Lyrics about, or aimed at, critics

I have to say I prefer the name of the MP3

Ryan Adam's "Ryan Adam's Whine"

Raspberries' "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" would also seem to apply.

As would the Jefferson Starship's "Stairway to Cleveland" (a/k/a, the "Fuck you, we do what we want" song), which I bring up knowing full well I'm the only person on ILM who ever talks about the JS ...

Also, Skull Kontrol's "New Rock Critic" (also responsible for the ugliest album cover of 1999!)

my vote:
trumans water - "the aroma of gina arnold"

(though i do suppose that's what i'm here for. ;) )

but wasn't the p.e. leland song "don't believe the hype," not "bring the noise"? and i dunno about the prince song mentioned above, but the obvious one that comes to mind is "all the critics love you in new york."

the dictators' "borneo jimmy" is about r. meltzer.

r. meltzer, chrissie hynde, neil tennant, patti smith, lester bangs, metal mike saunders, george smith, john petkovic, falling james moreland, wendy case, stephin merritt, l.d. beghtol, frank kogan, deborah frost, and sundry other critics have presumably written many songs about themselves.

I always thought nobody knew what P4S is about. Did Dylan ever say?

i've always heard it as an intentional double-entendre, though the way he pronounces it is closer to NME than to enemy, at least to my american ears.

Haha, I put that song right before "Frederick" on my 1979 MP3 CDR without even knowing that!

Taylor Swift, "Mean" (maybe)

Gary Numan, "I Die: You Die"

"Go to Hell, Miss Rydell"

"Pinball Wizard" was written after an early version of The Who's Tommy failed to impress critic Nik Cohn. Pete Townsend knew Cohn was a pinball fanatic, so he decided Tommy would be a pinball champ and quickly wrote the song to appease him (it worked.)

Serious pinball junkies (myself included) will discern that the lyrics reflect Townsend's unfamiliarity with the nuances of pinball.

Honestly think that "Mean" is about bullying and not necessarily about music critics.

Ben (Keith?) mentioned "Ambulance Blues" six years ago, but he got the aimed-at-critics verse wrong; it's "So all you critics sit alone/You're no better than me for what you've shown/With your stomach pumps and your hook-and-ladder dreams/We could get together for some scenes." I'm guessing Neil meant critics in the more general sense of people who criticize, not the Lester Bangs variety.

pinpointing what a song's "about" is a mug's game (despite taylor being annoying and tempting everyone to focus on it) but "mean" is so obviously set in her pre-fame days, before she lived in a big city, so whether it's referring to the first critical audiences she performed to or high school bullies...it's certainly not national rock critics.

Sting - "Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)"

Let's just say "Mean" works on a few different levels, and there's no requirement to take it as autobiography at all, when you get down to it. I definitely don't think it's mainly a song about critics, but it's not "obviously" anything. (Not even bullying -- could be child abuse!) And it will certainly be heard as being about people criticizing her singing in the here and now -- given that's when it's been released, and all. And it's a stretch to think that didn't Taylor didn't realize that, when she included it on a 2010 album. So it's kind of nit-picky to suggest it doesn't belong here.

oliver wang, you don't know what gangsta is

Which leads to this.

G'n'R "Get in the Ring" ownzzz
― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
especially cuz Axl refused to back it up.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Did any of his targets actually challenge him?