Well, if it isn’t the second Wednesday of the month again. Time for another episode of “Stupid song lyrics.”
If you thought that stupid song lyrics are a recent phenomenon, I would gently urge you to think again. They have been around for quite a while. In this installment I present some of my favorite clunkers from yesteryear. Enjoy.
1. From the classic “I Believe”: I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.
I, on the other hand, see no such one-to-one correspondence. In fact, my guess is that there are far, far more drops of rain than there are flowers in the world. There are, to be sure, millions and perhaps billions of flowers on our planet. I do not doubt that. But think for a minute about the last time it poured at your house. How many drops of rain do you think fell in your back yard in an hour during that heavy rainstorm? Bottom line: I think it’s no contest, the raindrops win, hands-down.
2. In 1968, The Turtles sang “Elenore, gee I think you’re swell, and you really do me well, you’re my pride and joy, et cetera.”
It’s as if they are saying, “Yes, there are several more things that we could say about Elenore—nice things in fact—but frankly, we’re too lazy to expound any more on the topic.” Truth be known, I have actually given thought to incorporating this into my own daily conversation, but I don’t think it would be appreciated. But it sure would make things simpler (for me, anyway). “Boss, I finished the reports, took notes at the meeting, et cetera . . . I’m taking the rest of the week off.”
3. Do you remember “Incense and Peppermints” by the one-hit wonder band Strawberry Alarm Clock? One line of the song states, “Incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns.”
First of all, if they are meaningless, then how could you possibly identify them as nouns? It’s kind of impossible, isn’t it? Second, and I hate to crash the whole ‘60s vibe of “there’s no true meaning because there are no absolutes” by pointing to some authoritative document, but, according to Webster’s, incense means “the perfume or smoke from some spices and gums when burned” and peppermint means “a pungent aromatic mint, also, candy flavored with its oil.” Meaningful, indeed.
4. Early-‘60s rocker Dion mellowed out a bit in 1968, providing the penetrating, socially-conscious hit “Abraham, Martin, and John.” The song tells of the contributions to freedom made by the American icons Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy. Here is how the song starts:
Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good, they die young,
I just looked around, and he’s gone.
Okay, I think I can handle this one. You see, Dion, the reason nobody has seen your old friend Abraham Lincoln is because nobody alive in 1968 had ever seen Abraham Lincoln—HE WAS ASSASSINATED ONE HUNDRED AND THREE YEARS BEFORE YOU RECORDED THIS SONG! I’m guessing you were absent that day in history class. These lyrics make it seem like Dion and Abraham were at a party together when Dion stepped aside to get a drink, and when he got back, he looked around and Abe was gone! Sometimes I think Dion would get a real kick out of hearing about the fishing trip I once took with King Henry VIII, Millard Fillmore, and Sacagawea.
I can really empathize with your analysis of the first “I Believe” line. I went through exactly the same process once and reached exactly the same conclusion! The rain drops definitely greatly outnumber the flowers!
ReplyDeleteI was analyzing that line and other lines from religious Pop hits (like “The Man Upstairs”, “He”, etc.) for doctrinal accuracy. Most religious pop hits stay fairly close to mainstream belief but there are some doozies of errors from time to time.
It just goes to show, “great minds” run along the same path, or something like that.