The worst song ever written

So we knew in '94 that Weezer would never make an album as good as the blue one (seriously, every song on that album is amazing. Easily one of the top 10 albums in the last 20 years.) but their steady  decline in album quality in favor of singles has peaked (or bottomed out) with this year's Red Album.

Sure, Pork 'n' Beans is catchy and the video is creative, but if you take a listen to the rest of the album, you'll notice most of the other songs are sub-par, both in lyrics and melody. And then you listen to Troublemaker. 

Have you ever heard how the phrase 'cellar door' is widely considered the most linguistically beautiful spoken phrase in English? Well, if you took the opposite of that and set it to music, it would sound an awful lot like Weezer's Troublemaker. Forced rhymes, non-sensical lyrics and grammar that would make e.e. cummings blush; this song's got them all.

Listen to the audio and follow along with the lyrics, so while listening to it and thinking, "Hmmm, I must have misunderstood what he said, those lyrics are just too stupid," you can check the lyrics and find that yes, in fact, lead singer Rivers Cuomo is saying exactly what you thought you heard.

Go ahead, I'll wait...

...

...

...

...ok, if you haven't double-Van Gough'ed yourself by now, let's break this down:

Put me in a special school

'Cause  I am such a fool

And I don't need a single book

To teach me how to read

Who needs stupid books?

They are for petty crooks

And I will learn by studying the lessons in my dreams

First off, school and  fool are in the words-you-must-never-rhyme-in-a-song-if-you-want-people-to-take-you-seriously column, right next to life and wife and air and don't care. So we haven't gotten past the first rhyming couplet and we're already kitsch. Great! 

Next, how might you propose learning to read without the use of books? Sure, one might pick up a magazine or newspaper, but basal readers like Dick and Jane are a lot easier for an illiterate to understand than Vanity Fair or The Wall Street Journal. Even USA Today is written for an 8th grade reading level, which clearly the songwriter has yet to achieve.

So books are for petty crooks? First of all, if you graphed the number of petty crime convictions in any demographic (x) and the number books read over any amount of time(y), the end result would always end up looking like the upper right-hand side of a circle. 

In any event, I've got a book that may interest you; it's called Songwriting for Dummies, and it's only $14.95 on Amazon! Might be a good investment with that royalty check.

On to the next verse:

So turn off the TV

'Cause that's what others see

And movies are as bad as eating chocolate ice cream

They only sicken me

Don't let me play football

I'll sack the quarterback and jack the brother of the ball

I'll ignore the first two lines because they might hold up in an average song, but we the listeners are then greeted with the worst analogy of all time. Movies are as bad as eating chocolate ice cream? What? How can you compare those two things? First of all, eating chocolate ice cream is wonderful, and I am therefore forced to deduce that movies are great as well. But then you go on to explain that they both sicken you. How can you compare eating something that actually enters your body and chemically interacts with your digestive system with the potential to make you physically ill (even though it's chocolate ice cream; is there anything that settles your stomach more?) with watching a movie that doesn't chemically interact with your body at all? Also, being struck ill by such a broad category as movies? There's quite a bit of difference between Citizen Kane and Gigli. Movies cover a lot of topics and chances are if you have any interests or hobbies at all, especially troublemaking, then there's probably a movie out there for you.

Presumably in an attempt to cover up the previous lyrics, the song suddenly switches topics to sports. Now he is correct that sacking the quarterback is something that happens in football (kudos!), but jack(ing) the brother of the ball is not a legal play in any of the playbooks I consulted while researching this article. From the description I would imagine it means stealing a basketball, which according to my research has nothing to do with football.

Still with me? You brave soul. On to the chorus:

I'm a troublemaker

Never been a faker

Doing things my own way

And never giving up

I'm a troublemaker

Not a double-taker

I don't have the patience to keep it on the up

I'll even spot you the unimaginative rhymes for troublemaker, but you definitely can't rhyme up with up (see also: words-you-must-never-rhyme-in-a-song-if-you-want-people-to-take-you-seriously) and the logical paradox of never giving up and not having the patience to keep it on the up blows my mind. Please note that they repeat this three more times in the song, but I will not be revisiting it for fear of elbow-dropping my computer screen. Next verse:

I picked up a guitar

What does it signify?

I'm gonna play some heavy metal riffs and you will die

You wanted arts and crafts

How's this for arts and crafts?

Wa-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh (that's right)

It looks like Cuomo subscribes to Patton Oswalt's theory of '80s metal and its ability to blow people away, so I'll give him a point for good taste in stand-up comics. But I'm going to have to deduct five points for rhyming the same word again (crafts) and copping out of a final line by using the sound effect that the six million dollar man makes when he's doing something superhuman.

I'm growing out my hair

I'm moving out to Cherokee

I'm gonna be a rock star and you will go to bed with me

'Cause I can't work a job

Like any other slob

Punching in and punching out and sucking up to Bob

I certainly understand the part about wanting to be a rock star for the girls, but since the band is from Los Angeles, they might have a wider selection of women at home than if they move to Cherokee, which has only 10-15 residents and is considered a ghost town.

Then comes the matter of the mysterious Bob. Who is he? Where does he work? What do his friends think about him getting mentioned in a Weezer song? Is he, too, a slob like his co-workers? Looks like we'll never know since the verse is over. Next:

Marrying a bitch

Having seven kids

Giving up and growing old 

And hoping there's a God

Why would you marry a woman you think is a bitch? And then why on earth would you have seven children with her? I mean, Los Angeles has to have more divorce lawyers than women. 

