Published: January 07, 2008 10:56 am            

2008 needs new song lyrics like ‘a needle needs a vein’

View From the Bench

In this first week of 2008 in which radio, cable and satellite airwaves are busy counting down last year’s greatest everything, I’ve surmounted the final obstacle to impending dotage. I’m beginning to detest modern song lyrics.

This constant critique of popular music began only shortly ago. Now when I hear various references to bodily functions, sex and lawlessness, I’m genuinely offended. And the stuff I listen to is comparably mild to what is available to those with ... say a more metropolitan taste.

Take for example the wildly popular Tim McGraw hit “I Need You.” McGraw is an outstanding young artist and has the fortune of being married to sweetheart Faith Hill, with whom by all accounts, McGraw is absolutely and insanely mad about. At least according to my kids.

My first exposure to McGraw’s hit – occurring as it did while riding in my appropriately countrified pickup truck – prompted an immediate searching of the radio channels for a replay to clarify if my ears actually heard what I thought they heard. They had.

“I wanna drink that shot of whiskey/I wanna smoke that cigarette/I wanna smell that sweet addiction on my breath ... So I need you, like a needle needs a vein.” Hmm. OK. Well, that is certainly graphic and compelling, easy to understand the sentiment, but it’s also kind of unsettling.

The problem (for me) with this particular choice of words is the evocative image it generates, the allusion to the overpowering compulsion of intravenous drug use, which is once again becoming increasingly commonplace in our small communities.

A 2007 Drug Enforcement Administration threat assessment notes an increasing, though thankfully still relatively small, demand for heroin in southeastern Kentucky. That’s us. And given our proven inability to resist the lure of methamphetamine, cocaine and prescription painkillers in this region, I can easily comprehend the business opportunity that some Mexican trafficking organizations might see around here for expanded heroin use. That bothers me. And it bothers me to hear that drug addiction, particularly one that is manifested in a particularly odious fashion, is used to in what purports to be a loving tribute.

Another winner among the ol’ fuddy-duddy musical hit parade for 2007 has to be Carrie Underwood’s pre-emptive nuclearesque strike song “Before He Cheats.” You know the one I’m talking about. In anticipation that her boyfriend has strayed from a supposedly monogamous relationship, Carrie’s fictional crazy woman decides to go on a crime spree, keying her boyfriend’s car, cutting his leather seats, beating out his headlights with a baseball bat, aaaand ... flattening his tires.

I realize that I’m perhaps a little more sensitive to these issues than most people, but come on! We spend millions every year attempting to modify attitudes about the acceptability of domestic violence (even when directed at cheating, low down, scum bags).

Despite these efforts, over four million domestic violence incidents occur annually, and an estimated three domestic violence murders occur nationally every day. The economic costs of domestic violence, in lost productivity alone, exceed $70 million annually. So why would a musical star, with the surfeit of talent that Underwood possesses, promote lyrics which popularizes criminal mischief as appropriate conduct in reprisal for suspected infidelity?

I don’t mean to pick on either of these artists. I mostly like their music. And much of the music available today contains far more disturbing lyrics than these examples. And certainly music of my generation had its own problems, and perhaps was even more disturbing in some instances. It would certainly be nice, however, if the music of 2008 struck a little less of a discordant chord than some of last year’s examples.

        

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