Greatest Song Ever?
Or Just the Greatest Crap Song Ever?
When I was at college, I had an absolutely horrible professor who was a winker. As if proudly proclaiming his daily drinking and driving weren’t enough, he would finish most sentences with a wink. This habit was almost as curious as the substitute high school teacher who said “m’okay,” so many times that I felt compelled to calculate his M’Okays/Hr. (86, by the way).
Being that I am cruel and unaccepting of the failings of others, I began to mock this professor by winking whenever I had a conversation with him. Unfortunately, I then became a winker myself. I found myself winking knowingly, sheepishly, and well, in a winking manner. I was a total winker.
When you make fun of something you run the risk of embracing the target of your parody, and that is exactly what happened when Geoff Lowrey and I wrote an intentionally bad song for the American Idol Songwriter contest. At first, we wanted it to be as cheesy as possible. Geoff did a great job of making the most cliched lyrics ever (perhaps topping Heart’s “Alone”).
But then, I started to like this song. For reals. The finale chorus is gosh darned good. And I think I actually meant it when I sang, “The feeling that I felt is the feeling that you feel when you know that the feeling that you’re feeling is real.”
Regardless, I emplore you to take a listen to this song. Hopefully you will hate it enough to make fun of it….
Listen to it here:
http://mphtower.net/web/content/category/4/14/26/ (Just hit the play button!)
Thanks to:
Geoff Lowrey for writing the greatest cliched lyrics ever (sorry we couldn’t keep “Damn the torpedoes” in there)
Mike Hollinger for additional drum programming and convincing me that it really needs a proper chorus
John Watson for playing additional piano on there
Mom for urging me to enter the contest
Apologies to:
Mom for disappointing her with an entry that’s “still pretty stupid”
BONUS!
My friend Skip sent me a link today of turtles mating. Normally I don’t recommend videos, but this is, well. Golly it’s cute. Please be certain to watch to the end to hear the love song of a mating tortoise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWatc5U8RC4
Yr fthfl buddy,
Mike
3 responses to “Greatest Song Ever?”
*applauds furiously, wipes away tears*
Bravo! Bravo I say! I laughed, I cried, I was moved!
So, what is the crappiest song ever?
I laughed, I cried…but mostly I laughed…
Still, such a song must drive one (OK, me) to ask – what does constitute the crappiest song ever? I mean, can we leave it simply at Starships’ “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” or might there be something that universally makes any and everyone with even a small amount of musical taste go “oh dear God in Heaven, please stab out my eardrums for I cannot take it in life anymore?”
“Being that I am cruel and unaccepting of the failings of others”
“Forgiveness is better than punishment; for the one is the proof of a
gentle, the other of a savage nature.”
– Diogenes Laërtius
“Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.”
– Marlene Dietrich
‘There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which
seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in
themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries.”
– Laurence Sterne
“Forgive others whenever you can.”
– Chinese proverb.
“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
– John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Of course God will forgive me; that’s His job.”
– Heinrich Heine
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget;
the wise forgive but do not forget.”
– Thomas Szasz
“As you would blame others, blame yourself; as you would forgive
yourself, forgive others.”
– Chinese proverb.
“To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.”
– Quentin Crisp
“We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.”
– François Duc De La Rochefoucauld
“I am a patient man—always willing to forgive on the Christian terms
of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly;
leave it on earth: die light.”
– Jean-Paul Sartre
“There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less,
than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.”
– Philip Dormer Stanhope
“Good nature and good sense must ever join;To err is human, to forgive divine.”
– Alexander Pope
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you
will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven…”
– Luke 6:37
“The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as
ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others
when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate
ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone
to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”
– Eric Hoffer