Julian Cope – "World Shut Your Mouth" (1987)

Shut your mouth, shut your mouth

Put your head back in the clouds

And shut your mouth

The critics loved Bull Durham.  

No fewer than 70 of the 72 reviews assembled on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, which translates to a 97% score on the Tomatometer – the highest rating ever earned by a sports movie.  

“Is Bull Durham the greatest sports movie ever made?” one critic asked rhetorically.  “Hey, no argument from me.” 

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The movie’s three stars – Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins – got plenty of kudos for their performances, but the real star of Bull Durham was Ron Shelton’s screenplay, which was praised as “witty and insightful” and “honest, simple, [and] funny.”  It was named as the best screenplay of the year by the Writers Guild of America and the National Society of Film Critics, and was nominated for the “Best Original Screenplay” Oscar.

A lesser man might be hesitant to swim upstream against such a powerful critical current.  But not 2 or 3 lines – no siree, Bob!  When someone is so full of sh*t that their eyes are brown, you can count on 2 or 3 lines to call a spade a spade.  

Which is exactly what I’m doing today.

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I’m not going to spend a lot of time trashing Bull Durham and its screenplay.  After all, you’re busy and I’m busy – right? – and I can prove my point by quoting one paragraph from the script. 

The following lines are spoken by Kevin Costner (in his role as a worldly-wise veteran minor-league catcher) to Susan Sarandon (who plays a kinky but philosophical veteran baseball groupie) when she asks him exactly what he believes in:

I believe in the soul, the c*ck, the p*ssy, the small of a woman’s back, the hangin’ curveball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent over-rated crap.  I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter.  I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve . . . and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.

Click here to watch Costner deliver those lines.

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That paragraph is without a doubt the leader in the clubhouse when it comes to being the worst paragraph ever written.

And I am willing to bet the farm that no future writer of bad paragraphs will ever top it.

Surely there’s no need for me for beat a dead horse by going through that paragraph phrase by phrase to explain why it is so very, very bad.  (It’s a matter of ipso facto.  Not to mention res ipsa loquitur.)

But that last phrase – “I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days” – deserves a special shout-out.  If that line doesn’t give you douche chills and make you throw up a little in your own mouth, something’s seriously wrong with you.

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Julian Cope’s first solo album was titled World Shut Your Mouth.  But today’s featured song – which is also titled “World Shut Your Mouth” – wasn’t released on that album.  Instead, it was released on Cope’s third album, Saint Julian.

That may seem a little odd, but everything about Julian Cope – who a particular favorite of 2 or 3 lines – is at least a little odd.

Click here to watch the official “World Shut Your Mouth” music video.

Click here to order that recording from Amazon.