Nicki Minaj -- "Did It On 'Em" (2010)

Sh*tted on 'em

Man, I just sh*tted on 'em

Sh*tted on 'em

Put your number two's in the air

If you did it on 'em

Here I go again, willy-nilly, throwing the schedule out the window and going off half-cocked and arms akimbo.

The decision to write about "Did It On 'Em" was made less than 24 hours ago, and this post immediately went to the top of the list in terms of priority.  You simply do NOT put off a song like this a minute longer than is necessary.  So stop the presses, and sound the warning klaxon.

I'm more than a little worried that I like "Did It On 'Em" as much as I do.  Is there something wrong with me?  The answer to that question is probably obvious, but let's be serious for a minute -- is there something really, really wrong with me?

 

I remember when "Beavis and Butthead" debuted on television many years ago.  The general consensus was that this show was the ultimate in crude and tasteless television.

But one critic astutely observed that while the rest of us were decrying it as the worst piece of trash ever to soil the public airwaves, somewhere there were a bunch of guys working on a show that would make "Beavis and Butthead" look as tame as "Leave It To Beaver."

And he was right:

I will probably have to eat these words someday, but I have to believe that no female hip-hip performer -- no male performer either -- will ever exceed Nicki Minaj's excesses on this song.  

The Los Angeles Times called "Did It on 'Em" -- the new single from Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday album -- "aggressively scatological," which is perhaps an understatement.  The Pitchfork reviewer says that "Did It On 'Em" is notable because it highlights how "beautifully, effortlessly weird [Nicki Minaj] is" (Amen to that!) and "how willing she is to contort her voice and persona into pretzel shapes just to induce that oh-shit face in anyone listening."  That's a fact, Jack!

I thought about starting this post by quoting some of the less "aggressively scatological" lines from this song, then giving everyone a warning about just exactly what they would be getting into if they read further. 

Believe it or not, I do worry about offending my readers.  I have a number of friends who read this blog, and some of them might find songs like this one very distasteful.  But I think "Did It On 'Em" is just one of the most powerful and unique songs I've heard in years, so I'm not going to hold back.  If it's not to your taste, I certainly don't blame you.

I first heard this song on the radio about ten days ago.  I'd never heard so many bleeps in one song in my life, which immediately piqued my interest.  This was Nicki Minaj, after all, and Nicki pulls no punches.

I heard the song a couple of more times on the radio, then went online to listen to the uncensored version.  Nicki didn't disappoint me.  She rarely does.

A couple of prior 2 or 3 lines posts have alluded to this performer, by whom I am simply fascinated.  She has a very distinctive voice (she spent the first five years of her life in Trindad and Tobago, which may or may not be responsible for her accent) and has great timing.  Plus she is amazingly hot in a totally bizarre way -- pink hair (sometimes), a much bigger ass than Jennifer Lopez or what's-her-name Kardashian ever dreamed of, and (best of all) an incredibly foul mouth and nasty attitude.  On the let-it-all-hang-out scale, she makes Madonna look like Celine Dion.

The "Pink Friday" album cover

For quite awhile, Nicki specialized in contributing verses to other people's songs.  Her guest appearances in the Trey Songz song "Bottoms Up" and especially in Kanye West's "Monster" are tours de force.  I ain't lyin'.

In fact, I am planning to do posts featuring both those songs, and I'm really putting the cart before the horse to write about this song -- which features Nicki as the primary singer rather than as a guest contributor -- before I write about the other two.  But all my plans went right out the window as soon as I heard the uncensored version of "Did It On 'Em."   

Nicki's front and rear

Here's a link to Rap Genius, which has some useful notes on the lyrics of the song.  But even if most of the lyrics don't really make sense to you, Nicki communicates the basic point very forcefully indeed:  "I am the absolute queen of the hip-hop universe and if you dare to challenge my superiority, I will put you on the ground, squat over your face, and do a number two on you!"

Listening to this song is like walking by a car and suddenly the car's anti-theft alarm goes off and your heart rate instantly jumps to about 500 beats a minute.  It is a kick in the ass, a kick in the teeth, and a kick in the b*lls, all at exactly the same time.

You can laugh off some of the more exaggeratedly disrespectful lyrics as being so far over the top that they are comical.  You could say the same thing about the really grisly scenes in low-budget slasher movies -- but didn't Texas Chainsaw Massacre still scare the crap out of you?

Don Imus is creepy

Near the end of the song, Nicki pays homage to Don Imus, the moron shock-jock whose syndicated CBS radio show was cancelled after he referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's," and disses her competition (there really is none, of course) all at the same time:

I'ma start throwing "Just for Me" perm at your heads

I'ma get the kid version

The kid one, cause you're a bunch of kids

Bunch of nappy-headed ho's running around

Thanks to my brother, Mahbod Moghadam, whose Rap Genius website is an asset of incalculable value to students and fans of hip-hoppery, I know that Nicki is talking here about a line of hair-care products that are marketed to African-American girls.

And finally, perhaps the most outrageous lines I've ever heard in a song:

If I had a dick, I would pull it out and piss on 'em

Let me shake it off

Kind of takes your breath away, doesn't it?  (I guess Freud was right.)

Which reminds me of a favorite piece of anonymous doggerel:

No matter how you shake and dance

The last drop always falls down your pants

Here's "Did It On 'Em":

Here's a link you can use to buy this song on iTunes.  (You can buy a clean version, but what would be the point of that?)

Here's a link to use if you prefer Amazon:

Soft Cell -- "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go" (1982)

Once I ran to you

Now I run from you

Shakespeare's tragic hero, King Lear, knew what he was talking about when he said:

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

To have a thankless child!

