This is a car radio from a 1967 Buick LeSabre, which is pretty much what my father was tooling around in back when. Hopefully, this post will spark a lot of interaction with you all. Because I'm thinking about songs that come on while you're driving. The absolute dreck that your finger can't click off fast enough. Hit ditties that were inexplicable. Ear garbage. I have a few that instantly come to mind and I'm betting you will all be able to tell me some of yours.
Margaritaville: That crap sung by Jimmy Buffett. I can recognize it coming on the radio within a few notes and I am happy to say that my trigger finger can react with a split second. A big hit when it came out in 1977, I have never like this mess because it is essentially a national anthem for the homeless bum. Come on...
Nibblin' on sponge cake,
Watchin' the sun bake
All of those tourists covered with oil.
Strummin' my six-string
On my front porch swing,
Smell those shrimp; they're beginning to boil.
Get a freakin' job, you drunken slob.
Time in a Bottle: Actually, I will immediately change the channels when any Jim Croce song comes on. They are annoying and depressing and resonate today only because the guy and his career nosedived out of the sky in 1973. Yawn and click.
Don't Worry, Be Happy: Don't listen, be even happier. This was a huge hit by Bobby McFerrin in 1988 and, as soon as those faux calypso strains start to emanate from my speakers, I get sick to my stomach as if I had ingested some rancid jerk chicken. Frankly, I can lose all that reggae shit. Plus it reminds me of all those Haitians and Jamaicans that run the city government of my hometown, Mount Vernon, New York, into the dirt. They have essentially turned a proud city into an expanded chicken coop.
We Built This City: Starship's # 1 hit from 1985 and it may be linked to brain cancer. I read where one guy tortured himself by listening to it over and over for 24 hours straight. And they're complaining about waterboard torture? The military should use it for just those reasons and I'm betting no one will come after this country ever again. There are versions of the song that include a traffic report, which renders the senseless even more senseless.
American Pie: As soon as this Don McLean crap, a bizarre # 1 hit from 1972, comes on, I change the dial quickly. And know not to turn back to that radio station for another 20 minutes or so, because the song is that freakin' long. My only thought for its popularity is that there was an epidemic of deafness in the United States in the early 70s. It's allegedly about Buddy Holly, who's probably much happier being in Heaven far, far away from anybody playing this swill. The lyrics are so super whiny...
A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile and I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance and maybe they'd be happy for a while but February made me shiver with every paper I delivered, bad news on the door step, I couldn't take one more step, I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride but something touched me deep inside, the day, the music, died. So...
Wah, wah, wah. You can add to this hatred the fact that Don McLean was supposedly one of the biggest jerks ever to walk the Earth. Drive your Chevy off a cliff, please.
Okay, gang, what qualifies as aural pollution in your world?
Dinner last night: Sandwich and macaroni salad at the NY abode.
5 comments:
Actually, a couple of early Buffett tunes "Come Monday" are decent. But he's become his own industry.
I have fond personal memories of "American Pie," and McLean's first album was OK. Want some really bad stuff? Try his second album (you won;t find it on radio, happily).
Hip-hop, rap and almost anything after the mid-1980s are an automatic click. Even the return of CBS-FM hasn't enthused me -- nowhere near as enjoyable as the pre-JACK-FM version.
Most disco-era stuff will get me out of there pretty quickly, too. And anything too metallic.
Well, if you want to talk genres, anything rap gets clicked out by me. Especially if it's from the new Shaquille O'Neal album.
Interesting. Except for "American Pie" I wouldn't change the channel for these tunes. I actually like "Time In A Bottle." I have a soft spot for Grace Slick (courtesy of the 60's), so I won't trash her tune which has been named the worst song ever written.
The real villains are the radio programmers, their ratings books, focus groups and greed. Beat us to death with the same old tunes, why don't ya.
My current "Hate It" tune is the crap by Alicia Keyes, "No One." Plunge chopsticks in my ears, please. The girls in the office love it, so it's always on the radio. Thanks. And James Blount? Shoot him, too.
Your nickname should be Trigger Finger. No one is faster on changing a car radio. Kudos.
"Time In a Bottle" isn't one of Jim Croce's best tunes, and his enduring popularity has undoubtedly been aided by his untimely and unfortunate death. He had a long career before he made it big and only a couple of years before he passed away.
As for "Trigger Finger," my kids feel the same way about me. It's for people like us that cars these days come with CD players.
I'd like to see a showdown between Puck and Len to decide who's faster on changing the station. My money's on Len. ("I can change that station after two seconds.")
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