Lyrical Analysis - Lady Gaga's "Judas"

*Note: This song while containing no outright swearing contains some pretty explicit sexual references, and large amounts of blasphemy. You've been warned.*

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where WHAT THE HECK DID I JUST LISTEN TO?!

No, seriously! What did I just listen to? What was that? Was it music? Was it some sort of bizzare occult thing? Was it just blasphemy for the sake of blaspheming?

I... Buh... Wha? Whaaaaaa? Bwhaaaaaaa? Guh???? Blurghle snraflmgr ykrinder? Jfrinder? JFRINDER?!

I'm sorry, it seems that, in my confusion, I lost the ability to form actual words for a moment there. I think I'm mostly brkgh. Erm, back.

Anyways, let's talk about Lady Gaga for a moment shall we? Lady Gaga is an example of someone who is shocking purely for the shock value. Seriously. I don't like Lady Gaga much, not because most of her music is bad (it isn't, most of it is pretty listenable) but because it's obvious her persona only exists for image.

Seriously. With some people, things are shocking because it's clear that they aren't trying to be shocking, they're just like that. More power to them. And then we have Lady Gaga, where it's obvious she's only being shocking to get an image.

So usually, I try to ignore her, hoping she'll go away. And guys, I know that this song is just another case of her writing something shocking to be, well, shocking, but WOW. I mean... WOW. This is bad. Really bad. I may dislike this song more than any other song I've talked about here, including "My First Kiss". Yeah. It's that bad.

So I know writing this is just giving her what she wants, but I'm sorry, I've gotta talk about this song because... It's bad. Really bad.

It seems Lady Gaga is trying very hard to make it difficult to figure out just what exactly the lyrics to this song ARE, removing any youtube video with the lyrics in it, and claiming several sites have the lyrics wrong. So if I get the lyrics wrong at any point, that why. Sorry, but I've gotta work with what I've got. I'm basing this off of the lyrics for the song on a site called Metrolyrics. So yeah. Bear with me.

"Oh-oh-oh-ohoo/I'm in love with Juda-as, Juda-as"

Yes folks, one line in and already with the blasphemy.

"Judas/Juda-a-a/Judas/Juda-a-a/Judas/Juda-Gaga"

Ok this is actually something that annoys me in all of Lady Gaga's song (this and the pretentious and unnecessary french which bugs the crap out of me). She comes up with complete nonsense, and works her name somewhere in it. "Pokerface", "Bad Romance", "Judas", I think "Alejandro" had it... It's bad. Really, really bad.

"When he comes to me, I am ready/I'll wash his feet with my hair if he needs"

Oh I see what you did there! You see, it's like with Jesus, but she's talking about Judas! Oh ho ho ho, Gaga, you make blasphemy positively zany!

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

Uh... What?

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

Uh...... No seriously what?
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"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

...This has to be an error with the lyrics I'm reading. Let me check another site.

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

I... What? What does that mean? Is it blasphemy? Is it... I don't know! What the heck does "Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain" MEAN? I... I can't make fun of that! I can't comprehend that that line exists! What?! WHAT?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

"Even after three times he betrays me"

The "denies me three times" thing wasn't actually Judas. That was Peter. And it happened after Judas betrayed Jesus. So uh... Yeah. Here's some much better music.



Sigh... Back to the Gaga.

"I'll bring him down/Bring him down, Down/A king with no crown/King with no crown"

Holy crap. Lady Gaga just made fun of Jesus for being "King of the Jews". That stopped being clever around 33 AD. IN THE 1ST CENTURY. Let that sink in some people.

...

Wow...

...

Just wow...

...

Ok, here's some more much better music.



(By the way, if you haven't seen the movie I'm posting clips from, it's "Jesus Christ Superstar". Go see it. The 1973 one, not the 2000 one. Spoiler: Jesus dies.)

"I'm just a holy fool/Oh baby he's so cruel/But I'm still in love with Judas baby"(x2)

Never has upbeat sugary pop music met complete and utter blasphemy quite like it has here. You know it's a shame the lyrics are so... Erm... Awful, because the chorus's music isn't half bad.

"Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh/I'm in love with Judas/Judas/Juda-Gaga"(x2)

More annoying noises and crap. Hurrah. I am so enthusiastic about this.

"I couldn't love a man so purely/Even *Indecipherable gibberish*"

I'm not even going to bother POSTING what lyrics I found because there's no way they're right. I don't know what she says there, but it's not "Even darkness forgave his crooked way". It's just not. Even if that's the lyric, she's clearly saying something else there... I just don't know what.

"I've learned love is like a brick, you can/Build a house or sink a dead body"

Sheesh Gaga, that's a bit morbid even for you...

"I'll bring him down/Bring him down, down/A king with no crown/King with no crown"

No seriously Gaga, stop with that. You're just embarrassing yourself.

"I'm just a holy fool/Oh baby he's so cruel/But I'm still in love with Judas baby"(x2)

The day I believe Lady Gaga is a "holy fool" is the day pigs fly through a snowstorm in hell.

"Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh/I'm in love with Judas/Judas/Juda-Gaga"(x2)

Gah, this is worse than in Bad Romance.

And then, as if to say to the audience "Yeah, I know it sucks" the song insults itself with a loud,

"EW!"

...No, I'm not kidding. It's in there.

"In the most biblical sense/I am beyond repentance/Fame, hooker/Prostitute, wench/Vomits her mind"

I literally facepalmed when I heard this line. MARY. MAGDALENE. You know, the prostitute who was forgiven of her sins, and was one of Jesus main followers, AND the first to see him alive after his resurrection? Otherwise known as the woman who you REFERENCED EARLIER IN THIS SAME SONG. Yeah. The feet wiping thing? That was her. You're a moron. Do the research next time.

And even if you don't believe in the bible, you can't say you're beyond repentance in the BIBLICAL SENSE, especially when you're referencing sins that PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE WERE FORGIVEN OF. 'Doh.

"But in the cultural sense/I only speak future tense"

I don't know what that means, and I probably don't want to.

Aaaand the next line is stupid, disgusting, and I'm not going to talk about it.

"I wanna love you/But something's pulling me away from you/Jesus is my virtue/Judas is the demon I cling to/I cling to"

Wait what? Did we just switch songs? Because that almost sounds non-blasphemous. If I hadn't heard the rest of this song I'd easily interpret that as a line about how we all have certain sins we cling to and we need to learn to let go of them and stand with Christ. Seriously. What just happened? I'm confused. I'm too confused, we're moving on.

"I'm just a holy fool/Baby he's so cruel/But I'm still in love with Judas baby"(x2)

What's not to love about a man who sold his soul for 30 silver coins amirite?

Seriously... I just don't even know how to respond to this. This is one step away from straight up writing a song about worshiping the devil. I'm not even kidding.

Even if you're not a Christian... Writing a song about being in love with Judas? You gotta admit that's a bit much. Even if you only believe the Bible is fictional, it'd be like writing a song about how you LOOOOOOOVE Darth Vader because he killed little kids in Revenge of the Sith. It'd be like writing a song about how you LOOOOOOOOVE Benedict Arnold. You don't do it. It's just not right.

"Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh/I'm in love with Judas/Judas/Juda-Gaga"(x2)

STOP THAT. IT IS NO LONGER LISTENABLE. GOSH.

"Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas GAGA"(x2)

And so ends Lady Gaga's latest piece of crap, "Judas". You know, it's kind of a shame. With different lyrics, I honestly think this could be a great song. Lady Gaga's best, even. Seriously, the music is awesome with a great beat, and her singing is actually really good here... Until you hear what she's singing, and realize not only is she blaspheming, but several lines reveal she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. Y'know, like the fact that she doesn't know who St. Peter is. Or who Mary Magdalene is. But whatever.

Video Game Review - Portal 2

Anyone who's ever read this blog before probably knows I'm quite fond of Portal. As in, it's my favorite game ever made. I consider it a masterpiece in every respect, the puzzles were hard and mind bending, and the humor was pitch perfect, never failing to deliver laughs. Needless to say, when a full length sequel was announced, 3 times longer than the short original game, with a separate Co-Op campaign, I was a bit excited. As in, I've been looking forward to this game for AGES.

But now that I've played it, did I love it? Did I hate it? Did it take the masterpiece that was Portal, and make it better, or did it fail to impress, simply rehashing the previous games triumphs? Read on to find out as I tell you just what I thought of Portal 2.



Portal 2, as if you didn't already know, is the latest game from Valve, and as I said is the follow up to the surprise hit of 2007's The Orange Box, Portal. When Portal first came, very few people knew what to expect from it. It was being developed mostly by a new team Valve hired on after seeing their student project "Narbacular Drop" and saying, "Hey, we want you to make a longer version of this."

They bundled it together with Half Life 2: Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2, both long awaited sequels, in a bundle known as The Orange Box. When many people bought The Orange Box, they didn't expect Portal to be anything more than a little bonus they got with the other two games, but while Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 are both fantastic games (among my favorites, in fact) Portal ended up being considered by many people, myself included, the best game in the pack.

The game set you in a deserted laboratory controlled by a sinister A.I. GLaDOS, using a "Portal Gun" which let you shoot two portals, which linked to each other. The result was mind bending puzzles, and some of the darkest humor and possibly the most memorable villain, in all of gaming. Lines about murdering your best friend (a box), baking you into a cake, and of course the meme-tastic song "Still Alive" led to the game being warmly received by all.



Of course, a sequel was needed. The original game was only 3 hours long.

Story

Portal 2 takes place several centuries after the original Portal. Your character, Chell, has been in stasis for the past several hundred years, and is awoken by a personality sphere named Wheatley, one of the many which awoke at the end of the first Portal, telling you that the Enrichment Center's nuclear reactor is about to meltdown, killing you (and him) and that you need to escape together. You run around, go through some tutorial stages, and end up in GLaDOS's chamber. She's off. You go down to her central core looking for an escape pod, or some route of escape to turn on. This goes as well as you might expect. Of course, GLaDOS wakes up, and sends you straight back to testing.

There are a few new characters, Wheatley being one of them, who really add something to the game. Don't get me wrong, Ellen McLain reprises her role as GLaDOS and does an absolutely phenomenal job, but each of the new characters add hours of laughs, and a plot with some twists I genuinely didn't see coming. The plot is absolutely great, and the dialogue is just as good as it was in the first game. You'll be laughing hysterically throughout the entire game. I promise that. My family watched me play through large portions of the game, and said it was a blast to watch me play it, because of how well written it was, and how darn funny it was.

Again, it only ties in loosely to the Half-Life universe, but the connections are there (including an Easter Egg about a certain ship...) and are quite fun when you do catch them. Really though, Portal 2 focuses on being it's own thing. It's not Half-Life 2: Episode 3 like some (stupid) people seemed to be expecting. G-Man isn't in it. The Combine isn't in it. Gordon Freeman isn't in it.

Instead, the game focuses on building up the world of Aperture Science, and it does this spectacularly. One thing I remember hearing in the Dev Commentary for the original Portal was that they tried to convey in the escape portions that the facility was designed to reassemble itself at GLaDOS will, using pistons and panels to change around test chambers in whatever way she wished. This was something I never thought was all that well expanded upon in the first game, and I never would have known they intended that if I hadn't done the Dev Commentary. However, Portal 2 shows this, and the absolutely massive scale of the Aperture Science facility beautifully from the very first moment of the game. You can tell how the rooms fit together, and the very opening of the game gives you a shot of the inside of the facility, making it obvious it's bigger than you ever would have expected in the first game.

This also changes the atmosphere of the game. Not that the way the original game felt was bad in any way, the original Portal is still a masterpiece of game design in every aspect, but this game really felt like they cemented what the world of Aperture science was. The Half-Life series is a straight up drama, and Portal 2 is more of a black comedy, something which made itself apparent in the dialogue of the first game, and something which becomes apparent in every aspect of Portal 2, including the atmosphere.

The graphics, though still running on the Source engine first released with Half-Life 2 in 2004, have been refined a LOT from Portal, and look absolutely great in this game.



Something which is either an improvement or a step back, depending on your opinion, is that unlike in the first game, where Chell was essentially a mask for the player, she feels more like a character, and an aspect of the Portal universe, in this one. She's still silent, make no mistake, but unlike in the first one where she was silent because she was nothing more than a mask, in this she feels more like your standard silent protagonist, much like Gordon Freeman, or Link.

There are more references to her being mute, and many, MANY, references to her being female, unlike the first game where the only reference to her was the Curiosity Sphere saying "OOOH YOU'RE THE LADY FROM THE TEST!", other than that, there were no references to her being female, and it felt more like GLaDOS was talking to YOU than to CHELL. In this, it feels like the characters are talking to Chell first, you second.

In my personal opinion, it's not really a drawback of the game... But I will admit I do prefer the "mask" approach they took in the first one. I can't say it's poorly executed, it isn't, and it does work very very well in this game, I just liked the approach in the first game more. It's not a flaw, and the story still works excellently though.

But, of course, what would Portal be without, well, Portals? So I'm sure many of you are asking how well the gameplay measures up.



Gameplay

I remember hearing in an interview, I think it was from E3 last year, that the Dev team wanted to make the same leap of introducing gameplay unlike anything you'd ever seen like they had in Portal, in Portal 2. That they were introducing many new concepts besides just the Portal Gun (which, again, is the only "weapon" you have in the entire game).

So really, Portal was about using the Portal Gun to solve problems. Portal 2 is about using the Portal Gun to influence other elements in the level, to solve problems. There are many new game mechanics, such as tractor beams, which can travel through Portals to influence the levels. All of the new mechanics (There are a lot) introduce entirely new ways to view the levels, and include mind warping new possibilities.

The Portal mechanic has been noticeably improved too. In the first game, unless you hit a Portal head on, you would get stuck. If you even clipped the edges a little bit, you'd get stuck, and would probably die. I never had that problem in this game, and it's much easier to actually travel through Portals.

Of note, is that they took out a lot of the twitch aspect of Portal solving puzzles in this one. Now it's more about setting your portals up correctly BEFORE going through them, than it is to shoot one off while in midair. There is still the occasional puzzle that requires to shoot off a Portal while flying through midair, but they are few and far between.

There are also fewer places to put your Portals now. It's more like the end of the first game, while you were escaping, where there were only a few spots to place Portals, and the trick was to figure out how to use those precious few spots to achieve your goal. The resulting difficulty isn't necessarily any harder or any easier, it just plays differently.