I'm gonna be a star

And people will crane necks

To get a glimpse of me and see if I'm having sex

And studying my moves

To try to understand

Why I am so unlike the singers in the other bands

So now the rhyme scheme changes up from aabccb to abbcdd? Whatever. And unless you're doing it in public, people shouldn't be able to see you having sex. Plus unless it's with her, your bitch wife would probably won't approve.

It's such a mystery

As anyone can see

There isn't anybody else exactly quite like me

And when it's party time

Like 1999

I'll party by myself because I'm such a special guy

Pointing out the fact that time, nine and guy don't rhyme is a bit like worrying about a blood stain after getting shot. And I suppose pointing out that biologically, there isn't anybody exactly like anybody else is also like shooting a dead horse. But I definitely have to point out that party(ing) by myself is an obvious masturbatory euphemism, which concisely wraps up my sentiments on this song.

I can't blame Weezer for this aural holocaust since by focusing on writing hit singles, they have to get the 40-year-old balding suits with ponytails to fill in the other nine tracks. But this song definitely serves as a warning for quality control on albums. 

I mean, it's your name on this shit.

The most grammatically offensive sports team names

They’ve finally got a name for their NBA franchise in OKC—the horribly generic and grammatically suspect Oklahoma City Thunder. While myriad online lists chronicle the funniest, worst and most unique sports team names, let's explore the grammarian's least favorite athletic monikers:

Any singular team name—in addition to sounding like they play in a sub-par league like the WNBA, NBDL, AFL or MLS, the singular team name confuses the subject-verb agreement when referring to sports clubs. It makes grammatical sense (but not logical sense) to say “the Atlanta Hawks are the best team in the NBA,” but confusion abounds when the Utah Jazz have a shot at the Western Conference Championship.

Note: It looks like the 2008 AP Stylebook now defines this rule for singular team and band names. I’m still working on 2003. Sorry.

Columbus Blue Jackets—a bluejacket is another name for an enlisted man or woman in the U.S. or British Navy, but it's one word. It looks like a stab at the Red/White Sox clothing formula, but people in Columbus definitely don’t have enough of the circular reasoning of Red Sox fans to justify such a silly name.

San Francisco 49ers/Philadelphia 76ers— come on folks, this is Comp 100. Years abbreviated with the last two numbers start with commas. ‘49ers and ‘76ers, please.

Presbyterian College Blue Hose— this South Carolina school should be fined by whatever conference they’re in for such an ambiguous name. Is it singular, as in “I used a blue hose to fill my water balloons,” or plural, like “I have a run in my blue hose.”

 Apparently the latter—according to the school’s athletic site—which was changed from the Presbyterian Blue Stockings in the 1950s, presumably because it sounded too masculine.

 

Harvard Crimson—while several other universities use similar color name formulas, the folks at Harvard should know better. At least Alabama is a Crimson something. And that’s in Alabama.

 

Montreal Canadiens—I’m aware that everyone in Montreal thinks French is a superior language, but your hockey team plays in an American league. It’s not like they call them Los Cargadores de San Diego or El Calor de Miami, even though more people in both cities would understand. Just help us out and spell it C-A-N-A-D-I-A-N-S. Thanks.

 

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim—wait, what? Where is their stadium? Anaheim? Then why aren’t they the Anaheim Angels? Because the new owner wanted more fans from LA to buy tickets? Then why don’t they just call them the Los Angeles Angels? Or a region or state like the Florida Marlins, Carolina Panthers, Golden State Warriors, New England Patriots, Minnesota Vikings, Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals, Indiana Pacers, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Jersey Nets, Utah Jazz, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes, New Jersey Devils, Florida Panthers or the Colorado Avalanche? Because it’s dangerous, outside-the-box thinking, you say? Oh.

 

The Toronto Maple Leafs—the plural of leaf is leaves. Damn Canadiens.

Harlequin Times

So it's not like they're reporting on foreign policy or the presidential race, but this AJC story today about a dog who saves a man's life reads more like a Harlequin romance novel than a news article.

Among the many journalistic offenses are the lack of quoted sources corroborating the telling of events, the forced use of inaccurate adjectives, the unnecessary building of drama through use of excessively short sentences and paragraphs and the lack of a date telling when this actually happened.

Here are some delightful excerpts:

"...but Charley kept pacing back and forth, back and forth. Barking. Frances Gippert had never seen her canine friend like this. His bark reminded her of a baby's distressed cry."

"Gippert spotted a man lying among the shrubs, back against the hot ground, semiconscious." You sure the ground was hot? Were you there? Usually ground next to shrubs is grassy and cool.

(offset as its own paragraph) "Tell him I love him, Bill told her. Tell him to hang on."

"By then, she could hear sirens in the distance. Help was on the way."

Maybe if they covered foreign policy like this, more people would read the paper instead of skipping to the sodoku or sports page.

This license plate is not only redundant, it's also redundant

Found on the car I parked next to on 9th Street in Midtown Atlanta. I know the song lyric "Our God is an Awesome God," but when you remove the possessive, shouldn't it turn into "God is Awesome?" I can only assume the red splatter is the blood of creationists they ran over on the way home.

New theme

After taking inventory of things that I 1. care about, 2. know about and 3, see a need for, I've decided to steer the theme of this blog toward writing. 

I know what you're thinking: Another blog encouraging bad writers to write and get their bad writing published. Far from the truth. I am far more interested in turns of phrase, wit, diction, words, brevity, recognizing good writing and lambasting bad prose. Most messages on earth are communicated through words, and most of those messages need serious editing. Enter Jonathan. He's here to help.

If you want to review my credentials, check out my resume or writing samples.