[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 15: A Song That Describes Me

I didn’t know what to do with this one, so I crowd-sourced it. The suggestions made on Facebook were all pretty amazing — as either ridiculous or sublime — and I kept waiting for more, which is why I didn’t end up posting last night. So, my apologies for the three people who have been following the Challenge regularly. Some of the songs that were suggested were actually so good that I feel embarrassed to associate them with me or my, uh, subjectivity. And some were just hilariously wrong, like the two suggested by my husband. So, here’s what my friends came up with:

Chris H. suggested the Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring.” I don’t if I can live up to this one.

Brock S. suggested Badly Drawn Boys’ “Silent Sigh.” Wow.

Adia B. simply wrote “young gifted and black.” I know I can’t live up to this one.

Rob suggested “There’s No Business Like [the] Show Business” and “Mad World.” WTF? I am not a crazy show queen! The “[the]” is in reference to my weird habit of including an extra “the” in the song when I sing it. (Oh, wait. Crazy. Show queen. Hmm.) I don’t remember why I started doing that. There’s some inside joke that is now so inside it’s become a black hole. Anyway, I chose the disco version of the first song, which is the definition of awesomesauce, and the Gary Jules version of the second. Adam Lambert’s version is better but not embeddable.


Jason F. wrote “‘Gideon’ by My Morning Jacket, or ‘Camel Toe’ by Fannypack.” Sublime and ridiculous, respectively.


Tom W.: “the song that comes to mind is ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ by Taco.” I don’t even know what to say. Anyway, I’m embedding the uncensored version. Guess what was deleted from the video when it ran on MTV.

Karen V-S suggested “American Badass” by Kid Rock. Um, no.

And Amy H. continued the irony with by suggesting “I Want To Be Evil” by Eartha Kitt.

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[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 2: My Least Favorite Song

Well, this is confusing. Is this the song that I hate the most or is the song lowest on the hierarchical list of my favorite songs. I’m betting it’s the former, but you can never know for certain with these things. So, I’m going with a song I hate. There are a lot of songs that I think are lame or boring, but for me to hate it, it’s got to be some combination of cynical, unoriginal, and badly performed.

Normally, I’d go with a Puff Daddy/P. Diddy thing, because he’s not just a bad rapper but he’s also the grossest abuser of the sample, ever. He just raps over other artist’s songs, and he usually raps about how awesome and rich he and his friends are. (See, for example, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” and “I’ll Be Missing You.”) But then came Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long.” He’s not only just rapping — or “rapping” — over a better song, but that song is “Sweet Home Alabama,” which is like a dog whistle for arrogant, South-will-rise-again Southerners. It’s a song written to defend the South against Neil Young’s “Southern Man” and “Alabama.” Kid Rock’s career was waning, his own songs weren’t doing much, he needed a new audience, so he covered a song that would suck in country fans. He succeeded. Gross.

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