The difficulty itself is pretty much on par with the original Portal. The puzzles aren't really hard, but they all require thinking differently than you normally would, and if you aren't "thinking with portals" you'll be stuck. There are still many points where you'll find yourself boggling, wondering if the puzzle is even possible or if the game is somehow glitching, only to remember that one technique you were taught earlier in the game, and propelling yourself to victory.

This game, just like the first, is very good at preparing you for more difficult challenges. Every puzzle seems to teach you new concepts you'll need to remember for later puzzles. In a way, just like the first, most of the game is a tutorial.

That said, I would still recommend against jumping straight into Portal 2. If you haven't, you should most definitely still play Portal before Portal 2, because the original is a masterpiece of storytelling within games, will set up the story for the second one for you, is only about 3 hours long, and will ensure you're already "thinking with portals" when you try Portal 2 out, a skill which will come in handy.

I got the PS3 version of the game, which includes a free PC/Mac Steam copy. As such, I played through the entire game on both PS3 and PC, and the controls worked perfectly on both. I never found myself struggling to make a shot on the PS3, but I never felt the puzzles were dumbed down on PC.

Something I've heard a lot of complaint about is that there are frequent load screens. This is true, there is a load screen after pretty much every puzzle. Honestly though, the load screens are very short, and I prefer load screens to the intrusive "LOADING..." message that popped up in old Valve games. Also, the frequent load screens help the game run on even lower end machines.

I hear some people claim the PC version is just a console port. This is stupid. Completely and utterly stupid. The only evidence for this at ALL is that when you save, the save message says "Please don't turn off your console..." on the PC, as opposed to saying "Please don't turn off your PS3..." on the PS3.

Even if it were a console port (which it isn't) it wouldn't matter. The PC version plays perfectly. The controls work. There's no other way to say it, the game controls very well on both PS3 and PC.

One thing I do wish they had included is advanced chambers, like the first game had, but they seemed to favor including achievements in the standard chambers, which require going through them differently to get. Still, a level editor will be included soon, so I'm sure some extremely difficult maps will come out of that.


Co-Op

One of the biggest and most exciting aspects of Portal 2 was the announcement that the game would contain a co-op mode, where you and a friend control two "Co-Op Bots" nicknamed Atlas and P-Body.



The story in the Co-Op mode is very thin, and is really only there as a sequel hook for Portal 3, taking place after the end of Portal 2's single player campaign. GLaDOS taunts the two of you, as you solve tests spread over 5 chapters, involving the use of all those new features included in the game, all the while using up to 4 portals (each of you with two of them, obviously).

The Co-Op levels are fun, and some of the GLaDOS quotes are pretty funny, but this is probably where most of my complaints for the game come in. Don't get me wrong, the Co-Op for this game, which probably took about 5 hours to complete, was very fun, but I would have liked to see some more challenging puzzles, especially toward the end. Even the very last puzzle only took me and my co-op partner around 15 minutes to figure out and complete. Maybe that's because I had already finished the entire single played campaign, and was already "thinking with portals" but only a few of the tests seemed all that difficult, and we breezed through the others, unlike the single player where there were some pretty brutal puzzles toward the end.

Hopefully Valve will either allow custom co-op maps when the level editor is released (PC only, and it's not out yet, even for single player, though it is announced) or will release some more difficult co-op levels in future updates for the game. Or both. Both would be nice.

Oh, and in case you've heard people saying that there's already $80 of DLC? That's only a half truth. Much like the Mann-Conomy in TF2, there's an item shop in Portal 2. Everything in it is purely cosmetic and is in no way required, isn't even available on the console versions of the game, and though it's true there is around $80 worth of cosmetic purchases, there's a bundle for only $30 of all of them, should you choose to buy them all. I ignored the item shop, only equipping my Mann Co. hat which was carried over from TF2 (there are 6 items which are carried over, IIRC) and an achievement item I got later on. It really doesn't matter, if you like item shops, hurrah! If not, ignore it, like I did.


Length

The single player campaign for Portal 2 took me around 9 hours to complete. The Co-Op campaign took me around 5-6 hours.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Make no mistake, this is not a long game. Compared to a lot of games out there for the same $50 pricetag, you're not going to play this for as much time. You could buy Fallout: New Vegas for that price, probably even less by now, and easily get a 100 hours of gameplay, instead of around 14-20. This would be completely understandable.

That said, the quality of those 14 hours is extremely high. This is a worthy addition to the Portal series, and just as good as Portal, my favorite game of all time.

Also, there are a lot of Easter Eggs and achievements hidden in the game you won't get on your first try, which will warrant a second play through, as well as a developer commentary which will warrant yet another playthrough. A level editor is also coming out soon, so I'm sure we'll see great maps coming out of that.

This game is short, but it's very good. You should, at some point, play this game. The only real question here is if you should buy it now, at the $50 price tag, or wait until the price drops. Honestly, it just depends on how much of a diehard Portal fan you are. Me? I regret nothing. Portal 2 was brilliant, and I am absolutely pleased with my day one purchase. But then again, I have 60 hours logged on the original Portal, a 3-4 hour game. I've played through it so many times, I've got each puzzle memorized, and I will likely do the same with Portal 2. For me, a day one purchase was a good choice. For others, waiting for the inevitable Steam Sale 6 months from now would probably be a good choice. Knowing Valve, it'll be $20 by Christmas.


Music

Real quick, before closing out this review, I'd like to mention the music of the game. The soundtrack is AMAZING, and I would definitely buy it in a heartbeat if Valve were to release it as an OST. Not just the closing song, penned by JoCo himself, just like Still Alive (I won't post it here though, it describes in detail the plot of Portal 2 and is extremely spoilery) but just the background music, or songs like "Robots FTW" the piece of music which plays over the Co-Op end credits. It's spoiler free, by the way.



Buy This Game If: Like I said above, you really should buy this game, it's really just more a matter of WHEN you should buy it.

Don't Buy This Game If: You're a stupid moron? Seriously. Buy this game. Play it. Eventually.

*This review was based on around 19-20 hours of play, including one playthrough of the single player on PS3, one playthrough of the single player on PC, and one playthrough of the Co-Op, also on PC. Portal 2 is rated E10+ for fantasy violence and mild language*

Lyrical Analysis - Miley Cyrus' "The Climb"

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I'm incredibly bored.

Oh, hello again Miley Cyrus, how are YOU doing?



This song may not be the worst song I've spoken about here, but it's certainly more difficult to explain why this song is terrible over several others. Let me explain. This song isn't as bad as, for example, "My First Kiss", but this is an entirely different kind of bad. At least with songs like "My First Kiss" I get an emotional response when listening to them. Anger. This song though... Gah... This song is... It's BORING. BORING BORING BORING BORING. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING.

Seriously. This song is an "inspirational" song by Miley Cyrus. And I use the term "inspirational" loosely, since the only thing this song inspires ME to do is take a nice long nap. It was featured in the Hannah Montana movie and... It's stupid. Stupid, and boring.

But what makes this song so awful? Y'know, I mean aside from the music, singing, theme, and motivation behind the song. Why the lyrics of course! So enough talking about much more interesting things, let's examine the terrible TERRIBLE lyrics of Miley Cyrus' "The Climb"

"I can almost see it/The dream I'm dreaming"

This sounds inspirational until you realize her dream is to be the next Britney Spears.

