John Macy
From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
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Posted 1 Jul 2005 10:19 am |
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(courtesy of Music Row Magazine)
2005 Report From The Nashville Cliché Commission
By Kevin B. Johnston, 3/1/2005
Every year the Nashville Cliché Commission (NCC) issues its guidelines for using clichés in country music. Based on a survey of last year’s releases and songs currently in the studio, we have determined quotas for the coming year. As always, songs that are owned by producers are excluded, for these will be cut despite any flaws. The entire report fills 20 volumes, so only excerpts follow...
Nashville was pleasantly surprised that a Redneck Woman could revive sales. The result? More than 300,000 songs that use “redneck.” Does anyone remember when you got a red neck from hard work in the hot sun? Sitting in an office strumming a guitar does not give you a red neck. It doesn’t make you a redneck. We will accept only 130,872 more songs about rednecks written by whitenecks.
Somewhere in country music history is a really clever songwriter who addressed “Jim Beam” like he was speaking to a person. Last year there were 345,782 songs that pretended that “Jim Beam” was a friend. Get it? It’s really the liquor. Not really a guy. Har har. This kind of plagiarism does not give us much southern comfort. We’ll only take 123,987 more songs that take this cheap shot.
Guys, we don’t know how to tell you this, but no girl is impressed that you fell in love “the second she walked into the room.” There were 349,873 love-at-first-sight songs last year, and we’ll take 132,593 more of these grand entrances. No one believes you when you make this claim. It makes you sound desperate. Desperate for a line in your song.
It’s also time to stop telling her she is “an angel sent from heaven.” Try not to date outside the human race, okay? Besides, the lady you’re speaking to knows better. She remembers that pack of gum she stole as a child. She knows she’s just a regular person trying to get through her day like everyone else. There were 290,732 angels supposedly sent down to earth last year. We’ll take 198,302 more. We just hope songwriters will quit hogging them and leave some for the real needy people—victims of disasters, wars and the myriad of calamities plaguing this world.
Women who weren’t angels were “Daddy’s little girl.” So innocent. So young. So common. There were 230,872 such girls in songs last year. Be careful, guys, if Daddy catches you gawking at her again, he is going to take you out behind his cliché of a woodshed and tan your hide.
Despite our warning, we are sure some songwriter reading this report will come up with a lyric that says, “The moment she walked into the room, I knew she was an angel sent from heaven, and Daddy’s little girl stole my heart.”
No more songs may be written at “two in the morning.” This line has begun so many lyrics, we are concerned about the epidemic of insomnia that has stricken country songwriters. Perhaps they could rest easier if they quit borrowing other people’s lines.
The Visual Cliché Subcommittee notes that beaches were featured in every third video. Cowboys on the beach. Girls on the beach. Sons of beaches. Blondes in bikinis (bleach on the beach). The waves come rolling in, lapping at the ankles of a singer while the palm trees sway and the film crew fights to keep the sand out of the cameras. Enough already. Just a few short years ago it was women fondling themselves in the desert. Now it’s tropical guitars. What is it about country music and sand? This one is lying there like a beached whale, and it is rotten.
A close second for visual cliché was the singer singing in the studio with the band in the same room. This is not done in real studios. It is a fake image. It is rivaled only by the harmony singers singing at the same microphone with the lead singer. Country music is supposed to be about three chords and the truth, not three singers and a lip sync.
We are happy to announce that one industry cliché has been retired. “Sales are down” is no longer uttered five times a week. It will be no time before we’re back to our favorite cliché of saying people who sell too many records sold out. Nashville has always favored under-appreciated artists and unsung songwriters. We hope that rising sales will not spoil our negative self-image.
The sound cliché of the year harks back to the days of Garth Brooks. Every time there is an “o” sound at the end of a line, it is sung, “o-wo-wo.” Oh woe is us. Let Garth rest. All future vocal performances will be measured by the Garthometer, and any “o” sound that reaches four syllables will result in the performance being bleeped.
Country music apparently needs a dog catcher. So many dogs were running through songs last year, they left tracks and other forms of evidence all over country lyrics. Guys think loving their dogs makes them seem sensitive. This has become such a country staple we wonder why anyone imagines they came up with it. Ninety percent of the canines were “hound” dogs. The companion cliché is that the girl has a cat. Naturally. Dogs and cats tracked up 490,282 songs last year. Somebody call the pound.
And men who weren’t petting their dogs were fondling fish. So many songwriters went fishing in their songs, we wonder how they had time to write. We don’t mean to rock the boat, but if you are fishing for compliments on your originality, we’re not going to take the bait. If you hadn’t gone off with your dog to go fishing so much, maybe she wouldn’t have chosen an evening curled up with her cat instead of you.
One thing we know for certain, while she was sitting at home, there was a Bible on the nightstand. Every single nightstand in country music has a Bible on it. The Gideons must have a lobbyist with songwriters organizations. Thou shalt not use this cliché any more or we will smite you.
The Nashville Cliché Commission is encouraged, despite our complaints about plagiarism. If we can be forgiven the use of a cliché, things are looking up. We hope that with more originality and less of the tired old country fare, we can appeal to a growing audience. We must remember that country has always been valued for its honesty. It is dishonest to pretend we’re creating if we are only borrowing.
[This message was edited by John Macy on 01 July 2005 at 11:20 AM.] [This message was edited by John Macy on 01 July 2005 at 11:21 AM.] |
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