This post shouts back to an earlier post by C-Wod from February 19 regarding bands with puzzling and sometimes absolutely meaningless names. In the same vein, can I ask what’s up with this trend towards unnecessarily long, completely inane song titles that usually have nothing to do with the actual song? I’m not referring to poetic song titles that may add some sort of commentary or new dimension to a song, e.g., Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The songs that I am indicting are those 8-10 (and possibly longer) word titles that want to sound really deep and meaningful, but really just sound pretentious and wordy. Really wordy–I’m pretty sure over half of my post will be taken up by song title examples…
(Note: Just because I’m commenting on song titles by certain bands does not necessarily mean I dislike the song or even the band. I actually do despise a few of the bands I will mention, but others I really love; I just hate the way they title their songs! That’s a crucial point that I just wanted to establish first.)
Our good friends from the aforementioned post, Panic! At the Disco, reappear here to help illustrate my point. Their song “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” was played incessantly over the radio this summer, but the only word from the title that actually appears in the song is “I.” And just what is the title supposed to mean? From what I can tell, the song is about a poor cuckolded guy about to marry an utter ho-bag. So I guess I get the tragedy part…But the rest? There is an average of 6 words per song title, and it’s songs like the verbose being the 16-word track “There’s A Good Reason These Tables are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought Of It Yet” that inflate that number. I just took a quick look at the lyrics (How did we use to survive without Google?), and, besides being SUPER-repetitive, they just don’t seem to have much to do with the title, though about half of the words in the title actually do appear in the song. I attribute that to the fact that there are more common pronouns and articles in that title.
I’d bet almost anything that PATD picked this up from their buddies in Fall Out Boy. The song titles from their first EP, Evening Out with Your Girlfriend, have an average of 5 words each, and that’s only because I counted the words in parentheses, too. This progressed to an average of 8 words per title on From Under the Cork Tree, with “I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me” taking the prize for Most Unnecessarily Long Song Title. That’s 19 WORDS, and no parentheses! Granted, for their most recent release, Infinity on High, they went back down to only 5 words per title, but now they’ve started this new thing of putting in symbols, leaving out vowels, random parentheses…*shudder*
Sometimes, even song titles that aren’t ridiculously long still make absolutely no sense in relation to the song. I adore Underoath, but I unfortunately don’t know the names of most of their songs as they relate almost not at all to the lyrics! They do have some double-digit doozies, most notably the 14-word “I’ve Got Ten Friends And A Crowbar That Says You Ain’t Gonna Do Jack,” but even their 3-4 word titles make you raise an eyebrow. “Down, Set, Go”–3 simple words, none of which appear in the song. The same with “Young and Sick”–No, wait, “sick” appears once. “Writing on the Walls”? Nope. Or how about “Salmarnir”–WHAT LANGUAGE is that even in?? (Actually, I looked it up because I thought it was Elvish or something; it’s Russian. Go figure.)
While I’m at it, I think I’ll throw in my two cents about album titles as well. These have also gotten aggravatingly pretentious and cryptic as of late. Take Vanessa Carlton’s Be Not Nobody as an example. It’s probably supposed to sound really artsy and deep, but really it’s just bad grammar. I mean, is they double-negative really necessary? Can’t you just say “Be somebody?” I’ll give her credit that it sounds like a snippet from a (really bad) poem, but it still doesn’t work. For Poetic Album Titles That Just Don’t Work, however, the award has to go to Fiona Apple’s 1999 release “When the Pawn…” which actually is an entire 92-word poem. It’s a nice poem, and it’s awesome that she wanted to include with the album, but she seriously could have titled it something shorter!* For some reason, it’s also really irritating when the album title comes out of nowhere; it’s not a track on the album, or even a lyric from one of the songs. Just look at the previous 3 artists: A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, From Under the Cork Tree, They’re Only Chasing Safety…None of those are songs, or even lyrics, at least not by those groups!
Honestly, does anyone else miss the days when a song title was simply the most repeated phrase in the song? Or when the album title actually referred to a song on the CD? It’s not asking much, really. If your music is poetic and deep, let it speak for itself. In the meantime, take off your masks of pretension and make titles easier to remember.
*The full text of the album title is:
When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King
What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight
And He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters the Ring
There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might
So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand
And Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights
And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land
And If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right
Understandably, a little long to put on the side of a CD case.
