by Kevin Burton
When there is a Dave Barry book on your front porch, you’re having a good day.
Every writerly thing in me, now wants to write, “nothing else matters.” But we both know that isn’t entirely true. Nothing else?
Tell you what though Sugarbear, nothing else matters for the next two hours! Take that to the bank.
I love me some Dave Barry. If I haven’t mentioned that in more than five years of blogging, shame on me.
Dave Barry is like the ultimate pinch hitter. You send him in when you absolutely have to have a hit. Dave Barry never strikes out. Only problem with that analogy is he should be in your starting lineup!
Barry is so consistently funny and on target that his books and articles are medicinal, good for what ails you.
Reader’s Digest says laughter is the best medicine. If so, Dave Barry is the brand I’m turning to.
Without making you slog with me through my life frustrations, let me just say they have built up lately into a mighty mound of stress. Stress over family, self, circumstances and happenstances.
In doing research for another post I discovered there was a book called Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs.
Bingo!
Dave Barry, looking into song lyrics. That was something I had to have, the sooner the better.”
So my first move was to look up the book on BARD, the database of books that are available to blind readers via talking book. Not there.
So I went immediately to Amazon and ordered it. That’s why a Dave Barry book was on my front porch, just when I needed it.
Before opening the book I forgave Barry in advance, figuring he and I would not be in lock step regarding what is and isn’t a bad song. That proved to be true. A few of my favorites showed up on his list.
This was Dave’s list of bad songs in a way but it is a list from his readers really.
Here’s the genesis of the book. Dave wrote a column complaining that they never play any good songs on the radio. “When I say ‘good songs’ I mean songs that I personally like,” Barry wrote.
“So anyway, in this column I was ranting about songs I don’t particularly care for and I happened to bring up Neil Diamond. I didn’t say I hate all Neil Diamond songs: I actually like some of them. Herre’s exactly what I wrote:”
“It would not trouble me if the radio totally ceased playing ballad-style song by Neil Diamond. I realize that many of you are huge Neil Diamond fans, so let me stress that, in matters of musical taste, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and yours is wrong,” Barry wrote.
“Consider the song “I Am I Said,” wherein, Neil with great emotion sings:
I am I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
“What kind of line is that,” Barry asked his readers. “Is Neil telling us he’s surprised that the chair didn’t hear him? Maybe he expected the chair to say ‘Whoa, I heard THAT.’ My guess is that Neil was really desperate to come up with something to rhyme with “there,” and he had already rejected “”So I ate a pear’ ‘Like Smokey the Bear’ and ‘there were nits in my hair.’”
Diamond fans didn’t dig that.
“You think Salmon Rushdie got into trouble?” Barry wrote, then summarized the many nasty letters Diamond fans wrote to him:
Dear Pukenose,
Just who the hell do you think you are to blah blah Neil blah more than twenty gold records blah blah how many gold records do YOU have, you scum-sucking wad a blah, I personally have attended 1,794 of Neil’s concerts what about ‘Love on the Rocks,’ huh? What about ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ blah blah if you had ONE-TENTH of Neil’s talent, so I listened to ‘Heart Light’ forty times in a row and the next day the cyst was GONE and the doctor said he had never seen such a rapid blah blah what about “Play Me”? What about ‘Song Sung Blah’ Cancel my subscription, if I have one.”
“Why do people feel so passionately about this subject? Because music is personal,” Barry writes. The songs we hear a lot – particularly the ones we hear when we’re young – soak into our psyche, so that forever after, when we hear certain songs, we experience sudden and uncontrollable memory spasms, taking us back to specific times – some good some bad – in our lives.”
Since there was so much interest, Barry commissioned a Bad Song Survey, inviting readers to write in about the songs they hate. That’s how we eventually got this book.
He had some rules for the Bad Song Survey, including that he would only include songs released between 1960 and 1990. That of course is my personal sweet spot. That makes this book even more of a gem for me.
I devoured the book in one sitting.
Coming soon: Some lyrical underachievers from Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs.
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