Songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to

I don't think "Every Breath You Take" counts, Tuomas.

Not Tuomas but I'm not totally clear on what the thread is asking for. In this case, the songwriter intended for the song to be from the perspective of a serious dick; I'm not sure that the protagonist himself realizes this, though.

I disagree with "God Only Knows" but surely "Caroline No" fits. Especially when hearing about the reaction his girlfriend had to it.

One of the reasons I love the p!nk song with funguy is that the character funguy portrays is such a dick! Not sure if that's intentional. It must be, surely.

Also that Olly Murs song "dear darlin, please excuse my writing - I can't stop my hands from shaking, cause I'm cold and alone tonight" is amazing and hilarious passive-aggression

Eric Clapton, "Wonderful Tonight."

Paul Anka, "Havin' My Baby." What a lovely way of saying how much you love me.

TLC "No Scrubs"

The guy the car hollering might be a dick but TLC sound like dicks too. I think there was a thread about it.

There was a reply song called 'No Pigeons' which managed to be worse.

"Oh yes son, I'm talking to you"

Basically, TLC are Brian Clough.

Under My Thumb fer sure.

Oh, god, I just heard 'No Pigeons' for the first time a week or so ago. Possibly one of the worst charting songs I've ever heard.

Heart 'All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You'

Jessie Jae 'Who's Laughing Now?'
Stereophonics 'Mr Writer'

I think Under My Thumb is definitely intentional.

great thread

"About a Girl" by Nirvana. always read to me as really passive aggressive and dismissive. Tracy Marander asked Cobain why he'd written songs about The Andy Griffith Show, masturbation, and every bodily fluid imaginable, but none about her. Cobain never told Marander the song was about her. "I can't see you every night for free" is him complaining about having to do chores ffs. the whole thing reads like a putdown, even a breakup letter.

"I need an easy friend
I do, with an ear to lend
I don't think you fit this shoe
I do, won't you have a clue"

Nirvana is a good one. Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies always struck me as passive aggressive and whiny.

heart shaped box is a really nasty song . all apologies is definitely unintentionally dickish though. honestly about a girl seems like an intentional put down too

Yeah, Heart Shaped Box is unquestionably nasty, so I guess it's not unintentionally dickish, although I always got the sense of righteousness from it. Like, yeah, I'm being a dick but I have every good reason for being a dick. Subtle distinction.

just the way you are - billy joel

but he kinda rolls with dickish generally anyway, like henley

God Only Knows.

(I kid, I kid)

Tony Christie - Avenues and Alleyways - i enjoy it as a portrait of psychotic & patronising macho vigilante

Boyz II Men, End of the Road.

k, i'm gonna come out in defence of Rio. the way i've always thought about it, the singer is bringing the character of Rio to life with each new image he introduces, creating her from scratch and embellishing her with substance and meaning in a similar way to a painter applying paints to fill a canvas. she emerges as striking and radiant -- a kind of beau ideal that didn't exist until the lyrics came together to celebrate her story. i think the singer has earned the entitlement to direct the song wherever he wishes, without straying into the dick category, given that Rio is a product of his imagination.

Oh, I've got one! Sing of Me, I'm Dying of Thirst. The way the dissenting voice is undercut in the second verse seems unintentionally dickish to me.

xp I imagined it as being sung from the point of view of a celebrity stalker

yeah, the whole "i've seen you on the beach..." verse probably does support your argument.

Oh, here's a good one:

The Kinks: Mindless Child of Motherhood

In which Dave Davies chastises some girl for ruining a good thing with him "to bear a bastard son."

Mindless child of motherhood/you have lost the thing that's good.

You're Having My Baby?

In which Dave Davies chastises some girl for ruining a good thing with him "to bear a bastard son."

If i recall correctly, in his book, he says it's about a girl that he was torn apart from by circumstance, not a girl who left him. she was pregnant with his child. He wrote a few songs about her, actually, including "Susanna's Still Alive."

always felt this way about 'the worst that could happen', like, am i supposed to sympathize with this self-centered asshole?

