listomatic: loud cheese
One thing I hate about summer is you drive with your windows open. And so does everyone else. Which means everyone can hear me singing (unlike winter, most of fall and parts of spring, where the window is closed and I can belt one out like a motherfucker without feeling chagrined about it).
Songs that should be too cheesy to sing out loud, in traffic, with your windows wide open, but I decided I don't give a rat's ass and all of freaking Nassau County is going to hear me sing whether they like it or not and the parts that I sing louder than the rest, for emphasis and extra embarassment:
- Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar on Me (do you take sugar? one lump or two?)
- Bon Jovi (I've seen a million faces an I've rocked them all!)
- Journey - Don't Stop Believin' (It goes on and on and on and on)
- Europe - The Final Countdown (the whole chorus)
- House of Pain - Jump Around (word to your moms I came to drop bombs)
- Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper (just do all the background versers)
- Poison - Talk Dirty to Me (CC, Pick up that guitar, and talk to me!)
- Van Halen - Hot For Teacher (Class dismissed!)
- Anything by Kiss - (pick a lyric, any lyric)
- Judas Priest - Breakin' the Law (only because it's a Pavolovian reaction for me to do the Beavis and Butthead metal-sign-head-banging thing while saying breakinthelawbreakinthelaw)
I'll probably add more as I work my way through the iPod.
Comments
Humpty Dance (Yo ladies, oh how I like to hump thee)
Posted by: Hubris | June 14, 2005 12:57 PM
I don't have a problem singing Van Halen, even at stoplights. The rest of those, not so much.
I have a John Denver song on my iPod, tho, so I'm probably not the best judge. (only one, dammit!!)
Posted by: Tanya | June 14, 2005 01:11 PM
Does doing the drum solo in "In the Air Tonight" on your steering wheel count?
Posted by: Jeff R. | June 14, 2005 01:12 PM
The list seems to call for Scorpions and April Wine.
Posted by: skinbad | June 14, 2005 01:21 PM
Hubris -
Seriously, you need to get out of my head!
With my thunder once again stolen, I will throw out.. Baby got Back (I like 'em round & big)
Posted by: coolrobc | June 14, 2005 01:33 PM
Valen Halen - Jump
Lynard Skynard - Sweet Home Alabama
John Mellencamp - Jack & Diane (but almost anything)
Wow, I don't think I was alive when any of these songs were released.
Posted by: Barry | June 14, 2005 01:47 PM
The extended "House of Pain" stanza is:
"Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs
I got more rhymes than the Bible's got Psalms"
I always wondered, so I looked it up: Everlast thus has no fewer than 151 rhymes. I assume it's right around 151, because if he had, say, 427, equating it with the number of Psalms in the Bible would really do a disservice to his stock of rhymes. I doubt he'd sell himself short like that.
Posted by: bonk | June 14, 2005 01:59 PM
Anything by Kiss - (pick a lyric, any lyric)
Oh really? How about ...
Tonight I wanna give it all to you.
In the darkness.
There's so much I wanna do.
And tonight I wanna lay it at your feet.
'Cause girl, I was made for you.
And girl, you were made for me.
I was made for lovin' you baby.
You were made for lovin' me.
And I can't get enough of you baby.
Can you get enough of me.
Posted by: Bill from INDC | June 14, 2005 02:30 PM
And does scrunching one's mouth and clucking one's head to the guitar riff in Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" count?
You know, with the windows open?
Posted by: Bill from INDC | June 14, 2005 02:32 PM
My friends and I would often caterwaul to Journey, always while cruising. The Escape album was always a favorite. Don't Stop Believin' was a notable song, as--even moreso--was Escape.
Worse, we'd squeal--in (almost-)matching pitch-- with the guitar licks that occured between phrases. Invariably this resulted in shrieking, voice-cracking, ear-numbing, toothfilling-rattling falsettos, e.g. from their song Escape "... I've got dreams I'm living for DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO ..."
(Try singing all the words AND the instruments to any high-octane song without turning blue. 'Taint easy.)
We'd scream along until we all started laughing at ourselves too much to utter a word. Then, we'd start up again once we stifled our laughter enough to catch our breath.
The absolute worst, though, was us singing to Journey's Open Arms. Oh, I cringe even thinking of it! There's no worse song to sing to in the history of musicology--bar none!
Posted by: clark smith | June 14, 2005 02:36 PM
If you've seen Beavis & Butthead do Judas Priest's "Breakin' the Law", you just HAVE to do it B&B style! And then you have to break out with "Washin' the dog! Washin' the dog!" And of course, that leads to discussions of stomach grease, and all the rest of it....
I think this just made my day!
Posted by: PB | June 14, 2005 03:29 PM
"I know what it means... to walk along the lonely street of dreams"
(hanging head in shame) I was still singing loudly when I rolled the window down to place my order at Burger King. The young lady in the window looked at me awful strangely when I handed over the cash...
Posted by: Steve | June 14, 2005 04:15 PM
Anything by Erasure in the 1980s. Especially "Sometimes", if you're a guy, and stare at the other obnoxious driver's face and enunciate lyrics like "it's not my sense of emptiness you will with your desire". Two snaps up!
Posted by: David Ross | June 14, 2005 06:11 PM
Gee, that sounds like way more fun then having air conditioning and never opening your windows. (A/C is not really an "option" in Houston.)
Posted by: JimK (No Relation) | June 14, 2005 06:52 PM
Well, I'm more of a warbler, not that there's anything wrong with that. So my selection includes "My Little Grass Shack" and "You're a Heartbreaker" (covered) by Leon Redbone, and "Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost" and "Fruitcakes" by Jimmy Buffett. And I should know better, as I'm almost always in a convertible when this happens.
Posted by: HT | June 14, 2005 10:48 PM
Currently:
Holiday - Green Day. Mostly great for your steering wheel and dashboard drum kit.
Smooth - Santana and Rob Thomas. I've been caught seat dancing to that one in slow multi-lane traffic too many times. "...because you're so smooth. And it's just like the ocean, under the moon..."
Cheeseburger in Paradise - Jimmy Buffett, "I like mine with lettuce and tomata, Heinz 57 and french fried patatas...a big kosher pickel an' a an ice cold beer, GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY WHICH WAY DO I STEER?"
Posted by: Timmer | June 15, 2005 06:51 AM
A few off the top of my head:
RUSH - Spirit of Radio
DMB - Ants Marching (the rap)
Supertramp - Goodbye Stranger (does anyone know what the complete lyrics are spoken in the last third of the song?)
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
B-52s - Love Shack (You're what? Tin Roof rusted!)
I generally have the windows down year roud (when I drive alone, which I do most of the time). It has to be especially foul weather -- blowing snow or downpour) for me to close the window; why deprive the street walkers of my voice (as hideous as it may be)?
Posted by: Charlie on the Pennsylvania Turnpike | June 15, 2005 07:43 AM
Every time "Cult of Personality" by Living Color comes on the car radio, passing motorists stare -- "I'm - A- Cult - Of - Per - So - Na - Li Teeeee..." I just cannot help myself.
Posted by: Analog Mouse | June 15, 2005 09:27 AM
Thank you, PB, for letting me know I am not the only one. The first time my wife heard me mutter "washing the dog" under my breath, she looked at me like I had two heads.
Posted by: disconnect | June 15, 2005 09:31 AM