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  • Songs for curmudgeons…

    Songs for curmudgeons…

    Lately, I’ve been pretty grumpy, so I thought it might be fun to look at songs for curmudgeons…

    If you’ve been reading Pop Rock Nation lately, you know that I have been dealing with the pain of a recent move. Our movers damaged the floor in our previous house in North Carolina and that turned out to be a big pain in the butt to rectify. As we’ve been unpacking everything, we’ve found that some necessary items apparently did not make the trip to Texas and some things got broken. On the other hand, I have unpacked at least one box that was literally full of trash. Another box contained moldy bread and potatoes that the movers packed, as well as a thermos full of nasty coffee that wasn’t emptied on packing day. Still another box contained old pictures and love letters from my husband to his ex wife. I am still hunting for my college diplomas and am beginning to fear that they may be lost forever.

    I figure I have a right to be cranky about all of this. And fortunately, there have been quite a few songs written for curmudgeons like me. Yes, I know there are times when it’s best to grin and bear it. Other times, it makes sense to bitch and moan a bit, especially when it’s done with a dash of humor. After all, it does suck to find things like mushy greeting cards to the ex spouse while not being able to find the base for the outdoor umbrella or the lid to the vegetable steamer. As I sit here this morning watching an old episode of Dr. Phil, this first song immediately comes to mind.

    I Could Be Wrong by Tim Wilson

    This song is full of profanity, but it pretty much sums up my attitude about all the “talking heads” out there telling everybody what their opinions should be. And as much as I enjoy snarking on Dr. Phil and his perpetual train wrecks, sometimes I get tired of it and need a break.

    Chickenshit by Weird Wilbur

    Weird Wilbur is an online pal of mine. I have to admit, he won me over with this song about losers. Every time I hear it, I am reminded of the people out there who are just “chicken shit” and give me a good reason to be a curmudgeon.

    I Hate the World by Miles Betterman

    I discovered the hilarious stylings of Miles Betterman on YouTube. “I Hate The World” is all about the things he hates. It’s clever and definitely highlights all the things that might make someone feel like a curmudgeon.

    The Dickhead Song by Miles Betterman

    “The Dickhead Song” sounds a lot like Betterman’s other hit, “I Hate The World”. Actually, I think “The Dickhead Song” is an older song and it never fails to make me laugh. I love the peevishness of it and the fact that it’s so easy to sing. Yes, I can think of a few folks who probably warrant a live rendition of this number.

    It’s a Great Day (for Me To Whoop Somebody’s Ass) by Paul Thorn

    Ever have one of them days? Everybody you run into seems to be out to piss you off in some way. Well, this song is full of wishful thinking. Hopefully, you don’t take it seriously, lest your bad day get even worse with a trip downtown. Still, it makes me smile.

    The Revenge Song by Heywood Banks

    This is kind of a silly song about revenge sung by the terminally funny and goofy Heywood Banks. If you ever like thinking about ways to get even but don’t want to get too sinister, this is a great song to listen to for inspiration. It always makes me giggle.

    Asshole by Denis Leary

    Believe it or not, I was made aware of this song in the early 90s when I worked as a cook at a church camp. One of the teens who worked alongside me as a dishwasher made me a mix tape with this song on it.

    The Asshole Song by Fred “August” Campbell

    I understand this song has been covered by a few folks. This is the version I was most familiar with and having once lived near the I-95 corridor, I totally get it. Also, my long drive to Texas reminded me of all the folks on the road who act like assholes. Of course, I’m sure some would describe me the same way… especially the guy who flipped me off on an Alabama interstate.

    Anyway, that’s my list of songs for curmudgeons. Hopefully, you’re not exposed to too many cranky people today… or have too many reasons to be grumpy yourself. And hopefully, my diplomas will resurface at some point. I’m pitching Weird Wilbur’s album because he could use some sales.

  • Discovering Janis Ian

    I should probably be ashamed to be 41 years old and just now discovering Janis Ian…

    The song “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian is one of those songs that you’ll heard on an adult contemporary radio station from time to time. Or perhaps you’ll hear it in an informercial for a singer/songwriter music club. Seems to me that’s where I often caught snippets of old songs I had never been exposed to because of my age. Janis Ian’s plaintive song about growing up looking “weird” no doubt resonates with a lot of people, especially girls. I know if I had listened to this song as a teenager, it probably would have had a profound effect on me. I wasn’t particularly strange looking as a teen, but people thought I was odd. I was terminally dateless until I was 28 years old and I met my husband.


    Janis Ian sings “At Seventeen” live in 1976.

    Right before she sings in the above video, Janis Ian explains that she was “weird looking” as a teen and this song was born out of that experience. I can only imagine how teens of the mid 70s reacted to this song about the ultimate teen angst. How many young women sang along to this in the privacy of their bedrooms or while driving alone in their cars?

    I was inspired to listen to more of Janis Ian’s music after really listening to “At Seventeen” for the first time. Naturally, I discovered her song “Society’s Child”, which also demonstrated Ian’s remarkable ability to say so much with her song lyrics.