"But, there's a voice inside my head saying/You'll never reach it"

I'mmah stop you right here. Miley, you're a celebrity, ok? You have buckets of money, dozens of songs, a hit TV show... You've reached the dream. Ok? You've reached it. Now can you please tell YOUR success story to the people to make them inspired? Oh that's right, you can't. You know why? Your success story sucks.

Here's her success story, her father was a crappy singer and a crappier actor. Then she became a less crappy singer and a less crappy actor, though still being crappy.

I smell inspiration!

"Every move I'm makin'/Every step I'm takin' feels/Lost with no direction"

Oh, I didn't realize this was a song about the writing of "7 Things".

"My faith is shaking"

Faith in what, you may ask? Well this is, of course, never elaborated on. This is that Hollywood "faith" you have to keep in order to be successful. You need to have "faith". "Faith" in what? Doesn't matter, just "faith". Scientology? Yep, that works. Yourself? We'll make a hit movie of your life story. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Sure, you can found a religion around them. Christianity? Eh, that might be considered politically incorrect.

Yeah, I went there.

"But I/Gotta keep tryin'/Gotta keep my head held high"

Gotta keep, one jump ahead of the breadline! One swing ahead of the sword! I steal, only what I can't afford! (That's everything)

I'm only kidding of course, that song is MUCH better than this one.

"There's always gonna be another mountain/I'm always gonna wanna make it move/It's always gonna be an uphill battle/Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose"

Bored yet? Me too. Moving on.

"Ain't about how fast I get there/Ain't about what's waiting on the other side/It's the climb"

That's a load of crap and you know it Miley. Sometimes it absolutely IS about the destination and not the journey. Sometimes we DON'T climb mountains for the sake of the climb. How about the cure for cancer? Huh? Are we climbing THAT PARTICULAR mountain for the sake of the climb? No. WE'RE CLIMBING IT TO CURE CANCER.

Yes, it's a lovely notion, but it doesn't always apply. In fact, it USUALLY doesn't apply. And it's a sentiment we've heard, oh, eight million times before? Seriously, have a little originality. Please.

"The struggles I'm facing/The chances I'm taking/Sometimes might knock me down but/No I'm not breaking"

It's here one of the problems I have with the song comes into play, and honestly this is more HER than the lyrics themselves, but it is somewhat a problem with the lyrics. This song is missing the essential ingredient to a motivational song.

Think of some good motivational songs. What popped into your mind? "Eye of the Tiger"
? "We Are The Champions", maybe? Heck, even bad motivational songs like "Never Say Never" have this quality.

Determination. When you hear "Eye of the Tiger" you dang well know you can achieve anything, because with enough determination there is no goal you can't reach. You WILL rise up, you WILL become the champion, because you ARE the champion. No one's going to stop you, and anyone who tries is going to be mowed down.

Miley, and her lyrics, seem to lack any sort of determination to me. And it shows. With slightly better lyrics, and a more determined sound to her, this song could be salvageable. As it is? It's boring.

Even the lines that attempt determination, like this one, reek more of a plea for reassurance. "I'm not breaking. Right? RIGHT?"

Maybe it's me, but this song seems more DE-motivational than anything.

"I may not know it/But these are the moments that/I'm gonna remember most yeah/Just gotta keep going"

Yes, but will you remember these supposed hardships fondly? Probably not.

Also, she's yet to tell us any kind of hardship she's gone through other than her feeling demotivated. Why? As far as we know, chronic depression. I'm just sayin'!

"And I/Gotta be strong/Just keep pushing on"

Oh boy here's the chorus again.

"'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain/Always gonna want to make it move/Always gonna be an uphill battle/Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose"

SEE?! You see?! "Eye of the Tiger" wouldn't say you should accept losing! It would say you should mow down your obstacles and take any hits in stride! (By the way, I consider "Eye of the Tiger" the definitive motivational song, in case it doesn't show.)

Seriously, I compare a REAL motivational song like "Eye of the Tiger" to this... From the very first note of "Eye of the Tiger" you feel motivated. From the very first WORD you KNOW you can do WHATEVER it is you need to. That was my song of choice last November during NaNoWriMo and it will remain so next year. And some of you may be saying that it's unfair to compare "Eye of the Tiger" to "The Climb". That one is a classic, and the other is a bland pop song, but y'know what? I don't accept that! Miley Cyrus clearly wrote this as a motivational song in the same vein as "Eye of the Tiger" and, in my opinion, all motivational songs should at least be able to have that very basic determination which "The Climb" is oh so lacking in.

That's why I didn't mention this in "Never Say Never". I don't like that song, but at least Justin Bieber sounded determined in it. He sounded like he was going to overcome whatever was thrown at him. Miley Cyrus, in this song, just sounds kind of apathetic. She sounds like "Yeah, bad stuff is going to happen. I accept that, I'll get through ok. Probably." Whereas a GOOD motivational song says "Bad stuff might happen, but if it does I will MOW IT DOWN, KICK IT IN THE FACE, SPIT ON IT, AND PASS IT BY TO GET TO MY GOAL."

"Ain't about how fast I get there/Ain't about what's waiting on the other side/It's the climb"

You know what I hear when this song is playing? I hear,

"This song is so very generic/I really can't make myself give a crap/It's so bland!"

Seriously. There is nothing original about this song. This song adds NOTHING new. This song is boring, generic, and has no reason to exist.

The rest of the song (A minute more, no less) is just chorus. I can't SAY anything else about it. It's just... Bland! There's nothing to say! Nothing!

And that's The Climb really. It's bland, and there's very little to say about it. At least some songs by, say, Justin Bieber try to do something interesting. They fail, but at least they try! This song is just... Boring. Boring boring boring.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to "Eye of the Tiger".

Lyrical Analysis - Avril Lavigne's "Smile"

*Caution: This song contains extremely harsh language. I'll censor it in my post, but I'll also post a link to the song. If you are easily offended, don't listen to the song.*

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where at first I felt bad for a while, but now I just smile.

Oh hey, not only does Avril Lavigne apparently still exist, but she released not one but TWO Jormunga- sorry, singles at the same time. One of them was "What the H***" which, as I said, although it's lyrics were far from great, the song wasn't that bad at all.

The other was Smile. No, not that smile. You know how "What the H***" was her song about how innocent and good she'd been her whole life? This single is about what she's actually like.

So, without any further ado, let's dive right into "Smile" by Avril Lavigne.

"You know that I'm a crazy b****"

This is the first line of the song. She could have gone with any line to be the introduction to her song, and this is the one she picked.

Ah well, at least she's acknowledging it.

"I do what I want when I feel like it"

Yeah, I wasn't kidding. This is a song about what she's actually like.

"All I want to do is lose control/Oh oh"

But if losing control is what you want, and you then lose control, technically aren't you controlling yourself by losing control, thus keeping in control?

Ugh. 13 seconds in and already my head hurts.

"But you don't really give a s***"

Hey look, arbitrary and forced swearing that exists for no reason.

"You don't let it go/Let it go with it/'Cause you're f***ing crazy rock 'n roll"

ALRIGHT THIS HAS TO BE ADDRESSED.

Look folks, I can handle swearing in songs. Heck, I did a whole post about why "F*** You" was less offensive than "California Gurls". But see, if there's going to be swearing in a song, it should at least be there for a reason. In "F*** You", at least the swear is there because honestly, that's a very succinct way of conveying exactly how Cee-Lo feels about this girl.

