The Oil Slick: Three Songs Dishing Out Tough Love
Musicians are just like normal people, and, like us, they run into people in their lives who just annoy the hell out of them.
However, musicians don't need to resort to passive-aggressive Facebook posts to voice their frustrations.
Here are three of the harshest character critiques via song:
"Shoot Your Gun" -- The 22-20s
Sample Lyric:
Could you be a mother? Could you ever find a love that you would not place yourself above?
What happens when a moody rock band thinks you might be less than a caring, loving person? The 22-20s' excellent song “Shoot Your Gun," that's what. The band is in full-fledged attack mode on this song, as the singer breaks down the character with pointed rhetorical questions like the one above.
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"Pretty Princess Day" -- The Dirtbombs
Sample Lyric:
You want to eat your cake and have it too, you don't really know how this works, do you?
Although this song is coated in a pretty upbeat and poppy tune, the title basically says it all. Lambasting someone who hasn't figured out the world isn't revolving around them in under three minutes, the band wastes no time. Like a roast without a hug at the end.
"You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)" -- The White Stripes
Sample Lyric:
You don't know what love is, you just do as you're told. Just as a child of ten might act, but you're far too old.
Jack White has never been known to hold back on a topic, and this song shows him so incensed at a relationship that he has to turn it into a boot-stomping guitar frenzy. An ode to subservience, the song acidly demonstrates that pissing off a man with a microphone is never a good idea.
John Grimley writes The Oil Slick blog on GuitarWorld.com.
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