What with thousands upon thousands of songs having been written throughout all of recorded and non-recorded history, it's obvious that a list of the 500 greatest songs of all time is going to :
1. Be really difficult to whittle down to
2. Leave out a lot of really good songs
What that list should NOT do, however, is include a 3-minute compilation of screams, record scratches, and a single guitar chord being throttled to within an inch of its life.
And yet...
That's exactly what Rolling Stone did when it decided "Sabotage", by Beastie Boys, should be honored with the 475th place on the list.
"Alone Again Naturally" (Gilbert O'Sullivan) didn't make the list.
"American Pie" (Don McLean) didn't make the list.
"Amazing Grace", "Classical Gas", and "I'll Follow the Sun" are nowhere to be found on the high and holy list...
...and yet they made room for "Sabotage" with its total lack of melody and indiscernible lyric.
What's my Senator's address??!?
It's always kind of a risky thing to search for yourself on the World Wide Wackfest (WWW). You could very easily find out things about yourself that you'd rather not know.
I thought I was fairly safe, though, to search for my book, Almost the Truth About Youth Ministry: Salesmen, Secretaries, and Smart Alecks, on Amazon. I just wanted to see what Amazon and the other sub-distributors were selling it for.
The answer I found almost put me into a seizure.
On one end of the spectrum was the expected insult to my ego: Amazon Prime offering brand new copies of my precious literary child for $2.97 with free shipping and $0.21 estimated tax.
But the listing that caused a coronary was by an enterprise called AllPro Books. (Yes, that's the real name. I am not afraid to call these fine folks out in recognition of their audacity.) Their asking price ... man, I can hardly even type this without shaking ... they are expecting folks to shell out $982.90, plus $70.31 in estimated tax, for a USED copy. Not even a "Like New" used copy, nor one in "Very Good" condition. These Internet-based pirates are charging that choke-a-horse price for a "Used - Good" copy.
But wait! There's more!
They also seem to think they would be forced to go bankrupt if the buyer doesn't chip in $3.99 for shipping.
I know what you're thinking: "That's insane! They'll never sell anything with prices like that! AllPro Books is run by idiots!"
But observe...
In the past 12 months, they've received 245 ratings, 87% of which were positive.
Stop the world. I want to get off.
P.S. The pages are made out of paper, just in case you are running short of any particular kind of paper product. You may want to order a case of these from http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/deweyroth.
An exiguous excerpt from Almost the Dictionary: The Almost the Truth™ Dictionary of What Words Ought to Actually Mean: A Lexicon for Parallel Thinkers.
Each (n) - Pain felt by the fifth letter of the alphabet
Eagle (n) - A pecie of bird epecially adapted to living near an ocean or ea and cavenging for french frie thrown by viiting tourit.
Earlike (n) - What Dwight D. Eisenhower would have been called if he were a British nobleman
Earliness (adj) - The quality or state of being an earl
Earplug (v) - To carry or tote an air sickness bag when it is full
Earthling (n) - Medical devithe worn when one hath thprained one'th ear
Earwig (n) - What all the fashionable-yet-bald ears are wearing this season
Easiness (clause) - Phrase used while explaining how to spell the author's name: "Dasindog, Easiness, Wasinwater..."
Easterly (adj) - Having the quality of a resurrection celebration
Extreme (n) - A dry riverbed
When a fellow has loved and lost, he ends up being torn between at least two conflicting thoughts:
1. "Man, I don't ever want anything even close to that to happen to me again."
2. "Man, I miss the way it used to be when I wasn't single."
What to do? What to do?
Well, if you're Mick Jones of Foreigner, you write a song about the burden of loneliness ("Now this mountain I must climb; feels like the world upon my shoulders") and the determination to take a risk again. ("Can't stop now, I've traveled so far to change this lonely life. I wanna know what love is. I want you to show me.")
If you're Mick Jones of Foreigner, you get the New Jersey Mass Choir to sing on the record and they form a circle and recite the Lord's Prayer before the tape starts rolling.
If you're Mick Jones of Foreigner, you ride that song all the way to Number 1 on the charts and Number 476 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
If you're Mick Jones of Foreigner, you open the song with a quatrain that makes absolutely no sense. ("I've gotta take a little time; a little time to think things over." [Okay, THAT makes sense, but what's up with the next two lines?] "I better read between the lines, in case I need it when I'm older.")
If you're Mick Jones of Foreigner, I'm pretty sure you're not wasting your time reading this blog.