Ha yea that's a good one.

MAYbe it's the best thing.... FOR YOU

It has been stated that, along with "MacArthur Park" and "By The Time I Get to Phoenix", "The Worst That Could Happen" is about a relationship that Webb had had with a woman named Susan.[2] (...)

The song appeared on the list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks specifically and inexplicably listing the Johnny Maestro & The Brooklyn Bridge version, but not the 5th Dimension version, despite their note-for-note similarity.

The "without meaning to" criterion is not being observed. "Sunny Afternoon"? "All Apologies"? "Always on My Mind"? Look, ARIZONA. Songs where the singer is utterly clueless of anything except his own serene unquestioned rightness. No ironic distance, no apologies - because what would there even be to apologize for?

"Having My Baby" is a good one. "Teach Your Children" invites everyone of a certain age & outlook to join in: just look at them and sigh.

"Leaving on a Jet Plane," especially when sung by a man.

Why especially?

It's terrible the way he's making the taxi driver wait and stuff.

"So many times I've played around... they don't mean a thing."

Because infidelity is only a problem if you give a shit about your mistresses?

Hey, babe, my many previous flings were just meaningless flings. So don't even worry about them, or worry about the fact that I'm currently going out of town again for an unspecified period of time. So, just to reiterate, I don't plan to cheat on you, but even if I did, it wouldn't be with someone MEANINGFUL or anything like that. Either way - tell me you'll wait for me. With your legs closed.

Maybe. Just guessing here.

"two sisters" seems pretty dickish if you don't know ray davies' family history.

"Getting Better" has the lines "I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved", a little much for a feel-good tune

that shitty Sergio Mendes ballad "Never Gonna Let You Go". whole thing is pretty much shorthand for - "aww fuck I left you and realized I didn't want to. sorry bout that. But hey, good news, I'm ready to come back to you now, so just wanted to let you know we're back on".

call your girlfriend to thread

Love the school of song criticism where somebody says "this is this kind of song" and then proceeds to criticize it for not being a good example of the type of song the critic just said it is. Kind of a win win for the critic there.

Ha, yeah, a song where someone openly admits "I used to be cruel" doesn't seem like an example of "coming off as a serious dick without meaning to".

If 'unreliable narrator' songs, where the singer knows the protagonist is a dick but the protagonist doesn't, count, then "Somebody I Used to Know" seems like an obvious answer.

It was early morning yesterday, I was up before the dawn
And I really have enjoyed my stay but I must be moving on
Like a king without a castle, like a queen without a throne
I'm an early morning lover and I must be moving on

Just because someone is aware of past dickishness doesn't mean they realize how shallow and dickish their *current* gesture

is

agreed.

"Call Your Girlfriend" is tough though b/c I feel like the performance/arrangement is so sad and aware of the hopelessness of the entire situation - it's like Robyn is aspiring to having this dickish blase world-wise attitude and providing the cheating partner with just the right things to say, but she makes clear she doesn't really believe any of it or that any of these three characters is going to be happy at the end. Different category of thing IMO, if not quite in the "the whole plot is that the protagonist is evil" a la "Every Breath You Take" or "Somebody That I Used To Know."

'Thank You Very Much' by Kaiser Chiefs. I can't help but wonder how they feel about that song now that hardly anyone gives a shit about 'em.

But I mean, what would make the protagonist in "Getting Better" less dickish, if not admitting his past mistakes and anger issues and saying he's trying to change?

I guess the thing is that the character thinks that just talking about his past ways, and saying he's doing better now, makes it all better. Which maybe flew for a second in 1967 (?) but certainly doesn't square right now - it's a pretty fucking easy redemption for an apparent past pattern of horrible cruelty! For me at least, the thread concept is really tied up with a certain kind of "sensitive male" voice/persona/character, which is probably why a lot of the key examples come from the late 60s and 70s... lotta overlap with blithe hippie dudes figuring that if they're free-thinking, they've pretty much solved it all and can't possibly still be assholes.

Add Dr. Hook's "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" to thread also

I never got to hear those violins, no