Here, she's just swearing because her image demands it. Also, f*** is her favorite word, apparently. Anyways, it annoys me when artists swear for the sake of swearing. I don't like it, it only comes across as forced and makes the character in the song less likable... And it's just dumb and unnecessary.

"You-ou said hey/What's your name?/It took one look/and now I'm not the same"

"You-ou"? What?

"Yeah you said hey"

Don't you mean "You-ou"?

"And since that day/You stole my heart/And you're the one to blame"

Well yeah, no duh. I'd assume if HE stole your heart that HE would be the one to blame. That's just a tautology. It's like saying, "You drew a picture, so the picture was drawn by you."

A=B, thus B=A. Duh.

"Yeah and that's whyyyy/I smile/It's been a while/Since every day/And everything has felt this right"

WAY. THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS WAY. NOT RIGHT. WAY. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. 3 LETTER WORD. ONE SYLLABLE. RHYMES WITH DAY. YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

"And now/You turn it all around/And suddenly/You're all I need/The reason why/I-I-I/I smile/I-I"

I like to think this is the song she wrote for her boyfriend immediately before cheating on him in "What the H***".

"Last night I blacked out I think"

You don't know if you blacked out? How's that work? It seems pretty obvious to me, if you remember the night before you did not, if you don't remember it, you did. Not a lot of gray area here.

"What did you/What did you/Put in my drink"

Real catch you've got there Avril.

"I remember making out and then/Oh oh/I woke up with a new tattoo/Your name was on me/And my name was on you"

HOORAY FOR MAKING MAJOR LIFE DECISIONS WHILE INTOXICATED!!!!!

"I would do it all over again"

Yep folks, that's right, she'd get drugged and get the name of a guy she just met tattooed on herself while completely wasted AND drugged again if she could.

"You-ou said hey"

Seriously the way she says "You-ou" is SOOOOO IRRITATING!

"What's your name?/It took one look and/Now I'm not the same/Yeah you said hey/And since that day/You stole my heart/And you're the one to blame"

Still a dumb line.

"Yeah and that's why/I smile/It's been awhile/Since every day/and everything has felt this right"

WAY IS STILL THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR YOU MORON.

"You turn it all around/And suddenly/You're all I need/The reason why/I smile/I-I-I/I smile/I-I/I smile/I-I-I/I smile"

Oh yeah, and this repetition of "I-I-I" is really annoying too, by the way.

"You know that I'm a crazy b****/I do what I want/When I feel like it/All I want to do is lose control (x2)"

Oh joy, I was just thinking "Hey, this song could use some more arbitrary swearing."

"And that's why/I smile/It's been awhile/Since every day/and everything has felt this right/And now/You turn it all around/And suddenly/You're all I need/The reason why/I-I-I/I smile/I-I-I/Smile"

And thus ends Avril Lavigne's single "Smile". What an idiotic song. That said, it makes a lot of sense that she'd sing this, as opposed to "What the H***". This actually sounds like her.

Seriously, it's an annoying song with arbitrary swearing every which way, and overall idiotic lyrics including a spot where there easily COULD have been a rhyme, but WASN'T.

Well, hopefully I'll be done covering Avril Lavigne for awhile. Hopefully next time I look for a song, this "Punk Rock Princess" will be in another castle.

Lyrical Analysis - Miley Cyrus' "7 Things"

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis where there are more than 7 things I hate about bad music.

Miley Cyrus. Folks, this won't win me any awards, but I have to say... I really don't hate Miley Cyrus. Yeah. I mean, she's not great by any means, but I never found her music offensively bad, with just a few exceptions, and some of her stuff is even kinda catchy.

I'll admit I don't follow celebrity news, so I don't know all that much about her or any of the things shes gotten flak for but I try not to judge musicians by tabloids anyways so... Yeah. I honestly don't understand all the people who mock her. Heck, she's a lot more talented than some pop music artists. Insert your own joke about Justin Bieber here.

So really, I don't hate Miley Cyrus. I find most of her music tolerable. Most of her music. Enter "7 Things".



This song just irks me. So without further ado... Ugh... "7 Things".

"I probably shouldn't say this/But at times I get so scared/When I think about the previous/Relationship we've shared"

Hoo boy. First of all, you're rhyming "Say this" and "Previous"? Really? I mean... That's a stretch.

Second, think about this. She's saying "When I think about the previous relationship we shared." referring to an earlier time in their relationship... Except that doesn't work. It's the SAME relationship, just later on in it. It's not a "previous relationship" unless it was with another person.

"It was awesome/But we lost it/It's not possible for me not to care/Now we're standing in the rain/But nothing's ever gonna change until you hear/My dear"

Ok, just to point it out, I actually do like the way she sings this one line. Not enough to save the song, but still worth pointing out.

"The 7 things I hate about you"(x2)"

OH GOD HERE IT IS. Ugh. Now let me say, I actually think her voice kind of works in the slower parts of the song. Again, it's not great, but it's kind of... Ok. I like it.

Aaaand then she starts singing here and you can hear the strain in her voice. It's not good. Not good at all.

"You're vain" 1. "Your games" 2. "You're insecure" 3.

Really Miley? You're saying he's insecure? On a track where you're singing about how much you hate him for playing games with you? ...No, I'm not going to point out the issue there, if you can't figure it out for yourself you're hopeless.

(Not to mention, from what I've heard Miley has had several pictures of questionable morality posted online, so bonus points for calling him "insecure" there too.)

"You love me/You like her" 4. "You make me laugh/You make me cry" 5.

Oh. Ok. It would seem she's listing things she likes as well. Sure. Why not.

Also, she sounds very possessive here. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE ANOTHER GIRL EXISTS? YOU MUST DIIIIIIEEEEE...

Yeah. I dunno, she doesn't imply he actually cheated on her so... Kinda seems clingy.

"I don't know which side to buy"

This line irritates me, but to be honest I don't know why, so I'll let it slide.

"Your friends they're jerks"

THAT IS NOT SOMETHING ABOUT HIM. THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE CHORUS IS TO LIST THINGS ABOUT HIM. NOT HIS FRIENDS. YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

"And when you act like them" 6? "Just know it hurts"

NO THIS DOESN'T EXCUSE THE LAST LINE BECAUSE IT'S STILL STUPID TO BRING HIS FRIENDS INTO THIS WHEN YOU JUST COULD HAVE SAID HE ACTS LIKE A JERK.

"I wanna be/With the one I know"

Sounds like you are. It sounds like he's a jerk.

"And the seventh thing/I hate the most that you do"

Ready for it? READY FOR IT? The seventh thing?! Are you ready? ARE YOU EXCITED? What could it be? What

"You make me love you" 7?!

Everybody altogether now! D'AWWWWWWWWWWWW!

In case you weren't following my number tally, one of my big problems with this song is she lists so many positive AND negative things in her "7 Things" that it can be hard to tell what the actual "7 Things" are. Especially when one of them is that he makes her LOVE him. Sure, I managed to map out 7 things... But when you're listing 7 things you hate, you can't just add things from another list to it.

It just doesn't work. You throw out things you LIKE about him while listing things you hate. IT'S. CONFUSING. YOU NEED FOCUS MILEY. FOCUS. It would be like if I started reviewing a completely different song in the middle of one of these Lyrical Analysis articles.

