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

I always heard "Always on My Mind" as expressing regret for being a dick.

which version? Willie Nelson's def.

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

The lyrics are the words of a sinister, controlling character, who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make". Essentially, it is a song about stalking.

I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.

—Sting[7]

Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it's about the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy and surveillance that follow. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"[8] When asked why he appears angry in the music video Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite."[9]

Don't think Neil Young's "Down By The River" counts either.

How about God Only Knows?

Jealous Guy is an interesting one. he's acknowledging that he's been a serious dick, without realising that new levels of serious dickery are expressed within the framework of his apology/ justification.

totally. see also the spoken-word part in "Confessions Part II":

This by far is the hardest thing I think I've ever had to do
To tell you, the woman I love
That I'm having a baby by a woman that I barely even know
I hope you can accept the fact that I'm man enough to tell you this
And hopefully you'll give me another chance

^^ sheesh, that's awful.

re: God Only Knows: never found the speaker all that off-putting personally. naive, yes. melodramatic, check. selfish even, if i'm stretched. but mostly i just find it to be inspirited with the elation of young love.

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.

The Turtles, "Let Me Be".

"Don't try to plan me or understand me / I can't stand to be understood"

Good, because there's nothing to understand, you're a pompous whiny dick, end of story.

Ha, attempt to rewrite It Ain’t Me Babe

See I think "It Ain't Me Babe" almost doesn't fit the category because he clearly intends dickitude.

Compare "Rambling Man" or "Free Bird" or "Goodbye Stranger" for basically the same message.

I just mean that it was the Turtles follow up single to their cover of It Ain’t Me Babe. Sounds like dumbed down Dylan lyrics.

PF Sloan I think?

Adding to the Beach Boys coverage itt, "Girl Don't Tell Me" is quite the little bundle of grievance. Like, okay, I get it, she didn't write you after your fling last summer, and you're bummed. But maybe take it as a life lesson and don't go on a creepy tangent about her short shorts and all the going-out she must have done during the school year. Gross.

Dr. Hook's "More Like the Movies" is one long extended "apology" where every "sorry" strikes me as deeply insincere and manipulative:

I guess the dance is over now
So you just courtsey and I'll bow
And ask the band to play us Auld Lang Syne
Then I'll just take what's left of me
Right back to where it used to be
And you'll go sail your magic carpet, far across the sky

I wish I could have made it
More like the movies for you
Some pretty Technicolor way it's never been
I'm sorry when I kissed you
You only heard me whisper
You never got to hear those violins
Did you girl?
No, you never got to hear those violins, no

The castles that you built so high
Were just too steep for me to climb
And I guess these dirty streets of mine
Were just too rough for you
I wish I could've helped you see
Just one of your sweet childhood dreams
But though I tried, I could not make not one of them come true

And I wish I could have made it
More like the movies for you
Some pretty Technicolor way it's never been
I'm sorry when I kissed you
You only heard me whisper
You never got to hear those violins

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

I never got to hear those violins, no