Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Worst Song I Ever Loved


It was the summer time: school was out, and at 13 years old I would spend all day bored in our hot house. Summers were always so boring, and my sister Claudia and I would have to come up with our own entertainment, since we only had a certain amount of TV a day. One day in particular, I remember my dad playing the Dr. Demento CD for my sister and I in our family room. Dr. Demento is a radio personality with his own radio show, and he played silly, ridiculous, funny, and sometimes strange songs.  We loved the CD, and soon brought it with us on long car trips, laughing and sometimes snorting, when one song was funnier than the last. Claudia’s favorite song on the album was “Gimme That Thing”, because of it’s silly falsetto lyrics and ragtime swing, and although I really liked the song “Amos Moses” due to its funny narrative and twanging guitar riffs, “Fish Heads” was the song my sister and I both obsessed over.
Back then, all those summers ago, I felt so cool and proud to know all the words to the song, and I pressed the repeat button on my little purple boom box without shame. Now if I happen to hear the song or it gets stuck in my head, it is beyond irritating. I now feel that the song is so bad, I can never mention it to any people that I regularly associate with. But what brought about this complete turnaround in opinion about “Fish Heads”? What is behind the solid, matter-of-fact opinion that this is now a “bad” song? To find out, several ideas need to be explored.
The first idea is expressed in the following article’s title: “What is Bad Music” by Simon Frith. Simon Frith writes that bad music is really a matter of taste, production, the societal background of the listener, and the history behind the music. In other words, bad music is not necessarily “bad,” it is merely judged or viewed as bad by the listener. This might mean that any piece of music could be categorized as “bad” music, if in fact the listener has the experience to deem it as such. I know that I realized that I no longer liked the song when I was listening to my mp3 player, and automatically skipped the song when it came on. I have found that the same situation is present for other songs from the Dr. Demento Radio Show. Songs that I used to love annoy me and I have no interest in listening to them at all.
             However, it is hard to ignore popular taste or demand, because if a majority of the population views a song as good, there may be some truth to it. In an interview with Billboard magazine, Dr. Demento (whose real name is Barry Hansen) states, “I've played 'Fish Heads' for 22 years and still get dozens of calls every week. So things on my show have a lifespan even if they're funny." Although I look back at my “Fish Head” obsession with a wince and a red face, many people are working to keep the fish heads “alive,” so to speak. Perhaps what the question really is, is whether music can really be judged good or bad by anyone, or is there a direct authority on the matter?
But what if a song is meant to be bad? What if the attraction to or novelty of the song is for it to be humorous or comical? In “Humor, Fun and Novelty in Song” Carl Swanson describes the ways a song can be funny. “[These] songs, just like any comedic performance, take many forms: intended, unintended, silly, novel, parody, subtle, broad, urbane, bawdy, witty, satirical, slapstick, or dry. Indeed, just about any song can be performed in a humorous way. Songs that were written to be serious can become humorous when the singer adds props, facial nuances, or other nonmusical features.” So, how long until these types of songs lose their novelty? When is a “funny” song no longer funny? To answer this, we must first know what does make a “funny“ song funny. Peter Kay explains the process in a matter of sentences.  He writes, “Amusement arises from our realization that we are confronted with a situation or outcome that we have not previously considered possible…Also, the situation or outcome must not be so similar to our previously established pattern that it goes without significant notice–that it evokes some level of surprise. Amusement does not imply comprehension. Instead, it is the pleasant feeling born from the discovery of possibilities.”
That being said, it is safe to say that when a song no longer surprises us, is no longer new, exhausts the possibility for any new discovery,  it becomes predictable, and we no longer find the song amusing or funny. Simon Firth also refers to these types of “funny” songs, in which he states, “Bad music here means essentially ridiculous music…tracks that feature sound gimmicks that have outlived their charm or novelty.” From playing the song over and over, I ruined the song for myself, thus judging it as a “bad” song, which I no longer find funny.  In other words, bad music is not necessarily “bad,” it is merely judged or viewed as bad by the listener.


Work Cited
Bessman, Jim. "Dr. Demento Marks 30 Years Of Funny Music With Rhino Set." Billboard 112.9 (2000): 11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Sept. 2012.
 Kay, Peter.  “Music and Humor: What's So Funny?”
Music Reference Services Quarterly. Vol. 10.  Iss. 1, 2006
Swanson, Carl. "Humor, Fun, And Novelty In Song." Journal Of Singing 66.3 (2010): 319. Supplemental Index. Web. 21 Sept. 2012.

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