#thewhitealbum

There’s nothing in particular on my mind but there are a few random things that I’ve been pondering…

Issue 1 –

I hate it when people talk during a song. Not random people around me but the actual singer. A perfectly good song can be ruined by some blowhole thinking, “You know what would go good here? Me talking about some stupid shit.” I’m no linguist but I’m pretty sure the words “song” and “sing” have something to do with each other in some Latin root kind of a way. One of these words doesn’t belong here,  SONG – SING – TALK. For those of you from Akron, the answer is TALK. TALK does not belong. It’s called a song for a reason. If there was meant to be talking they would call it a TALK.

Invariably, the talking in a song is always about what the singer wants to do to some women, generally focusing on how he’s going to get her into the sack. Like, “Girl”, they always start with GIRL because women love to be called that.  “I’m gonna rub you down and take away that frown…” In the age of Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo it might be better to break into their to-do list for instance. “Going to the grocery store, you keep drinking all the milk and I gotta get more. Damn baby, you one thirsty ho!”

Song talking is always done is a very creepy, sexual predator kind of a way. You can’t just wax all bubbly and happy about banging some chick. Instead they use words like “make love.” Incidentally, is there is faster way to creep someone out than to tell them that you want to “make love” to them?

Barry White comes to mind when I think of song talkers. If there was ever a guy who had the voice to interrupt a song with talking, it was Barry White. Yet and still, please don’t. David Lee Roth did it in the Van Halen song, Panama, I think. He breaks into this horrifyingly sexual nonsense about reaching down between his legs to ease the seat back. What does any of that have to do with the nation of Panama? Do you remember what Manuel Noriega looked like? This is not the place for verbal sexual innuendo. That guy was a monster.

I cant think of any time a women singer broke into some idiotic rambling during a song and I think that may be why it bothers me so much. I don’t want to hear about David Lee Roth reaching down between anybody’s legs and I am mortified hearing about Barry White’s plans for bedding some poor woman. Maybe women dig this sort of romancing but I highly doubt it. If some songstress did feel the need to veer off into spewing spoken romantics at me mid-song, I figure her best bet in getting me interested would go something like this:

Boy, I’m gonna let you sit around in your pajamas all day

Not gonna say a damn thing

and so on

Maybe I’m old but musical spoken word porn to me would revolve around food and being left alone for an effing minute.

Issue 2 –

While we’re on the subject of music, whatever happened to all that hoo-ha about satanic messages being hidden on old vinyl albums when you played them backwards? How are you supposed to do that anyway? You know what happens when you play the Beatles White Album, one of the most satanic inspired, supposed, albums of all time, in reverse? Do you hear malevolent whispers from Mephistopheles insisting that you murder your family? No, what you do is fuck up your needle.

Speaking of Satan, I read recently that Dennis DeYoung front man of the band Styx, is suspected of being a devout follower of the dark side. I was quite surprised to hear this as I grew up hating their music and never heard a peep about him being a minister of the reptilian underworld. Let me just say, based on what I’ve heard from Mr. DeYoung, he may worship at an altar but his sacrifices go directly to the god of shitty music not Beelzebub.

A guy from high school was a rabid Styx fan. I remember him only because he liked that Mr. Roboto song. Was he a nice guy? I have no effing clue but he liked that song and to this day is, in my mind, a huge douche.  I remember this dbag cruising around to the musical stylings of Styx blasting through a sound system worth more than the car it was attached to. I was a huge dork in high school and even I recall thinking upon seeing him, “Jesus, what a tremendous loser.”

What the hell does that stupid song mean anyway?

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Mata ah-oo hima de
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Himitsu wo shiri tai

What in the hell am I supposed to do with this? Dont intermingle foreign words into a song. I can barely understand what you’re saying in English for Christ sake.

It might be a good idea for Dennis to switch his allegiance to Satan and worship at the feet of Jefferson Starship for a while because without their contributions of We Built This City and Nothing’s Gonna to Stop Us Now, he would hold the title of the worst song ever written. Quite a distinction. Kudos Dennis.

Issue 3 –

When I was a child a hundred years ago, we were taught the song Frere Jacques and we learned it in French. Recently it occurred to me to inquire as to what that song actually means. Since the four years of French I took has left me clueless to translate, I called on Google. Apparently, this song, a song that every kid in the history of the Earth has been forced to learn, is about some lazy fucker named John who was so irresponsible that he sleeps through his god damned alarm! What kind of crap is this?

It seems a bit of a slap in the face of people like the inventor of the polio vaccine or the guy who invented blood transfusions to immortalize some two bit French booze hound who cant find the motivation to get up in the morning.

“Hey great song you’re writing there. you know who deserves to be remembered in song? The guy who invented the furnace so we don’t die every fucking winter.”

“Oh hell no. He’s a great guy, I’m sure but I intend to write this as a homage to my brother John who’s so deeply mired in depression that he cant stand the light of day.”

Issue 4 –

Have you ever noticed that when you describe a person to someone that the description is always based on their flaws rather than their finer points? “Hey Jon, you know Bill from Accounting? You mean the guy with the thick shoe and the hard limp?” Or, “Has anyone heard from Betty that skanky whore? You know the one who dresses like a total prostitute?”

No one ever says this, “Hey Jon, it looks like Roger got a new car!” “Who the hell is Roger,” said Jon. “You know, that really smart guy? The one who is such a talented artist?”

Remember that asshole we went to school with who thought Mr. Roboto was a good song?