[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 29: A Song From My Childhood

I’m not sure why, of all of the songs that I remember for being a wee lad, that I immediate picked “Lady” by Kenny Rogers. I could have picked “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” by ABBA (because I was so gay, even when I was in 2nd grade) or “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen (again: gay) or “Elvira” by The Oak Ridge Boys (weird, right?). But “Lady” reminds me of the AM radio in our Malibu station wagon, of the stereo in the living room, of the copy of Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits that I got on vinyl for Christmas when I was something like six years old. Also, it’s just a beautiful song, as intense Lionel Richie songs sung by Kenny Rogers are wont to be, and Kenny’s voice is… so damn sexy. Like he was back then. Woof.

Yay, childhood!

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[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 28: A Song That Makes Me Feel Guilty

This is an odd prompt. Is it meant to be a song that you feel guilty for liking — like a guilty pleasure? But that’s Day 13. I guess there’s a guilty pleasure that you’re gleeful about admitting and a guilty pleasure that you’d never admit. Like if you secretly loved singing the first stanza of Deutschlandlied while stretching out your right hand. Or, I guess, the prompt could mean that the song reminds you or forces you to feel guilty because of the content, the exhortation, of the lyrics. That could be Phil Collins’s treacly, if somewhat brilliant “Another Day In Paradise.”

But what about a song that is both a song that is supposed to make you feel guilty and a song that makes you embarrassed, makes you feel guilt or shame, for listening to it. I’ve got one: “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” by Crystal Waters. Not only is the song a rather oddly constructed tune about homelessness — it’s a house/disco song, and a classic one at that — but dancing to it makes you feel all icky. I mean, hello, you’re dancing to this peppy, joyful, beat-erific, singalong anthem at some club and it’s a song about a homeless woman who is doing all she can to keep up appearances. Yay! Twirl! Singalong! Have another cosmo! For a while, I’d sing along to the song at the clubs and laugh — oh, how ridiculous this song is — and now I can only gawk at the disconnect of the lyrics and the music.

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[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 27: A Song I Wish I Could Play

I wish I could play the electric guitar. And the electric bass, like my brother. And the trumpet. And the drums. Also, I wish I could sing.

Anyway, there are a bunch of guitar rock god songs that make me want to or actually start playing uninhibited, vicious air guitar, or air bass. Pearl Jam’s “Dissident.” Prince’s “Purple Rain.” White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” The legendary bass line from Thelma Houston’s version of “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” — and basically everything else they recorded. But there’s only one song that has nearly caused me to crash my guitar in my lunatic grooving to its guitar line as it plays over the radio. The Edge’s solo in U2’s “Even Better Than The Real Thing” makes my head feel like it’s going to explode. There are better songs, and greater solos (but not too many of either), but this one makes my fingers itch I want to play it so bad.

Also, the video is awesome.

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[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 26: A Song That I Can Play On An Instrument

When I was in elementary school, I played the recorder. Not well, but I played in the school recorder club. Occasionally, I find myself fingering the first few bars to “Hanukkah, O, Hanukkah.” Weird. (This version is adorbs.) In junior high, I started taking piano lessons. I liked it, and I wanted to be good, but I couldn’t be bothered to practice. I did make an attempt to play “Für Elise,” and I nailed it at home (not like this lady nails it, of course), but when my teacher had a mini recital, I bombed it. I was mortified, and like a good self-defeater, I never played again. But I can still play “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” W00t! Right?

Oh, and Paul McCartney and Wings did an awesome, if utterly bizarre, version of it, too. Who knew?

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[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 25: A Song That Makes Me Laugh

I have long argued that Britney Spears’s second album Oops!… I Did It Again is one of the great comedy albums of the last 30 years. My friend Eric bought it for me for my birthday when we were in Amsterdam together in 1999, and I giggled through my first listen of the CD. I thought it was so bad it was funny, and then I realized that there’s no way that songs like “Oops!… I Did It Again” and “Lucky” could be anything but deliberately comic, and the cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” has to be a joke. And the spoken word interludes? So absurd that they must be ironic. Like the one before “Lucky”:

(Phone rings once and answer machine picks up!)

Britney: Hey, what’s up?
This is Brit and I’m not in right now,
So do your thang.
Beeeeep.
Ha, ha, ha
I’m just kidding!

(Tone beeps)

Guy: (Scuffs)
Yo Brit, you’re a nerd!
You really need to change that message.
But I was thinking about that movie we saw the other night.
You know how she had all that fame and all that money,
but she still wasn’t happy?
Wouldn’t that make a cool song?

The answer is, of course, yes.

Bonus: My friend Curtis thought that the lyric was “She cries, cries, cries in her lonely car.” And not in her lonely heart. LOLz.

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