"She Don't Use Jelly"

I know a girl who reminds me of Cher
She's always changing the color of her hair
She don't use nothing that you buy at the store
She likes her hair to be real orange
She uses tangerines

Yes, I know this song is a silly little novelty and the lyrics are supposed be be somewhat absurd. As such it makes a great song to sing to my baby daughter. Why bother with insipid children's music (and it's almost all insipid, even the stuff that claims not to be) when there are plenty of songs to sing and play that you can enjoy as much as your kids? "La La Love You" by The Pixies is another good example.

So I appreciate the song for what it is, and I applaud the attempt to rhyme the word "orange" (even though it doesn't work at all if one has a New York accent). Tangerines won't turn your hair orange, but I'm allowing a little poetic license. And I can picture an orange-haired Cher, though I usually don't. No, my beef is that you can buy tangerines at a store! Unless one lives in the right climate to be able to visit a local citrus grove, or to be able to grow one's own, a store is exactly where one would get a tangerine.

And even if magic hair-coloring tangerines are only available via a special TV offer (call our toll-free number, operators are standing by!), they'll be in stores marked "As Seen On TV" soon enough.

"Sk8er Boi"

He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?
He was a punk.
And she did ballet.
What more can I say?

Yes, Avril. You can make it much more obvious. Telling me they're a boy and a girl is not nearly enough information. Are they star-crossed lovers who'll be driven to suicide by disapproving families? Are they brother and sister striving to take down the Empire? Is one a fair maiden imprisoned in a castle by her evil stepmother and the other a lovable scamp running away down the Mississippi?

Sure, maybe in retrospect it was indeed obvious that you were singing about some low-life punk and some girl who's been signed up for ballet classes. That would have been my next guess. And that's all you really needed to say. Really. Yet you feel compelled to continue the idiotic story, the moral of which seems to be that one never knows who might become famous, so one should always put out to hedge one's bets.

Come on, Avril, can't you leave the poor girl alone? She's a sad single mom no doubt regretting that her dreams of becoming a world-famous ballet dancer have come to naught, wallowing in so much self-pity that her friends don't even call to ask her out anymore. The last thing she needs is some snotty teen pop star writing an insanely catchy song making fun of her plight.

That makes you an awful person, Avril. An awful person singing an awful song from the awful title to the awful opening lines above through an awful story to the blessed fade out. But what's most awful is that I can't stop singing it!!

"Judy's Turn To Cry"

Oh, one night I saw them kissin' at a party,
So I kissed some other guy.
Johnny jumped up and he hit him,
'Cause he still loved me, that's why.

Thanks to Lesley Gore, it's difficult to even contemplate throwing a party these days without some part of your brain reminding you that, if you are so inclined, you are perfectly within your rights to cry. Tragedy does not even need to strike; the phrase "and I'll cry if I want to" follows the declaration "it's my party" as naturally as one knows who is to blame when one is shot through the heart.

Poor Lesley's situation is indeed tragic; she spends much of her party wondering where her Johnny went with Judy, only to discover that they've been out necking or petting or whatever it is boys and girls did in the early 60s. Most people think the story ends there, but there's a happy ending in the sequel "Judy's Turn To Cry". Sort of. The first two verses in the song have Lesley recapping the original, interspersed with tantalizing foreshadowing in the chorus. Seems Judy now has reason to weep. But why?

Because Johnny is a 24-karat asshat, that's why. Leaving his girlfriend's party holding hands with another girl was kind of jerk move. Returning to the *same* party with the girl is either thick-headed or sadistic. But punching a guy who was kissing his ex-girlfriend is simply psychotic. Especially since at the very same time he himself was making out with the tramp he left Lesley for. How could she possibly be happy to be back with that lunkhead?

Obviously, she has some self-esteem issues. And she's possibly slightly psychotic herself. Think about it - some poor guy was minding his own business when - wham! - this crazy girl is all over him, trying to make her gorilla ex-boyfriend jealous. Then - wham! - he's decked by the gorilla, and the girl leaves singing brightly at some other girl's emotional pain, with nary a thought as to his physical pain.

Judy should thank the stars that she was saved from a loser like Johnny. As for Lesley, if that's the type of guy she was attracted to, it's no wonder she eventually decided to swear off men forever.

"Jesus Walks"

The way Kathie Lee needed Regis
That's the way I need Jesus

Kanye West can't be faulted for trying to inject a little old time religion into hip-hop, but his good intentions are somewhat undermined when he compares his relationship with our Lord and Savior to that of a couple of amiable talk-show hosts. It seems a tad disrespectful, especially considering that Kathie Lee is doing just fine without Regis these days. Surely he's not suggesting that after fifteen or so years with Jesus he'll be ready to move on (to Scientology, perhaps?) No, I think he just consulted his rhyming dictionary without thinking too hard, and came up with a lyric so bad it inspired this blog.

The song itself isn't bad, but those lines get me every time. "Regis" was the best rhyme he could think of to start the couplet? How about "The way Häagen-Dazs needs freezers" or "The way Wallace and Gromit needed cheeses"? Actually, the latter one works nicely: Wallace and Gromit needed cheese so much they were willing to build a rocket and fly to the moon to get it. Now *that's* commitment worthy of the Son of God.

And another question: How is it that Weird Al hasn't yet recorded a parody entitled "Regis Talks"?