Lyrics Is Important

I was listening to Lenny Kravitz the other day, which isn’t something that I do a lot of, honestly. He’s a little too middle-of-the-road for my liking and he’s also responsible for a remake of the Guess Who’s 1970 hit American Woman, a song so lame that it contains a spelling lesson (“Say A, Say M, Say E, Say R…”). But one thing he has going for him is that he’s an actual musician, the kind that writes songs and plays instruments. That’s in stark contrast to current “artists” whose musical accomplishments consist of a single handshake-deal with Satan. Listen to Taylor Swift and tell me I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m just being old fashioned. After all, the rock and roll song-writing process has changed a lot over the years:

• 1950 – 1960: Steal songs from black musicians, call the results Rock and Roll
• 1961 – 1963:  Steal songs from Pete Seeger, call the results Folk Music
• 1963 – 1965:  Steal songs from the Beatles, call the result a British Wave
• 1966 – 1967: Steal songs from inter-dimensional beings encountered while on acid, call the results the San Francisco Sound
• 1968 – 1978: Write songs on guitar, add bass, drums, vocals, and maybe keyboards. Call the results Fucking Wonderful
• 1979 – 1980: Compose 2 note songs while asleep, call the results Punk Rock
• 1980 – 1990: Record the sounds coming out of a crappy $20 Casio keyboard’s demo mode, call the results Eighties Music
• 1991 – 2000: Steal any song written in the last 40 years, speed it up, and shout-speak aggressively asinine lyrics over the top, call the results Nu-Metal.
• 2001 – Current: Devise beat by placing shoes in a dryer, add 1,403 layers of keyboards over the top, have a person best known as a participant in a Hollywood sex-tape add vocals, call the result Infuriating Bullshit.

So Lenny Kravitz gets a pass because he’s a throwback, which is what we call people in the music industry who have actual talent as opposed to whatever the fuck it is that Nickleback is doing. Also, Lenny Kravitz’s mom was on The Jeffersons, and that’s just awesome.

Anyway, I was listening to the song Circus and the following lyrics caught my attention:

So far, so good. But:

So in the first verse, “show” is rhymed with “go”, but in the next verse “world” is also rhymed with “go” which not only doesn’t rhyme, but could so easily have been corrected:

How much better is that? Answer: 42 million. It is 42 million better. But did Lenny Kravitz feel the same way? No. No, he did not:

• • Asking Mr. Kravitz what he thinks of your lyrical editing of his songs
  • Loudly demanding to know what Mr. Kravitz thinks of your lyrical editing of his songs
  • Handing Mr. Kravitz a Rhyming Dictionary with all pages torn out except the pages for the words “show”, “go”, “world”, and “turn”
  • Throwing the aforementioned Rhyming Dictionary at Mr. Kravitz’s head, causing his 5 year old son’s kickball game to descend  into utter chaos
  • Kidnapping Mr. Kravitz’s pet dog, Romeo, shaving the word “turn” on its side, then returning the dog to Mr. Kravitz’s home.
  • Spray painting the words, “The Jeffersons suck!” on Mr. Kravitz’s driveway
  • Asking Mr. Kravitz’s neighbors for permission to place posters reading, “The Jeffersons suck!” in their yards
  • Disguising yourself as Mr. Kravitz, showing up at his neighbors’ homes visibly drunk and asking for permission to place posters reading, “The Jeffersons suck!” in their yards
  • Disguising yourself as George Jefferson, showing up at Mr. Kravitz’s neighbor’s home and passing out in the front lawn
  • Calling Mr. Kravitz late at night, asking him to post bail

Jesus, what a bunch of fucking babies.