![[A photo of Van Halen on their 1982 tour. In the foreground is David Lee Roth in sparkly pants and no top. To the left is Michael Anthony smiling in an orange jumpsuit, and fan’s hands reaching up. To the right are Alex Van Halen and Eddie van Halen, who is rocking the fuck out. In the background is their logo, in lights. From Wikipedia]
I am writing a piece about what constitutes good lyrics, and why they are good, and about dealing with the disconnect between bad lyrics and aesthetically pleasing music. It was primarily inspired by the dudes up there, in particular “Beautiful Girls”.
It is such an musically perfect song to my ears. It reminds me of some Kanye songs - Love Lockdown and Lost in the World, specifically - for the way it just keeps coming at me with intense rushes of my particular idea of musical beauty. The bouncy rhythm made complex and tense by the minor key chorus, inquisitive riffs, themes and progressions that build and resolve and return and twist.Beautiful Girls has that particular thing that I hear in some compositions that I love but cannot adequately articulate.
Essentially, I have a straight-up emotional reaction to this piece of art. But the lyrics just infuriate me. I cannot get through the song that I love hearing without fuming and expelling expletives about how inappropriately silly and wasteful the lyrics are at my dude and now at Tumblr.
This is not just about Roth’s vocal performance. Roth is super irritating to be sure - his phrasing is sleazy and obnoxious. But his voice, when he is singing, suits the tone and the energy of the rest of the music. It’s not terrific, but it works for the band.
It’s about the blazing crappy lyrics, the lyrics so abset of care and thought that I had to reread this five times to make sure I didn’t use a particular ableist word that still pops up in my writing. I don’t find the song offensive, exactly - though it’s very much about the male gaze and street harassment, I guess, it’s not really in my personal subjective face.
It’s just so fucking trite.
Here I am, ain’t no man of the world, noAll I need is a beautiful girlAh yeah, beautiful girls
I guess I have to qualify this by saying I can see why someone might like these words in this order to that music. It’s light and there’s a little bit of fun wordplay in what I did not quote.
But it ultimately makes the song unmemorable and trivial. The words are so fucking atrociously fluffy and Roth’s voice is high in the mix; it’s hard to ignore. And as a result, the song has been pretty much forgotten, as much as a song from Van Halen can be. When I googled “beautiful girl lyrics”, it wasn’t even on the first page of results.
Beautiful girls are great. But as a sole topic there are fewer tropes more tiring and overused. It’s a stirring song with a boring thesis. It has no consequence or significance to it, and it’s a fucking waste of a gorgeous, moving song.
And it’s punctuated by the bullshit David Lee Roth talking. I find talking in songs distasteful as a general rule, but when it’s Roth it’s particularly off-putting and disgusting:
Ah yeah, beautiful girlsWoo! Come here, baby. Come here. Woo!Ah yeah, beautiful girlsWhat’s your name, honey? What’s your—hey! Hey, where ya goin’?Ah yeah, beautiful girlsHey! Hey, hey! Wait a minute, wait a min… Oh!Ah yeah, beautiful girlsI love ‘em! I need ‘em!Ah yeah, beautiful girlsCan’t do without ‘em, no!Ah yeah, beautiful girlsOw! Ow! Ow! Ow!Ah yeah, beautiful girlsAh yeah, beautiful girls(smooch)
Ugh.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh9nwa4nTB1qac7jco1_500.jpg)
[A photo of Van Halen on their 1982 tour. In the foreground is David Lee Roth in sparkly pants and no top. To the left is Michael Anthony smiling in an orange jumpsuit, and fan’s hands reaching up. To the right are Alex Van Halen and Eddie van Halen, who is rocking the fuck out. In the background is their logo, in lights. From Wikipedia]
I am writing a piece about what constitutes good lyrics, and why they are good, and about dealing with the disconnect between bad lyrics and aesthetically pleasing music. It was primarily inspired by the dudes up there, in particular “Beautiful Girls”.
It is such an musically perfect song to my ears. It reminds me of some Kanye songs - Love Lockdown and Lost in the World, specifically - for the way it just keeps coming at me with intense rushes of my particular idea of musical beauty. The bouncy rhythm made complex and tense by the minor key chorus, inquisitive riffs, themes and progressions that build and resolve and return and twist.Beautiful Girls has that particular thing that I hear in some compositions that I love but cannot adequately articulate.
Essentially, I have a straight-up emotional reaction to this piece of art. But the lyrics just infuriate me. I cannot get through the song that I love hearing without fuming and expelling expletives about how inappropriately silly and wasteful the lyrics are at my dude and now at Tumblr.
This is not just about Roth’s vocal performance. Roth is super irritating to be sure - his phrasing is sleazy and obnoxious. But his voice, when he is singing, suits the tone and the energy of the rest of the music. It’s not terrific, but it works for the band.
It’s about the blazing crappy lyrics, the lyrics so abset of care and thought that I had to reread this five times to make sure I didn’t use a particular ableist word that still pops up in my writing. I don’t find the song offensive, exactly - though it’s very much about the male gaze and street harassment, I guess, it’s not really in my personal subjective face.
It’s just so fucking trite.
Here I am, ain’t no man of the world, no
All I need is a beautiful girl
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
I guess I have to qualify this by saying I can see why someone might like these words in this order to that music. It’s light and there’s a little bit of fun wordplay in what I did not quote.
But it ultimately makes the song unmemorable and trivial. The words are so fucking atrociously fluffy and Roth’s voice is high in the mix; it’s hard to ignore. And as a result, the song has been pretty much forgotten, as much as a song from Van Halen can be. When I googled “beautiful girl lyrics”, it wasn’t even on the first page of results.
Beautiful girls are great. But as a sole topic there are fewer tropes more tiring and overused. It’s a stirring song with a boring thesis. It has no consequence or significance to it, and it’s a fucking waste of a gorgeous, moving song.
And it’s punctuated by the bullshit David Lee Roth talking. I find talking in songs distasteful as a general rule, but when it’s Roth it’s particularly off-putting and disgusting:
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
Woo! Come here, baby. Come here. Woo!
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
What’s your name, honey? What’s your—hey! Hey, where ya goin’?
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
Hey! Hey, hey! Wait a minute, wait a min… Oh!
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
I love ‘em! I need ‘em!
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
Can’t do without ‘em, no!
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
Ah yeah, beautiful girls
(smooch)
Ugh.
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