Anyways, moving on.

"I whip my hair back and forth/I whip my hair back and forth"

As you can see the main problem with the chorus of "Whip My Hair" is that... It's not even really music. It's like some strange Eldritch horror that was somehow turned into music. Obviously the only reason "Whip My Hair" exists, much like the main reason Jaden Smith has an acting career, is because Will Smith decided his daughter needed a singing career. The difference, of course, is that Jaden Smith is actually a talented actor, whereas Willow Smith relies on autotune to the point where this song could actually make your ears bleed.

YOU SEE?! IT'S CONFUSING! YOU HAVE TO PICK SOMETHING TO FOCUS ON! YOU HAVE TO PICK A TOPIC AND FINISH THAT TRAIN OF THOUGH BEFORE SWITCHING TO ANOTHER TRAIN OF THOUGHT OR ELSE IT RESULTS IN NOTHING BUT

"It's awkward and it's silent/As I wait for you to say/What I need to hear now/Your sincere apology"

You know, we still haven't exactly heard what it is DID that he has to apologize for. Just really vague things like "He's vain". Or "His friends are jerks". Or of course the crowning achievement of EVIL, "He makes her love him".

"When you mean it/I'll believe it/If you text it/I'll delete it"

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude. You got burned by Miley Cyrus. *Snicker*

"Let's be clear/Well I'm not coming back/You're taking the 7 steps here"

Fun fact: Alcoholism takes 12 steps, mending a relationship with Miley Cyrus only takes 7.

And then we get the abysmal chorus again. It's exactly the same here, so I'm skipping ahead.

Now, you're probably saying, "Gee, that's not so bad. I mean sure, it's stupid, but it's not THAT stupid."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the last verse and chorus.

"And compared to all the great things/That would take too long to write/I probably should mention/The 7 that I like"

What. I know it's just a grammar error here and she got across what she wanted but... "Compared to the great things, let me list the 7... great things." Really Miley? Really? REALLY?

"The 7 things I like about you!"

Ugh. Fine. So tell us, what are these 7 things that are SO GREAT about this guy that they outweigh all the bad stuff? You know, like how he's vain.

"Your hair" 1. "Your eyes" 2. "Your old levi's" 3. "When we kiss I'm hypnotized" 4.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the first 4 things she likes are his hair, eyes, his pants, and the fact that he's a good kisser.

And HE'S the one who's freaking vain.

SCREW THIS SONG!!!!!!!!! Seriously. Let's assume for a moment the line "You love me/You like her" DID mean he cheated on her. Now look at the reasons she likes him. OVER HALF THE FREAKING LIST ARE PURELY THINGS ABOUT VANITY. No wonder he cheated on her! She's the shallowest person on the planet! (Note: I still don't condone cheating on someone for any reason whatsoever.)

"You make me laugh" 5. "You make me cry/I guess that's both I'll have to buy"

And once again her lists LACKS ANY FREAKING DIRECTION.

"Your hands in mine/When they're intertwined/Everything's alright" 6. "I wanna be with the one I know"

Does being a good... Erm... Hand holder... Count as vanity? Because if so, 5/7ths of this list are things which are purely vanity.

"And the seventh thing/I like the most that you do"

Like you don't already know what it is.

"You make me love you"

Yeah there's a shock.

Miley, I really don't hate you or your music. "Party in the U.S.A." is fun, though the lyrics are a bit stupid, and even some of the Hannah Montana songs are tolerable... But good grief this song is awful. Seriously. Just... Awful. Your singing is strained and painful to listen to, and of course you accuse him of being vain, then reveal yourself to be the shallowest person on the planet.

I don't hate you, I even want to like you, but this song is a dud, plain and simple. I know it's a few years old now, and I don't know what of hers is more recent (I THINK "Party in the U.S.A." is) but hopefully it's better than this because... Wow.

This song is just plain BAD.

Movie Review - Source Code

Pop quiz: Who remembers Quantum Leap? The TV series? About jumping into other people's bodies? It was a good show.

Pop quiz number 2: Who remembers Groundhog Day? Y'know, the one with Bill Murray? Everyone reading this? Good, because if you hadn't seen it yet I would have to say GO RENT IT RIGHT NOW.

Well, imagine what would happen if you took one part Groundhog Day, and one part Quantum Leap, threw in a bomb on a train, and scaled back the reliving down from a day, into only 8 minutes. You would get Source Code.



Source Code is the second film by British director Duncan Jones. His other film is the 2009 film, Moon. I went into Source Code with very high expectations because HIS LAST FILM WAS MOON! Seriously! If you haven't heard of this incredibly low budget but high quality sci-fi film, go look it up. It was one of the best films of 2009, perhaps even THE best film of 2009.

In fact, it was so praised, and did so well (considering it hardly got a release. Seriously, only a few theaters for a month or so, and then DVD.) that they gave Duncan Jones a much much bigger budget for his first widely released movie Source Code!

So when I heard about it? I was psyched. I LOVED Moon, and the idea of a big budget film made by Duncan Jones? I couldn't have been more optimistic. I heard the plot, and the first thing I said was "This idea would be stupid, if I didn't have complete faith in Duncan Jones." I'm not kidding. This guy could have made the Twilight movies awesome if he were directing them.

So as I walked into the theater, I went in with the highest expectations. Was I disappointed? Well, I'm pleased to say that I was not.

The central plot of Source Code centers around Captain Colter Stevens, (played by Jake Gyllenhaal who's only other film I've seen is Prince of Persia which for the record, I liked.) waking up on a train, only to find he's not himself. Literally. He's someone else. Well a woman named Christina (played by Michelle Monaghan) is talking to him on a train, and naturally he is just a bit disoriented. So he gets up, searches the train, and promptly gets blown up.

After getting blown up, he awakens in a small capsule with a woman through a video screen informing him that his mission is to continue reliving the same 8 minutes until he can ID the bomber. He's told that he's in a sort of memory of the past, and that he cannot change anything, no matter how hard he tries, he can only find information on the bomber, before he strikes again.

And so he relives the same 8 minutes. And that's the plot of the film. It's better than it sounds, really.

I was slightly concerned that the idea of reliving the same 8 minutes for an entire 90 minute film could get tedious, but it's excellently done to where each time is interesting enough, because of how he interacts with it, to keep your attention.

Not to mention the fact that both of the leads do very good acting jobs here. Seriously. They have great chemistry with each other, and even though we only have 8 minutes with Christina every time, you feel like you know who she is, without having her pushed in your face by the end of the film. In fact, you feel that way about a lot of the passengers, many of whom aren't even given names.

It's a thriller, and it provides those thrills, while still keeping the characters interesting. Like any good thriller, it keeps you guessing about who the bomber is. Is it this guy? Is it this next guy? Was it guy one all along?! You'll keep guessing until it's revealed at the end.

Unfortunately there is a small problem. You see, once we finally do get explanations... They're based on some really bad science. The entire third act is plagued with plot holes, and the ending, while good, makes very little sense.

But if you're able to push aside some quirky plot holes in the third act, and just accept that this is what happened, it's an excellent film, and definitely worth seeing. I went in with high expectations, and Duncan Jones did not disappoint.

In fact, Duncan Jones film career is already tremendously better than his father's film career after only two films! Who was his father you ask?



