Another Music Award!

Today, I am proud to present another music award that has never before been given outside of my head. It's the Never Let You Go Award for Spectacularly Bad Songwriting.

This award commemorates the Third Eye Blind song, Never Let You Go, which contains several classic lines:

"You say that I've changed
Well maybe I did
But even if I changed
Whats wrong with it?"

and also

"If theres a reason
It's lost on me
Maybe we'll be friends
I guess we'll see"

As you can see, a song must follow in this these legendary footsteps to earn the prestigious NLYGAFSBS (or Nillygaffsibus, as they are affectionately known in the industry).

I am pleased to announce Nickelback!

Their song Photograph contains a number of clunkers. Practically every verse deserves a mention, but the opening lines are what really caught my attention:

"Look at this photograph
Everytime I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is on Joey's head?"

Not only are the words ridiculous (I don't know, what the hell is on Joey's head? The world may never know. And who the hell is Joey anyway?), but they don't have any semblance of rhythm. Just try to make those stresses and syllables fit into rhythmic pattern.

Undaunted by lyricism or melody writing, Nickelback plows on.

"And this is where I grew up
I think the present owner fixed it up
I never knew we'd ever went without
The second floor is hard for sneaking out"

1) He just rhymed "up" with "up"!
2) The third line is just confusing.
3) Why does he go from talking about his dilapidated house to talking about sneaking out? To better transition into the next verse about skipping school? And if he hated school so much, why did he break in "half a dozen times"?

"Kim's the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous that I nearly missed"

The awkwardness of the whole song, combined with the awkwardness of him telling us this and the awkwardness of the phrasing of this little confession, makes my teeth hurt like when when you bite down on ice.

The reason I am commenting on this relatively old song is that I heard it on the radio today and it caught my attention. When the song ended, the radio station I was listening to played a little commercial clip along the lines of "We play the music you want to hear!" I think that was their way of saying "You really have no one to blame but yourselves."

We honor you, Nickelback! Keep phoning in those lyrics, we can "hear you now!"

1 comments on this foolish article:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, both of those songs are pretty horrible. Give me some time though. I'm sure I can think of about five more that will put those to shame. (Look up the lyrics for "Lonely Day" by System of a Down.)