Stupid Lyrics Round-Up

After a two-month blog hiatus due to finishing the semester and recuperating from the entire glorious first year of grad school, I decided to write about the dumbest pop lyrics currently on the radio. Because it’s important to stay in your wheelhouse.

5. Let’s start off with this gem from One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful”: “So, girl, come on, you got it wrong/ To prove I’m right, I put it in a so-o-ong.” Right, because that’s a thing. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll go ahead and say that I LOVE this song. It’s got all the unbridled simplicity and joyful energy that we lost when America deep-sixed the boy band genre. This is coming from a 23-year-old woman who’s not ashamed to admit that a couple of years ago she saw the Backstreet Boys in concert. Even if that statement erases any respect you somehow had left for me after the Adam Levine post, keep in mind that One Direction is probably among a mere handful of bands talented enough to make records without Auto-Tune, and that means something, right? One Direction also gave me an opportunity to introduce my 20-year-old brother to a crucial Milestone of Aging: when you suddenly find yourself older than the majority of popular entertainers. Four of the five guys in One Direction are only 19! They’re BABIES! Maybe that’s why I like classic rock so much: Keith Richards may never die, but at least he’ll always be older than I am.

4. The most offensive line in Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” is: “I threw a wish in the well.” That’s not how wishing wells work. That’s not how wishing wells have ever worked.

 3. In his insidiously catchy hit “Boyfriend,” Justin Bieber sings raps says, “I could be your Buzz Lightyear, fly across the globe.” Never mind that Justin Bieber was ONE YEAR OLD when Toy Story came out, as my friend Pat has so ably documented via Facebook status. More to the point, why would the Biebs invoke a swaggering, delusional space-man voiced by Tim Allen to convince a girl to date him? That’s distinctly not sexy in, like, five different ways.

 2. It really bothers me that Nicki Minaj’s “Turn Me On” includes ridiculous lines like, “I just want you to father my young/ I just want you to be my doctor/ We can get it crackin’, chiropractor.” ‘Scuse me? Who is this guy? Apparently on whatever planet Nicki comes from, the same man can serve as doctor, chiropractor and sperm donor. Anyway, the whole doctor-doctor-turn-me-on theme makes me think of both Robert Palmer and treatments for female hysteria, two ideas I don’t like to have connecting in any way. Nicki Minaj: inspiring nightmares since 2010.

 1. In Pitbull’s “Back in Time,” he says, “Know that I don’t give a number two,” which is hands-down the most cringe-inducing lyric on the list, or perhaps even of all time. Come to think of it, if you ever want to prove that human intelligence is in a steep decline, read the rest of the song’s lyrics. It’s like word salad produced by a wildly manic Tourette’s patient. Also, here’s a pro tip for composing the theme song to the third Men in Black movie: don’t borrow music from Dirty Dancing! Seriously, Pitbull, are you an idiot? This movie is about Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones being sarcastic while cavalierly shooting giant guns; but thanks to your plagiarism, everyone in your target demographic who is over the age of twelve is going to have vivid memories of Patrick Swayze crawling around on the floor with Jennifer Grey while Lenny from Law and Order harrumphs in the background. Also, don’t throw Ray Charles’ name into one of your musical abominations ever again. Just don’t do it.

 I hope these songs satisfy everyone’s need for musical derision until the new Maroon 5 album comes out next month. (I can’t wait.)