I'm completely not kidding. Duncan Jones is the son of David Bowie. Is this relevant to Source Code? Not at all! Is it amusing? Heck yes!

Anyways, as I was saying, Source Code is a very good film. It's not quite as good as Moon, mainly because of the plot holes in the 3rd act, but it's still a great sci-fi action thriller, and it's definitely worth seeing.

Lyrical Analysis - Avril Lavigne's "What the H***"

*Caution: The song I'm reviewing today, in case you didn't read the title of the blog post, has mild language in it. If you're going to be offended, don't listen to the video of the song I post.*

Hello, and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, I analyze it so you don't have to. IT'S A REFERENCE NOT A RIPOFF SHUTUP.

Hey folks, let's talk about Avril Lavigne for a moment shall we?

I really hate Avril Lavigne. Avril Lavigne is a pop singer who, even if you don't know her by name, you'd probably recognize a few of her songs such as "Girlfriend" (Harsh language), "Complicated", or the irritatingly titled, "Sk8er Boi".

The thing about Avril Lavigne that I find so odd is that, I don't really hate her music. Most of it, anyways. But good grief, her image, and her personality... Enough to make me despise her. Also, she released "Girlfriend". I hate "Girlfriend". Freakin' earworm...

Anyways, I had honestly thought (perhaps it was just wishful thinking...) she'd started to fade into obscurity. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the top 100 music charts looking for fodder for this post, and found that, shock and awe, she was sitting at the 23rd most popular song. Huh.

So then I gave a listen to the charmingly titled "What the H***". And I started laughing. True story.

Why would a song by Avril Lavigne make me laugh, you might ask? Well, what the heck, let's listen to "What the H***".

"You say/That I'm messing with your head/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah/All 'cause/I was making out with your friends"

Oh is THAT all...

Great friends, by the way.

"Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

"Complicated" said "No, no, no", this says "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah". I eagerly await her next single which will feature repetitions of the word "Maybe" in the chorus.

"Love hurts/Whether it is right or wrong/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

Oh god, it's going to do that "Yeah, yeah" thing the whole song isn't it? Give me a second I need to prepare myself...

...Sigh...

Alright, next line.

"I can't stop/'Cause I'm having too much fun/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

Just be glad she doesn't enjoy driving.

"You're on your knees/Begging please/Stay with me"

Sure, why not, you only cheated on him, why would he ever want you to go away? By the way, I love how Avril is played up to be the GOOD GUY of the song, as though her boyfriend was somehow smothering her by not wanting her to make out with other guys.

"But honestly/I just need to be/A little crazy"

Mission accomplished. Several times over.

"All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/I'm thinking/What the h***"

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT HOLD ON WAIT WAIT WAIT. "All my life I've been good"? Really? You're Avril La-freakin'-vigne, and you're trying to sing a song about how innocent you are? I'm sorry, but no one that released "Girlfriend" gets to talk about how innocent they are.

Seriously. You have a reputation for being a rebellious "punk rock princess" (say that without gagging, I dare you), you JUST CAN'T MAKE A SONG WITH THE LINE "All my life I've been good"! It doesn't work that way! You can't do it!

Wikipedia has an entire section of your article dedicated to your tattoos! And according to that same page, you have the f-bomb tattooed on your chest! And you said that's your favorite word!

That's like 3OH!3 releasing a song about not being a pretentious jerk. It's like if Cee-Lo were to now release a song called "I'm Sorry and I Should Have Watched My Language!" That's like if Justin Bieber made a song that didn't suck! IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! YOU CANNOT JUST DO THAT!

GAH! Just... Next lyric...

"All I want/Is to mess around"

Ok see, now you're sounding more like Avril Lavigne.

"And I don't really care about/If you love me/If you hate me/You can't save me/Baby, baby"

Save you from...?

"All my life/I've been good/But now/Wooooah/What the h***"

Seriously. I get that you wanted to make a song about cutting loose, and just being yourself without caring about what people think of you. That's noble. BUT YOU DON'T GET TO TALK ABOUT IT IN PRESENT TENSE WHEN YOU'RE AVRIL LAVIGNE. GRRRRRAAAAAGGGHHHH...

"What, what, what, what the h***?"

Charming.

"So what/If I go out on a million date/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

OK CUT THAT OUT IT'S REALLY GOTTEN OLD

"You never called/Or listened to me any way/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

Ok, then break up with him. That's fine. If he really wouldn't listen to you, you had every right to be angry and break up with him.

...You did not have the right to FREAKING CHEAT ON HIM!

"I'd rather rage/Than sit around and rage all day/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

I'D RATHER RAGE THAN LISTEN TO THESE IRRITATING "Yeah, yeah"'S BETWEEN EVERY FREAKING LYRIC. SO I WILL!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111!!!!11!!!one!!!

"Don't get me wrong/I just need some time to play"

You've had time to play Avril. It's called "Your entire life thus far".

"You're on your knees/Begging please/Stay with me"

I think he's probably singing "Love Me" to her.

"But honestly/I just need to be/A little crazy/All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/I'm thinking/What the h***/All I want/Is to mess around/And I don't really care about/If you love me/If you hate me/You can't save me/Baby, baby"

"La la la la la/Woah Woah"

Random noises!

"You say/That I'm messing with your head/Boy/I like messing in your bed/Yeah/I'm messing with your head/When I'm messing with you in bed"

And remember folks, this is her song about how innocent and good she's been her whole life.

"All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/I'm thinking/What the h***/All I want/Is to mess around/And I don't really care about (x2)/If you love me/If you hate me/You can't save me/Baby, baby/All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/What the h***/La la la la la la la"

And that's the end. THIS SONG... Doesn't really suck. Yeah.

I mean, the lyrics are BAD, but honestly, the worst part about them is they picked the worst possible singer. If I had gone into this song never having heard of Avril Lavigne before (I call such a place "Heaven") I wouldn't have taken nearly as much issue with the song as I do.

True, I don't approve of playing up the CHEATER to be the GOOD GUY in ANY song, but... Compared to some of Avril Lavigne's other stuff, this is like... Great. The music works well enough, and the "yeah/yeah"s are annoying but she uses them JUUUUUST sparingly enough to keep them from being TOO irritating.

I enjoyed this song more than I thought I would. As opposed to Bieber's work which irritates me, or 3OH!3's which enrages me, I actually found this song enjoyable to listen to. Not great, but certainly not terrible.

I still haven't forgiven Avril for "Girlfriend" though. Ugh.

Lyrical Analysis - Rebecca Black's "Friday"

Hello, and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I'm trying something a little different today.

Folks, some of you may have heard of a new phenomenon sweeping the nation. And if people catch Bieber Fever, I have to reason that this new fascination should be dubbed the Black Plague.

I'm speaking of course of the pure unadulterated GENIUS that is Rebecca Black and her new single that's been rising up the charts, "Friday".

I know, I know, those of you familiar with the song are undoubtedly saying to yourselves right now, "Don't you usually review BAD songs?" Well, that is true, but people a song like "Friday" only comes along once a generation, and I can't let such an opportunity pass me by. Every generation has an artist that DEFINES them. The Beatles, for example. Rebecca Black is undoubtedly such an artist.

Without further ado, "Friday". I warn you, don't listen to it all at once. A genius work such as this only come along so often, and if you don't pace yourself it IS possible to overdose on such genius.



