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

good lord

Seconding (only seconding!?) Stills' "Love the one You're With." Sounds like the hoariest of pick-up lines. "And if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." Barf.

Dion's "The Wanderer" is pretty dire on this front, too.

"Oh well, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down
Where pretty girls are, well you know that I'm around
I kiss 'em and I love 'em cause to me they're all the same
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em they don't even know my name"

Yeah, you should be so proud, Dion.

the hollies' "hey carrie anne"

You were always something special to me
Quite independent, never caring
You lost your charm as you were aging
Where is your magic disappearing?

LOL, There's dozens of those 'ramblin' man/no woman can hold me down and didn't I tell you that once?' songs in folk and blues.

(xp)

xxpost My theory re: 'The Wanderer' is that the Rosie tattooed on his chest (you know, the one he loves the best) has the last name Five-Fingers.

(hey) the diamonds shine - the ring is so fine
But here is the twist - she wears it right on her wrist

So his 'lean baby' is an ethereal figment of his imagination?

I kiss 'em and I love 'em cause to me they're all the same
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em they don't even know my name

When you're a celebrity they let you do it.

(xp) What?

"my lean baby" possibly based on "has anybody seen my gal? (five foot two, eyes of blue)"

(xp) What?

Her corporeal form is so slender as to be ghostly, borderline nonexistent.

My wife's so skinny her wedding ring fits on her wrist seems to be the joke there.

I know, I'm just taking it a step further to emphasize its bizarreness.

I don't think it's that bizarre, it's just a bunch of skinny jokes corralled into a comic song.

More revives need to start off with “What in the ever-loving fuckity-fuck is this?!?!” IMO

More Sinatra songs should have started off that way, as well.

Dion knows he's being a dick:

Oh, well I roam from town to town
I go through life without a care
And I'm as happy as a clown
And with my two fists of iron but I'm going nowhere

Re. “My Lean Baby”; there seems to be a point where the Singer /Protagonist Sounds Like a Dick Without Meaning To genre encroaches onto Accidental Randy Newman territory.

BMX Bandits wrote Your Class in response to Love The One You're With. Not sure off the top of my head how many answer songs there are to those by dick protagonists, but I would suspect a fair few

From the wiki page on Tom Rapp's 1973 album, "Stardancer":

"Love/Sex" is a riposte to Stephen Stills' "Love The One You're With", containing the line "Love will get you through times of no sex / Better than sex will get you through times of no love",

re: "My Lean Baby" and "accidental Randy Newman," Cliff Richard's "Living Doll" may also qualify:

Got myself a cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin', livin' doll
Got to do my best to please her just 'cause she's a livin' doll
Got a roamin' eye and that is why she satisfies my soul
Got the one and only walkin', talkin', livin' doll

Take a look at her hair, it's real
If you don't believe what I say, just feel
I'm gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk
Can steal her away from me

Now that is creepy!

Turns out Mark Lindsay, of "Arizona" fame, was shaming hippie chicks as early as 1967!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgFj1ThNCfY

Now you went away, you were taking the big trip
Parted with appropriate sighs
Well and now you come back girl and you're talking so hip
Got that glassy look in your eyes

Oh, Mo'reen, girl you look so clean
But I know, Mo'reen, you're not what you seem

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51agE-BHwyL.jpg

look you have to assume he's talking about the sweater/scarf combo

Ctl-f "Waitress in the Sky"

I thought he was meant to, as discussed on the other thread.

#MoreThanOneThread

I'm sure he knew he was coming off as a dick but I think he underestimated how seriously dickish he sounds

Isn't the story that his sister was an air hostess/stewardess and the song was from the point of view of one of her antagonists?

I wonder what she thought about it

some of my irritation with this song stems from its misogyny and some from its being such an earworm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0aRVlWEuo

First, she tells her fiancé that she only got the other guy's letter "yesterday"; implying she didn't have time to respond before his train arrives. But later, in the bridge, she says: Well I never answered his letter / I just couldn't tell him that way.... Sounds like she's not being entirely forthright about when the letter arrived?

Second – I get why she didn't want to tell the guy in writing that she's engaged. But couldn't she at least pick up the phone? Her plan is to be standing there when he steps off the train; show him the ring on her finger; and leave him standing in Penn Station with a duffel bag on his shoulder and his d--k hanging out?

"Yesterday" can mean "the recent past", rather than the day before today.

“Yesterday, I got this letter”? I don’t think she’s speaking poetically!

Unreliable narrator. The singer is telling the story from the psych ward, where she was committed after enduring the traumas described in previous Shangri-Las songs and suffering a nervous breakdown.

think perhaps we need another thread along the lines of "would these lyrics stand up to scrutiny in a court of law?"

It's one of my favourite songs ever, but Todd Rundgren's version of sensitivity in "Hello It's Me" is maybe a little self-serving:

Think of me
You know that I'd be with you if I could
I'll come around to see you once in a while
Or if I ever need a reason to smile
And spend the night if you think I should

"after enduring the traumas described in previous Shangri-Las songs" omg

As I was walking down the street one day, a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, and I said, 'Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?'. And then he hit me really, really hard right in my stomach. I don't know why.

Ha yeah that one definitely fits.

you wouldn't have understood him if he'd told you, what the fuck even is "25 or 6 to 4"

He's just a freshman in the quad puffin' on a doob and suddenly being all 'whoa, what even is time, man?' and trying to share his newfound wisdom with unamused passersby

'25 or 6 to 4' is a chronicle of his acid phase

He's a Staples regional vice president now iirc

It wasn't just "a man" who came up to Robert Lamm, it was "The Man".

a shame Cetera did not mention these inane stoner sidewalk chitchats among the "street sounds swirling through my mind."

a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch

And I showed him the watch that was on my wrist which was part of my arm that was attached to my body

And I suggested that he could use the eyes that were in his eye-sockets that were in his head, and thereby determine the time that was on my watch which was on my wrist that was part of my arm and therefore attached to my body

was thinking of this thread when I was listening to Beefheart's "My head is my only house unless it rains" the other day
another in the long line of love song turned stalker anthem

I'll let a train be my feet
If it's too far to walk to you
If a train don't go there I'll get a jet or a bus
Because I'm going to find you
You're going to see my shadow soon around you

I walk the meadow plains
Water deserts are my eyes until I find you
I won't sleep until I find you
I won't eat until I find you

I can feel you out there moving
You're mine, I know I'll find you

a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, and it was a Swatch so I told him what the time was in Swatch Internet Time, @624, and he said does anybody really care about Swatches? and I said yeah, they have stores in most airports, somebody's gotta

I know this is neither the time nor place but 'asked me what the time was that was on my watch' is my underrated nominee for most tortured English language construction in pop music.

In the Beefheart song, though, there's no indication that the subject is trying to evade the singer. It always brings to mind someone looking for a lost animal to me.