossible demands. What is it she wants him to do? Complicated couples yoga postures? Improvisational dirty talk in Chinese? All the while, she's refusing to take a nice romantic walk around the block while holding hands.

Grrrrr.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

The whole point of this song is to be good at all times so you get presents from Santa. It has nothing to do with being good for the sake of goodness!

Aghhhh!

Dolly Parton Jolene:
Please don't take him just because you can

We know nothing about Jolene other than Dolly says she is beautiful, thinks Jolene could have her choice of men, and that Dolly's man has the hots for Jolene and mumbles about her in his sleep. We don't know that Jolene is even interested in the man or if, like Dolly, could never love again if she can't have this particular man. What, a beautiful woman automatically has less deep feelings for a guy? A beautiful woman wants to take a man "just" because she can. In my life, I've been a dumpee not the beautiful takee every time so it's not like I'm the beautiful vixen with an axe to grind. Even so, for some reason that line makes me crazy every time I hear it.

It also gets my goat that even though the song is written from the perspective of one woman begging another to leave her man alone, in all the live performances I seen of it, Dolly introduces it as if it is a girl-fighting, put-that-hussy-in-her- place song. Completely counter to the lyrics and what makes that song so compelling to me.

I do love Dolly Parton though (song writing more than singing, I tend to like her songs performed by other artists) and Jolene is one of my favorites. I like the Mindy Smith version with Dolly Parton doing backup vocals and harmonies. Her solo version on Just Because I'm A Woman is not quite as good. I also love the White Stripes cover.