Bogus Holiday Post: Good Song Titles
It’s Christmastime, which means it’s time for people who make posts on the computer to list things with a little preamble you slammed out in five minutes. It’s an actual time-honored tradition I like, because it’s so easy to list things, and even when you get it completely wrong, nobody’s keeping score.
I didn’t consume much media this year, which is great for me but bad for content. I got asked to vote in the Uproxx music poll, and I might still do that, but it would pretty much just be listing the 14 albums I listened to and then stealing Tom Erlewine’s list to fill out the rest of the thing. There were exactly two albums I loved and twelve albums I respected by people I respect.
Only saw like three movies because for some reason I still live in Los Angeles. You hit a point where you know just enough about production that watching anything remotely contemporary just reminds you of the sorry state the business is in and how they don’t make stuff here anymore.
So I’m doing this: listing song titles I like. The twist is I’m only listing song titles I liked completely divorced from context. Song titles that jumped off the tracklist so hard that it was enough incentive to listen to the album, regardless of genre or credibility. Titles that made me go “hold on what was that.”
This list is in no order and I didn’t really cheat. I tried hard to recall these from memory, because the point of the game is how sticky they are, not how objectively good they are, and I skimmed my phone for stragglers.
The list that follows is surprisingly close to complete (though I cut a few that are so filthy I don’t want them to follow my name in a google search). If I ventured much further than this, I’d be trying to make myself look good and I’d be lying. Or I'd be writing a long and proper essay. Which is not the point of bogus holiday posts.
The result was interesting: it’s still mostly stuff I like, a lot of old pop, and a lot of pretentious cred shit. But it’s not a 1:1 correlation with the artists I like. Most of my favorite acts are not on here. Bob Dylan doesn’t make it in. The Clash don’t make it in. My favorite songs don’t have my favorite titles. So it’s kind of a barometer of quality, it’s a good data point, but it obviously doesn’t matter that much.
Song titles are clearly their own art form. Dunno what these titles have in common. A lot of them suggest that I, Kaleb, was raised in the church and like Biblical language (I mostly banned gospel and jazz traditionals because they're across the board too perfect). There's a lot of apocalyptic stuff in there, which, same thing.
Not a lot of "funny" titles though. If a title is too funny, it generally creates the impression that the song will be contrived or annoying. I like complete phrases but they have to be euphonious, poetic. I don't gravitate toward stuff that's long and smart-sounding. It usually has to make a point, justify itself. One of my favorite song titles is Tom Petty's Refugee, because the first time I saw that, I said to myself: I need to hear a song called Refugee. What the hell does that sound like? Same thing with Courtyard, which sounded ghostly and confident.
Anyway here’s the list. You love those.
Kris Kristofferson - They Killed Him
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Cities In Dust
Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - A Child of a Few Hours is Burning to Death
Guy Lombardo - Stars Fell On Alabama
Jandek - You Painted Your Teeth
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Refugee
The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Silver Jews - Like Like The The The Death
Roky Erickson - Birds’d Crash
Dirty Three - Some Summers They Drop Like Flies
Allen Toussaint - Victims of the Darkness
Merle Haggard - I’m a Lonesome Fugitive
The Shirelles - I Met Him on a Sunday
Howlin’ Wolf - Killing Floor
Sonic Youth - Anti-Orgasm
Chuck Berry - No Particular Place To Go
The Beach Boys - California Girls
John Fahey - On The Death And Disembowelment Of The New Age
Ramones - The KKK Took My Baby Away
The Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing
Warren Zevon - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Spiritualized - Cop Shoot Cop…
Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper - Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child
Willie Nelson - Darkness on the Face of the Earth
The Bobby Fuller Four - Let Her Dance
Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach - This House is Empty Now
X - Sex and Dying in High Society
The Birthday Party - Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)
Bob Wills - Take Me Back To Tulsa
Captain Beefheart - My Head is My Only House Unless it Rains
The Chiffons - One Fine Day
The Joy Formidable - The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie
X - I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
The Soft Boys - I Wanna Destroy You
The Beat Farmers - God is Here Tonight
Hank Williams - Lost Highway
Cyndi Lauper - I Drove All Night
Tom T. Hall - That's How I Got To Memphis
Bobby Womack - If You Think You're Lonely Now
The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
Mission of Burma - That’s When I Reach For My Revolver
The Beach Boys - Wouldn’t It Be Nice?
The Marvelettes - The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - More News From Nowhere
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cortez the Killer
Bobbie Gentry - Courtyard
Tommy James & The Shondells - I Think We’re Alone Now
Red Sparowes - The Great Leap Forward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like A Mighty Storm, Suddenly And Furiously Blinding Our Senses.
Love - Alone Again Or
Future of the Left - Arming Eritrea
The Pop Group - She Is Beyond Good And Evil
Joy Division - Atrocity Exhibition
Mississippi Sheiks - The World is Going Wrong
Bo Diddley - Pills
Faron Young - Unmitigated Gall
Broken Social Scene - Our Faces Split The Coast In Half
Charles Mingus - Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting
Blind Willie Johnson - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
Culture - I’m Alone in the Wilderness
Bill Morrissey - Barstow
Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian
Tom T. Hall - It Sure Can Get Cold In Des Moines
A Silver Mt. Zion - Sit in the Middle of Three Galloping Dogs
Willie Nelson - Funny How Time Slips Away
Dolly Parton - The Seeker
Black Sabbath - War Pigs
Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free