What can really be said about such a work of inspiration? I don't know if I can even begin to explain all the reasons why this song is phenomenal, but I suppose I should try.

Before I start speaking about the words doubtlessly straight from the lips of angels that are the lyrics, allow me to comment on a few other aspects of this song and video.

First, her voice. The monotone she sings in doubtlessly signifies the deep depression many people in America try to conceal. The fact that the heavy autotune can't change her voice's monotone clearly represents that though America tries to conceal their depression, no one can fully conceal it forever.

The video itself is also a work of genius which hasn't been seen outside of the post-90's era animation works of Don Bluth. For example, the obviously underage drivers of the automobile in the beginning of the video clearly represent how many people are not emotionally mature in today's world, though they are physically mature, and perhaps considers for a moment that perhaps a reworking of the system which gives licenses out should be re-examined? The flipbook effect partway through the video represents how weeks can quickly change into months, months into years, and years into decades. As Rebecca sings about Friday, she begs you to slow down and enjoy yourself before your life passes you by.

But the lyrics are what you've come from. Honestly, there's no way I can do justice to such a work of inspiration which I can only assume to be divine, but I can try.

We begin with a repetition of "Yeah" for around 10 seconds. Normally I don't like repetition in a song, but here it shows the uncontainable optimism Black holds for the song, and the day in front of her. It works.

"7 AM/Wakin' Up in the morning/Gotta be fresh/Gotta go downstairs"

Right off the bat Black hits us with the heavy stuff, as she sings of the start of her day. 7 AM. She awakens. Once more she puts on the mask of a happy individual. A fresh face, behind a truly withering soul. "Gotta go downstairs" likely refers to the descent from her dreams into the harshness of reality. Powerful stuff most songwriters would wait a few lines in to get to, but Black is uncompromising, hitting us with the tough statements from the beginning.

"Gotta have my bowl/Gotta have cereal"

Here Black challenges the social norms. As she's presented, in the morning, with a bowl filled with cereal she says "Gotta have cereal". Why must she have cereal? Who created the social norm of eating cereal in the morning? How are social norms created? What justifies them, any more than anything else? Had she put waffles in her bowl, would that have made her a madwoman?

"Tickin' on and on/Everybody's rushin'/Gotta get down to the bus stop/gotta catch my bus"

Here again, she comments on the way time passes all too quickly, and how you can't appreciate what you have until it's gone, unless you truly live for the moment, but how living for the moment is frowned upon, even prohibited, by our modern society. This is represented by the pressure of missing her bus, were she to take a moment and relax.

"I see my friends/Kickin' in the front seat/Sittin' in the back seat/Gotta make my mind up/Which seat can I take?"

Here, once again Black displays her grasp of society, and how we can turn even the most arbitrary of choices into acts of war. Were she to sit in the back, her friends in the front would be upset with her. Were she to sit in the front, her friends in the back would be upset with her. Truly this is a lose, lose situation for her. Which choice she makes is left up to the listener to decide. But in the end she asks the question "which seat CAN I take?". Indeed, which seat can any of us take in a society liable to take offense to us "taking the other seat" as it were.

"It's Friday/Friday/Gotta get down on Friday/Everybody is lookin' forward to the weekend (Weekend)" (x2)

Here too she comments on the way time passes us by, albeit in a different manner altogether. Here she comments on how we are always too occupied looking ahead to appreciate where we are NOW. The dramatic echo of "weekend" clearly symbolizes that truly we can never fully reach our goals and must be happy with how far we've gotten, while still not completely giving up on our goals either.

"Partyin'/Partyin/Yeah!"(x2) "Fun/Fun/Fun/Fun/Lookin' forward to the weekend"

Here too she elaborates on the above idea. While we may pretend to live in the moment, we are never fully appreciating what we have. While part of us may be "partyin'" and enjoying ourselves, part of us is still just as driven toward "the weekend" as ever. Perhaps even more so.

"7:45 we're drivin' on the highway/Cruisin' so fast/I want time to fly"

Here she states how some of us even dare to wish time away, hurried with getting to where we want to be, as though we had time to waste. How spend so much time wishing for the future, we can't pay attention to the present. Coveting what we will have, we can't be thankful for what we DO have.

"Fun, fun, think about fun/You know what it is"

Clearly this is intended not as a statement, but as a question to the listeners of the song. Think about fun. Do you really know what it is? Have you ever truly experienced nothing but fun? No stress to dilute it? Has it been so long since you dared to let loose you can't even REMEMBER what fun was like?

"I got this/You got this/My friend is by my right, AY!"

This puzzled me for quite some time. "My friend is by my right, AY". I couldn't think of what she was implying. Was she saying that it's important to keep friends close? Was she saying that true friends are those who would do anything for you, "right hand men" as it were? Finally it struck me. She's implying with this nothing to DO with what's on her right, but what's on her LEFT. The brilliance of this statement overwhelmed me. She's saying that there's two sides to every coin. To keep your right side safe, with the comfort of friends, you leave your left side vulnerable to your enemies attack. Harsh words, betrayal, all of these things come with life, just as do the benefits of it, such as friends, enjoyment, and even love.

"I got this/You got this/Now you know it!"

Here she tells us implicitly that the purpose of this song was to share her unparalleled wisdom. And we do thank her for it.

At this point she repeats the chorus, once again to emphasize the message she tries to get across with the song.

"Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday/Today is Friday, Friday/We, we, we so excited/We so excited/We gonna have a ball today"

Here she says that, while it's important to enjoy the moment, you must also remember the past. It may not always be pleasant, but it's important to look back at our mistakes, our "Thursdays" past, to learn from ourselves, moving on into the future.

At this point the song switches to a rapper. This man is obviously meant to signify a man who has followed Rebecca's advice, and begun to live more in the moment.

"R-B/Rebecca Black"

He begins with her name as though to say "Remember this name." And I'm sure that we shall remember her, such a tremendous breakthrough in music history.

"So chillin' in the front seat (In the front seat)/In the back seat (In the back seat)/I'm drivin'/Cruisin/Yeah, yeah"

This is what tells us that he clearly is living by her words. Backseat? Frontseat? It doesn't matter to him. He's just drivin'. Cruisin'.

"Fast lanes, switchin' lanes/Wit' a car up on my side (Woo!)/(C'mon)Passin' by is a school bus in front of me/Makes tick tock/Tick tock/Wanna scream"
"

Here he sings more about the benefits of just enjoying yourself. A school bus passes him, and he laughs at the people inside stressing about the future.

"Check my time/It's friday/It's a weekend/We gonna have fun/C'mon, C'mon y'all!"

Here he closes out his rap saying that he's going to enjoy himself, and live his life for the now, not for the then. He begs us to do the same with our lives.

After this, she repeats the absolutely inspired chorus a bit more, and closes out the song. And thus is the end to a masterpiece we shall all hold in our hearts, and our minds for a long, long time.

With such a phenomenal song, it's no wonder so many people have begun to cover it. A quick youtube search shows parodies in many genres like Screamo, or Death Metal... But truly these imposters are just ripping off the immeasurable talent that is Rebecca Black, and her life changing work, "Friday".

I know with such inspired lyrics, I shall not soon forget the song, and I would hope neither would any of you. Happy April 1st everyone!