Touching Me, Touching You

This isn’t quite a return to blogging (I’m still savouring my indolence), but was posed an interesting question the other day, and it seemed a fun one to answer here. Some of you might want to chime in with your own answers, if you dare. The question that’s not really a question: Name TEN songs you’re embarrassed, or should be embarrassed, to have in your music library, or that people would never expect you to have in it. My threshold for shame being what it is, here goes, with a few extras in the hope any confessional overage counts toward karmic bonus-points.

• INXS, "Please (You Got That)": A revolting band from a revolting age for music, but this song featured Michael Hutchence making the deadly mistake of trying to keep up with Ray Charles, who was only phoning it in and still kicking Hutchence’s Aussie ass.


• Jann Arden, "Could I Be Your Girl?": Here’s something that probably says something about the occasional derangement of my imagination, because every time this song plays, I hear Tom Waits doing the chorus in full-throated snarl. This, of course, gets very funny when the title words come up.


• Tom Jones, "What’s New Pussycat?": Easy to forget sometimes the man has a helluva voice, so thoroughly he’s now dipped in cheese, and this song has to be one of the most ridiculous, even by his standards. But c’mon, how can you not have it?


• Rod Stewart, "People Get Ready": I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate Rod Stewart, especially for his horrifying mutilations of other people’s lesser-known hits (Van Morrison’s "Have I Told You Lately," Robbie Robertson’s "Broken Arrow," Tom Waits’ "Downtown Train," to name just a few). But this Curtis Mayfield classic is almost miraculously immune to Rod’s butchery. Almost.


• Corinne Bailey Rae, "Put Your Records On": I don’t know why I actually kinda like this song, though maybe it has something to do with the central evocation and it’s strangely catchy hook.


• Billy Ocean, "Get Outta My Dreams": Oh Good God. Enough saccharine here to fell an elephant, but (here’s that derangement again) every time I hear this song, I remember Bob Robertson from Double Exposure singing his Iraq War The First (A New Hope) parody, as Joe Clark addresses the United Nations. Hey Saddam, Get out of Kuwait, / Go back to Iraq....


• Prince, "Raspberry Beret": As one scarred in my teen years by the horrors of "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry," and having to dance to them no less, I should despise this song. But I don’t. In fact, quite the opposite. Don’t ask me to justify this, because I plainly and simply can’t.


• 10,000 Maniacs, "Because the Night": A limp band with a pretentious and passionless lead-singer, but the strings are cool, and this (i.e., the original) song is a classic all-round. And it’s just well-enough performed that I don’t always barrel over in laughter when Natalie Merchant instructs us to "take [her] now."


• Elton John, "I’m Your Man": More kitsch in this cover of the Leonard Cohen classic than in a dozen John Waters movies, but it’s there because I don’t have the heart to delete it. I dare you to listen to this, ahem, extraordinary rendition and not laugh.


• Sophie B. Hawkins, "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover": It has to be the only song in the past thirty years to use the word "shucks." And how can you resist imagery like, "I’ll do such things to ease your pain, / Free your mind and you won’t feel ashamed?" Oh, and I guess I should confess that I probably had a lascivious thought or two when the song was released, and may or may not have bought the CD because of them. (And don’t any of you say you didn’t do that, either. We’ll all know you’re lying. Something has to explain Color Me Badd and the Spice Girls.)


• Steve Winwood, "Valerie": I confess, I like Steve Winwood, even though he’s whiter than a frightened eggshell; but he had a great voice, and this song has some great lines, including "she was like jazz on a summer’s day" and "oh, she can’t be that one, / with the wind in her arms." A onetime involvement described Winwood’s oeuvre as "happy fuck music." True enough. (Now there’s a genre to check for in your record shops. Would parental advisories be required or implied?)


• King Harvest, "Dancing In The Moonlight": It uses the every hippie cliche it can muster, but it’s (appropriately?) catchier than herpes. Listen to it with two drinks in you, even if you’re a pro with the potables, and you’ll be dancing, too. See also James Taylor, "Mexico," and Jimmy Buffet, well, just about anything in his collection.


• Dooley Wilson, "As Time Goes By": Yes, the song from Casablanca. If any of you dare to say I’m a romantic because of this, I am not responsible for the Hostel treatment you more than surely deserve and will inevitably receive.


• Neil Diamond, "Sweet Caroline": Four words: Touching me, touching you.


• The Charlie Daniels Band, "The Devil Went Down To Georgia": Some awesome fiddle work here, and a lyric recasting the Robert Johnson myth. At least it’s not The Oak Ridge Boys.


• Tom Cochrane, "Life Is A Highway": You’re like a highway, and I wanna ride you all night long....


• Aretha Franklin, "I Say A Little Prayer": No shame at all in my Aretha collection, but since that stupid Julia Roberts movie, whichever one it was, it’s almost embarrassing to admit to liking this song. See also Roy Orbison, "Pretty Woman," and Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl," two other songs unfortunately sliced, diced, and Julianned.


• J. Geils Band, "Centerfold": "Oh no, I can’t deny it / Oh yeah, I guess I’m gonna buy it...." All that and whistling, too.


• Jim Croce, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown": If you can resist this song, you are shamelessly and unforgivably Modern. Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle / with a couple of pieces gone is better than Verdi. (Then again, what isn’t?)


• Tom Jones, "Mama Told Me Not To Come": Unkind as it must seem to pick on him twice here, if there’s anything more spine-chilling than Tom Jones ejaculating, it’s the thought of his mother offering instruction upon same. That ain’t no way to have fun, as the song goes. Could only be worse if Joe Cocker sang about taking a dump, a long toothpasty one, and how his great-great-grandmother coached him through it. *shudder*

And with that image of Joe Cocker in your head (worse: imagine the spasms!), it’s back to my blogging break I go. Aren’t you glad I don’t listen to Pete Townsend? Or, heaven forfend, Ashley McIsaac? Oy vey....