How This Got to Be the 438th Greatest Song of All Time, I Will Never Know

 

The best thing I can say about The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is that it's less than three minutes long.

Forget that it has a single line of what pretends to be a melody that is repeated for every phrase.

Forget the words "now I wanna be your dog" that comprise 37.5% of the lyric.

What I'm really curious about are the first seven words of this trainwreck: "So messed up I want you here."

Does the singer want the person here to help him resolve his high level of being messed up? (I want you here because I'm so messed up.)

Or is the singer's desire for the presence of this person a strong indication of just how truly messed up he is? (I'm so messed up...I want you here. That's how stinkin' messed up I am!)

If I Had Been Cast Instead Of...Part Third

 

...Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

...Harrison Ford

...Benedict Cumberbatch

...Buzz Lightyear

...Elvis

What if Billy Joel and Willie Nelson Hooked Up?

In spite of the imagined son of Billy Joel and Willie Nelson looking like a poster child for state-required plastic surgery, I'm pretty sure that he would be involved in making some fine music.

• Always on My New York State of Mind
• Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Piano Men
• Forgiving You Was Easy in the Middle of the Night
• Blue Eyes Cryin' for the Longest Time
• Just the Way You Are Crazy
• To All the Uptown Girls I've Loved Before
• It's Still On the Road Again to Me

Thinking About John Cougar Mellencamp Makes Me Mad

 

According to Rolling Stone, "Pink Houses" is the 439th Greatest Song of All Time, and I don't know whether to brag about my personal connection to the song or explode in righteous fury.

Perhaps I should explain.

This song was inspired by an old man sitting on the porch of his pink shack and waving at John Cougar Mellencamp, who promptly waved back.

A simple beginning.

The recording of the song took place in a barn in Brownstown, Indiana just a few years before I moved there to serve as a youth minister. One day during my time there, Mellencamp attended the wedding of a family member of his at the church where I worked.

So much for the personal connection.

As for righteous fury...

A few years ago, Mellencamp performed at the Minnesota State Fair, and Beloved and I were in attendance. Also in attendance, and seated in the row behind us, was a slightly inebriated chap who apparently thought I paid several dollars per ticket to hear his running commentary on the quality of merchandise for sale at the fair and all the good times he used to have in high school.

I couldn't hear a word Mellencamp said from the stage, including when he sang "Pink Houses".

I have never before in my life been so motivated to hold a healing service in a public place by laying hands on a person.

Hard.

Fast.

Repeatedly.

Almost the News XXIV

 

Real headlines. Fake news.

City Council Member Running for Mayor
...because the mayor recently broke her leg

St. Paul Man Charged After Lakeville Shooting
Witnesses were amazed at the man's ability to take a bullet and just keep charging.

City Reopens Search for New Manager
Immediately after being hired, Benson city manager, Buck Trends, went missing. The search for him had to be suspended during the harsh winter weather but has now resumed, with expected highs in the 60s all week.

Planning for the Next 10 Years Kicks Off
...and the funeral is planned for next Wednesday.

First Wolf Pups of the Season Tagged
...and now they are It.

Mayberry Trek

 

Science Officer Barney Spock was studying the scan of the planet that USS Mayberry was orbiting. Captain Andy T. Kirk spun his captain's chair toward the half-alien.

"Watcha think, Barn?"

"Well, Anj, what you see below us is a rock: a large mass of lifeless granite surrounded by poisonous gas. There are no signs of any life whatsoever."

"Uh-huh." Kirk turned to Communications Officer Thelma Lou Uhura. "Anything?"

"I've tried every channel and I just can't get any response, Andy."

"Alright then, I reckon we can chalk this one up to the uninhabited list."

"Andy, Andy, Andy," Barney condescendingly intoned. "Don't you see? Any planet this quiet has got to be hiding something. I say we send a team down to reconnoiter!"

Security Officer Goober Pyle jumped into the conversation: "Hey, Andy, I think Barney's right! We need to really check this place out!"

Kirk: "So, you wanna lead a team to the surface, do ya?"

Goober swallowed hard and said, "Well, I kinda thought Howard might be a better choice for actually, you know, goin' on down there."

Just then, an explosion rocked the bridge, sending sparks flying.

Barney: "Uninhabited, huh?!? They just shot at us! Uninhabited my Aunt Matilda!"

Captain Kirk pressed the comm button on the arm of his chair. "Engineering. Report."

Gomer Scott's voice was high-pitched and excited. "Shazam! That almost knocked my socks off, Andy! I thought we'd done been hit by a photon torpeder but guess what?"

Silence.

"Go on. Guess."

Andy rolled his eyes and sighed, "What, Gomer."

"It twern't a torpeder at all! One of the dilithium crystals overheated and popped outta the reactor. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"

"Any damage?"

"Nothin' a little elbow grease caint fix."

Pressing a different button, Captain Kirk addressed the ship's doctor. "Bones! Any injuries from that explosion?"

Dr. Floyd Lawson took a little while to respond. "Ohhh, Andy, everything is fine down here. Not so much as a hangnail. You know, it reminds me of the time..."

"Not now, Bones."

Things had calmed down a bit, so the ship's clerk, Howard Sprague, approached the captain's chair.

"Uh...begging the captain's pardon, Andy, but I've been wondering why Education Officer Crump spends so much time on the bridge."

Captain Andy T. Kirk leaned back as much as his chair would allow and drawled, "Well, I know she doesn't exactly fit in with all the fightin' and decision-makin' we do up here...but it don't exactly hurt a fella's eyes to see her around, now does it?"

Grumbling About the 440th Greatest Song

 

I'm usually pretty aware of what a curmudgeon I am and that my days of being on the cutting edge of popular culture are far behind me. Then I get smacked in the face with Stuph I Never Knew from 35 years ago.

A case in point is this descriptive paragraph about the 440th Greatest Song of All Time from the editors of Rolling Stone:

In 1985, Azor recruited fellow Sears employees Cheryl James and Sandy Denton, both from Queens, New York, for a music-school project. With the addition of Dee Dee "Spinderella" Roper, Salt-N-Pepa became the first female MCs to crack the pop Top Twenty when "Push It" was remixed by San Francisco DJ Cameron Paul.

School project. Addition of somebody named Spinderella. MCs being remixed.

Whatever happened to friends getting together in a garage and writing a song that makes it onto the radio and catches on and gets the band added to a tour of national recording artists with a gig on a network variety show when the song hits Number One and then breaking up when the record company makes demands?

Never mind.