Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Song I Like And The Things That Ruined Them For Me

When you first hear a song that you love you would like to love it for the rest of your life. But there are some things that ruin the magic and you end up not listening to the song ever again due to adverse circumstances. Here are just a few.

The Song: Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chili-Peppers
Who Ruined It: Radio
Explanation: If there was ever a law passed with songs that should never be played again due to over play this would be first in line. This song was great when first released, then radio got ahold of it and went on to play it every hour on the hour. It got old within 3 weeks. Then it became annoying. Then there was the video with a half naked Anthony Kiedes running towards me in a weird, homoerotic fashion.

The Song: Jeremy - Pearl Jam
Who Ruined It: MTV/VH1
Explanation: In the summer of '92 Pearl Jam released the only album I liked from them. Though the rest of the album wasn't too badly overplayed (though Even Flow was close) there wasn't a time where you couldn't tune into MTV and not see Eddie Vedder's scarecrow face belting out "HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE! (sound of man taking dump, could be Vedder still singing)." Then see a half naked boy blow himself away in front of scared mannequins. Every.....hour.....this.....song....was....on. I was done with it by fall. Then the rest of the album by 1995.

The Song: In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
Who Ruined It: Steven (Godfather) Weilhammer
Explanation: Back when we had livers made of steel Steve and I would get a little abbreviated down at the 'ol watering hole named The Casba. The Casba was owned by a Jordidian and a Syrian that called me and Mike and everyone else in our entourage Steve in an accent that could get them ducked taped to a C-130 and transported down to Guantanemo Bay. Whenever this song came on it was pretty much at the point where Steve was feeling pretty lubed up and feeling creative. Without getting into the lyrics he sang that's just say the words: p*ssy, thighs, creamy, open, up, spread and butt cheeks were the predominant words. I can never listen to it again.

The Song: Every Single Motown Song - Every Single Motown Band
Who Ruined It: Hollywood
Explanation: In 1983, against the wishes of good taste, Hollywood unleashed The Big Chill to unsuspecting audiences everywhere. In this movie we see a bunch of drunk yuppies putting away dishes singing and dancing in unison to a motown hit, I forget which one, they destroyed like five of them in this movie. Then hollywood followed that with many more movies with many more yuppies dancing in unison to motown songs destroying virtually every single motown song I liked. Why they use motown is beyond me, maybe because of the fact that many of these movies feature very liberal white people but have absolutely NO black people anywhere in any of them. So they make themselves feel better by featuring motown artist in their movies. Kind of like, "hey, I'm down with blacks, I like their music, I support their plight, but I would never let any of them in my movies or live anywhere near me, but it's cool because I'm liberal and I say I like black people."

The Song: Just What I Needed - The Cars
Who Ruined It: Circuit City
Explanation: Really none is needed, Circuit City took a song from my childhood and has incorporated it into their sales pitch. So instead of me enjoying a song and remembering the good old days I now want to buy a Plasma TV.

The Song: Who Are You, Happy Jack, I Can See For Miles, Magic Bus - The Who
Who Ruined It: TV shows and commercials, but I'll blame Pete Townshend
Explanation: The Who was pretty much the last group I would think that would allow their songs to be licensed out to commercials and TV shows but I was wrong. Ol' Pete Townshend needs the money folks, probably to pay for future legal costs for his crippling child porn addiction.

The Song: Layla - Eric Clapton
Who Ruined It: Goodfellas - Martin Scorsesee
Explanation: I was actually sick of this song before Scorsesee decided to use it in Goodfellas, but now when I hear the song I think of a frozen Carbone hanging off a meat hook.

The Song: Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealer's Wheel
Who Ruined It: Reservoir Dogs - Quentin Tarrantino
Explanation: None needed. My ear still hurts when I hear that song.

The Song: Ring Of Fire - Johnny Cash
Who Ruined It: My wife
Explanation: To quote my wife: "This song would be great for a hemmoroid commercial." So much for that. Thankfully the Wall Of Voodoo version isn't ruined for me.

The Song: What I Got - Sublime
Who Ruined It: A party I attended during mortuary school
Explanation: During mortuary school there was an impromptu party that happened in the house I was staying with music, booze and broads. Well, during this party my roommates decided to break out the fatty boom baddy, pot. I never tried it before but I did get high off second hand smoke during my trips to MSA watching whatever concert was there. Well, trying not to be square I decided, what the hell? It did nothing for me but the rest of my roommates and guests were giggling like mad and talking like Dennis Hopper, then my roommate broke out his guitar and starting singing What I Got, badly, but not bad for being completely high. But he sang it over and over again. Then grabbed my CD and played that song. Then he threw up. He was supposed to be the first to go out to get whoever died that night, well, he was too baked. Guess who was second? That's right, me. Well, lets just say the high hit me really late and I ended up going into town to pick up a poor dead soul. The rest of the story is waaaaay to long to post. Maybe I'll post it later.

The Song: All Mixed Up - 311
Who Ruined It: Greg Cochran
Explanation: I do like 311, I don't know why. All Mixed Up WAS one of my favorite songs. When I was listening to it at IU in the spring of '97 Greg (roommate) came by and quipped: "That sounds like Snow." Shit, thanks Greg now I think of the song Informer while remembering my high school friend blasting it on his stereo while crammed in the back seat of his dying Mustang.

The Song: Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
Who Ruined It: A tough break up
Explanation: Never listen to this song after breaking up with someone, it's pretty soul crushing. I did. While every once in a blue moon I'll spin this CD I'll be forever scarred.

The Song: Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
Who Ruined It: It should be P. Diddy or Pee D. or Puff Douch or whatever the fuck he's called but the real blame goes to Jimmy Page.
Explanation: Godzilla, that piece of shit movie from 1998 had a song and video that came with it, Kashmir by Puff Daddy featuring a very fat Jimmy Page desperately trying to remember how to play guitar. The song was basically Jimmy Page playing guitar with an orchestra in the back while P. Shitty was "rapping": "uh-huh, huh huh, uh huh, yeah, baby! Yeah, Godzilla, uh huh, yeah, huh, baby!" over what sounds like Kashmir. Ruined, completely ruined for me.

That's all I can think of. I would put Sting in there somewhere but I kind of got sick of his music before he started selling out.

1 comment:

Godfather Weilhammer said...

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Oh the memories. And you called me Steven...wow, only my mother, father and grandmother were allowed to do that.

Although I ruined it, you have to admit that the lyrics fit well and were quite creative considering I would usually have trouble standing up while singing.