    Janis Ian sings “Society’s Child”

    “Society’s Child” is a song about interracial romance, which back in the 60s was very taboo. Janis Ian wrote it in 1965, when she was just 14. When it was released to the masses, a lot of radio stations refused to play it because it was too controversial Ian has said that she got a lot of hate mail for that song and one radio station in Atlanta that played it was actually burned down. It’s amazing to me that 1965 was just seven years before I was born and I grew up watching The Jeffersons and seeing Franklin Cover and Roxie Roker playing Tom and Helen Willis. As a child, I don’t think I realized how racially divided the world was… and still is. I recently read about a Cheerios commercial that got a lot of heat because it features a biracial couple and their child. This is still an issue even 48 years after Janis Ian wrote her song and yet Janis Ian was brave enough to bring up that subject in 1965.


    Really? This is controversial in 2013?

    I just purchased Janis Ian’s Grammy winning album Between The Lines and I feel pretty sure I will spend time getting to know it as intimately as I know other favorite albums by artists of Ian’s era. Maybe I was born in the wrong decade.


    Janis Ian sings the gorgeous ballad, “Tea and Sympathy”.

    Ian has done a lot with her talents, writing music, singing, being a columnist for the LGBT magazine The Advocate, and writing science fiction novels. She really seems like someone who has done a lot of good, using her gifts to make the world a better place. I’m delighted to meet her, even though it’s happening long after it should have.

  • I have too many CDs…

    I have too many CDs…

    I finally finished unpacking them and have come to the conclusion… I have too many CDs!

    Moving is a pain. This particular move was especially painful. From the damage that was done to our previous landlord’s floors to the moldy bread and rotting potatoes we found packed in our stuff, I count this move to Texas as one of the most challenging in my lifetime. And as I was sitting on the floor two nights ago, unloading my collection of compact discs, I realized how glad I am that it’s possible to download media these days.

    How many CDs do I own? Honestly, I don’t know. I lost count years ago. I would guess the total number is somewhere over 1,000 discs that I have collected since Christmas 1989, when I got my very first CD player as a present. I usually keep them alphabetized and in sections. I have a rock section, a country/bluegrass section, a jazz section, classical section, holiday section, and a new age section. It was getting close to 10:00pm and I still had a few stacks of discs to organize. With a sigh of disgust, I finally decided to just start putting them on the shelves willy nilly. I used to be so anal retentive about keeping my collection straight, but now that I have a computer that does it, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

    I remember when I was growing up, sitting on the couch next to my dad’s huge stereo. It had a turntable and an 8 track player. I would put on a big pair of headphones and listen to records, tapes, and 8 tracks for hours. Then in the mid 80s, people started trading in their cassette tapes and vinyl records for compact discs. My very first compact disc was Phil Collins’ 1989 release, But Seriously. Over the years, I became a very enthusiastic consumer of CDs. They didn’t scratch like records. They didn’t get caught in the machine like tapes. They didn’t change programs mid song like 8 tracks. And they came in relatively small packages that were easy to carry. In fact, they were so easy to carry that they were originally sold in long boxes to prevent people from ripping them off.

    Nowadays, you can buy songs individually or buy an album. You can store the music on your computer or on a cloud. When you move, you don’t have to pack up boxes of CDs… or movies or books, for that matter. But what do you lose when you don’t have those physical items anymore? Well, for one thing you lose artwork. There was a time when albums included some awesome artwork. Hell, when my dad purchased the Purple Rain soundtrack on vinyl for me back in 1985, I got a free poster to hang on my wall! Try that with a download.

    You might lose the concept album concept. If people can buy individual songs instead of whole albums, they probably will. But that will mean that an album based around a single concept may become a thing of the past. That’s kind of a shame, since sometimes concept albums turn out to be very artistic.

    You might also lose music stores. If people don’t need to buy tangible items like CDs, vinyl albums, or cassettes, what good is a music store? I used to love going to them in another relic of the past, the indoor shopping mall, and thumbing through discs, looking for a new treasure to add to my collection. Then I would take the new album home and read the liner notes while I played it from start to finish. Now that people can download their music, there’s less need for brick and mortar stores and less need to hire people who are music geeks to run them. Come to think of it, you’ll also lose special shelves for CDs and other media. I think downloads also put an end to music clubs like Columbia House and BMG Music.

    On the other hand, you’ll also lose some of those big heavy cardboard boxes full of CDs when you move. And given how traumatic this last move has been, I don’t know that that’s such a bad thing. One other thing I’ve lost are the big stacks of discs I used to keep on my front seat when I’d go on a road trip. Now that my car can connect to my iPod, there’s no need for CDs anymore. That means I don’t have to worry about CDs that fall to the floor in my front seat when I have to slam on the brakes. And I don’t have to worry about cracking the jewel cases when I take my discs on the road.

    In any case, I have moved a lot of my collection from CD to computer, so in the week we were in our new city without my precious CD collection, I still had most of my favorite music. I still buy the occasional CD when I want the rare album that isn’t available as a download. But I almost never use my CD player anymore. As soon as that CD comes to me, I put it on my computer.

    I still have too many CDs. Thanks to downloads, I’m not adding them as quickly as I used to. And hopefully, next time I move, I won’t have to buy any new CD shelves for new additions to my collection.