I’ve been thinking of writing a blog entry on a few of the songs I find interesting, so I think it’s time (now that I’m feeling somewhat manic/mostly depressed) to discuss these songs. (Research from Wikipedia)

Let’s do them alphabetical (by artist) just to make it easy.

First off is Alanis Morissette’s, “You Oughta Know.” It’s a rather troubling song about a failed relationship that seemingly went terribly wrong. Now, the jilted girl is asking her former lover if his new love will measure up as in: Is she perverted like me, Will she go down on you in a theatre . . . and, Are you thinking of me when you fuck (bleeped in the official video and on nearly every radio station) her?

Do I like it because the song comes right out and says how the woman feels or is it something about the words “down” and “fuck” that intrigue me? For a long time this was the first song I came across on iTunes that actually slapped me in the face with its lyrics. A person raised in the 50’s and 60’s isn’t used to hearing songs with fuck in them, which leads us to our next artist.

The song “You’re Breaking My Heart” is attributed to songwriters Sunny Skylar and Pat Genaro, but theirs is only a version of the Italian song “Mattinata” by Ruggero Leoncavallo written in the early 20th century.

Harry Nilsson wrote a song with the same title, reportedly concerning his ongoing divorce. In it, beside the line You stepped on my ass, the phrase fuck you occurs four times. As a saving grace, the song ends with I love you.

Do I like it because it has four fucks? That’s three more than Alanis Morrisette, but does it have to be reduced to that foul simplicity? No, it’s Harry Nilsson. He’s from my teens and early adulthood. It’s old shit. I’m old and I like old shit. Not that you can add up four fucks to make one shit. When I first heard it, I was a bit shocked that a song from 1972’s Son of Schmilsson could have a song with that many fucks, but what was I to do, it was Nilsson?

The early video is just a bit amateurish; no, a whole lot amateurish. It does have a baritone saxophone though.

(I played a baritone sax before I gave up playing saxophone, clarinet, piano, and bassoon when I realized I really wasn’t as good at any of those as everyone said. Although, I think I was getting pretty good a boogie-woogie on the piano, but if I wanted to stop my parents were going to stop paying for all the lessons. Luckily, I had other interests. I was a teenager with raging hormones surrounded by a ton of cute boys, who were so straight I shut myself in a closet that stayed shut until it was for all intents and purposes too late. Damn it! No, with my low self-esteem, AIDS would’ve erased me from this planet in the second wave.)

Next up, The Raspberries with their ever famous million seller song “Go All the Way.” Banned by the BBC for being too risqué for that era, though it did receive considerable play elsewhere. I find it interesting that the BBC banned it while at practically the same time broadcasting the television program “Are You Being Served?” that is about as risqué as you can get without being clipped apart in the editing room floor in America. I suppose, though, watching television is much different than having your raging hormonal teenager listening to the radio with a song that has a girl wanting to “go all the way.”

When I listen to the song, I find myself not listening to the words. The guitar work is totally fantastic. I wish I’ll be able to play that good when I get my hands back. (Don’t tell my son, but I’m typing without my braces. Take an aspirin and every finger does its job, mostly.)

Finally, we come to The Tremeloes with “Suddenly You Love Me.” When you look up the lyrics online, there’s a problem. At the end the second, third and fourth verses there is the line Suddenly you love me and I know I’ve gotta stay.

However when I listen to the song I hear at the end of those verses Suddenly you love me and I know I’ve gotta say/die-die-die/die-die-die/die-die-die/die-die-die. The online lyric sites completely ignore the die-die-die parts as if they do not exist, they do not know what is being said, or can’t imagine such a line occurring in a popular song.

Unfortunately, when you listen to the whole song you can’t tell whether they’re sing die-die-die or quite possibly bye-bye-bye.

Die or bye, whatever it is it is there and is completely ignored by the lyrics transcribers. Whatever is being said, it is being said by a frustrated lover whose girlfriend is running around on him. She’s worthless, but every time he tries to breakup with her, she “open her arms and suddenly loves only him.” Die or bye they both work in the context of the song.