I might revise the immortal bard's words slightly, and say instead how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless Chief Executive Senior Contributing Editor.

That title is very complicated, so we'll need to pick a nickname that's a little less clumsy.  Hmmm . . . let me think . . .  

I suppose we could call her "Linda," since that is her name.  But I think I will call her "Super Bitch From Hell" since that's what she is acting like.

It's tempting to call her "Hillary," but that would be hitting below the belt – although that expression doesn't really apply when you're talking about women . . . does it?  (Not that you should hit a woman above or below the belt!)

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Recently, Super Bitch From Hell (or "SBFH" for short) and I were discussing Scala & Kolacny Brothers, the wonderful Belgian girls' choir that does lovely, ethereal choral versions of pop songs.  I found a Youtube video of them performing a cover of the old Soft Cell hit from 1982, "Tainted Love," in Montreal, and mentioned what a guilty pleasure that song was.

OMG, that set SBFH off on such a rant that you wouldn't believe it:

Don't even get me started on "Tainted Love." One of the worst songs in the history of songdom, IMO. Can't really even put my finger on why I hate it, I just do.  

Very persuasive logic, eh?

Being the a**hole that I am, I couldn't resist egging her on.  I sent SBFH this message:

The Soft Cell "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" medley is probably one of the 10 greatest accomplishments of Western culture to date – will have to write a "2 or 3 lines" post praising it just to annoy you.

To quote David Bowie, I knew I was putting out the fire with gasoline with those words.  And, sure enough, SBFH rose to the bait:

I may have to have a "Soft Cell Sucks" t-shirt made up & post a pic of it right under the announcement of your Soft Cell post. Controversy = more readers, right?

SBFH wasn't done taunting me.  I had told her that Scala & Kolacny Brothers was performing in Washington next month, and that I really wanted to see them but didn't want to go alone.  So she had to taunt me about that: 

You should get [your 16-year-old son] to go to the concert with you.  

Oh sure, like that's happening.  My son's a good kid, but he would rather cut off an arm than go to a concert with his father.  And how pathetic would it be for me to take a 16-year-old to an edgy downtown club because I couldn't find a date? 

 Just tell him it's a bunch of hot Belgian chicks singing rock songs. No need to elaborate on what they actually sound like. Or, why don't you take your hot French g/f?  

I don't think SCFH – oops, I meant to type SBFH – really believes that I have a hot (age-adjusted) French girlfriend.

*     *     *     *     *

I left it at that, figuring that would be the end of it.  But n-o-o-o-o-o-o . . . within hours, SBFH sent me a very intemperate attack on "Tainted Love," which you would think was Hitler's favorite record or something, and dared me to post it.

What could I do?  I couldn't just ignore her -- although I knew the folks in the marketing department would soil their drawers if I told them I was tearing up the FY 2011 2nd quarter posting schedule and inserting an unplanned post on the spur of the moment.  

You would think that SBFH might have a little more concern for the good of 2 or 3 lines – after all, it is the only wildly popular little blog I'm aware of that has given her carte blanche to ramble on about her glory days.

We even let her get away with that disturbing little story about relieving herself in a coffee mug in her minivan.  (Goodness gracious, "Linda," have you no shame?  Wouldn't that story have better been kept to yourself rather than splashed all over the pages of my blog?)

But no, it's a-l-l-l-l about her.  So rather than just deep six her contribution, which would no doubt precipitate a major hissy fit by Ms. SBFH – I so hate it when I'm forced to call Ted, our chief of security, to escort an employee who has misbehaved out of the building – I've decided to turn the other cheek and accede to her desire to unload on "Tainted Love" in 2 or 3 lines. 

*     *     *     *     *

My non-italic comments are interspersed throughout her italicized screed, which begins with the following sortie: 

One of the many benefits of my lofty position with 2 or 3 lines is occasional permission to voice a dissenting opinion.

Am I imagining things, or is there the tiniest hint of sarcasm here?  

Disagreement with upper management, while tolerated, is not necessarily appreciated.  Shameless toadying is the preferred modus operandi for underlings.

I'm pretty sure now that I wasn't imagining that sarcasm.

My hot (age-adjusted) French g/f

In this case, though, I feel compelled to express my complete distaste for “Tainted Love.”  I have a sneaking suspicion that the hot (age-adjusted) French girlfriend must have somehow influenced our fearless leader in his adoration of this song.  How else does one explain such an obvious lapse in judgment?  

Hold it right there, sister.  I've liked this song since it was released in 1982.  (It helped that I didn't own the record and heard it only infrequently on the radio, so I didn't wear it out for myself.)  The French g/f had nothing to do with it.

The squiggly synths and mechanized drum loops, coupled with the whiny vocals, are just completely unappealing to me. I don’t have a problem with synthesizers and drum machines, in principle. A lot of early eighties bands used them and produced great music. The Eurythmics come to mind, as well as Blondie, Devo and Depeche Mode.  

(Depeche Mode produced "great music"?  ARE YOU FRIGGING KIDDING ME?)  

“Tainted Love” just sounds way too sterile and mechanical to me. The accompanying video, a mishmash of togas, tennis outfits (or maybe cricket), and children, is vaguely homoerotic but mostly just silly and not very entertaining. 

Click here to watch that video.  (The guy in the video who's not wearing a toga is wearing a cricket outfit, not a tennis outfit – the fact that he's holding a CRICKET BAT instead of a tennis racket was a dead giveaway, I thought.)  The video is very creepy – but I believe we were talking about the song.  Attacking the video is attacking a straw man.

(By the way, calling this video "VAGUELY HOMOEROTIC" is akin to saying that Sarah Jessica Parker has a vaguely equine appearance.)  

  

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Back to SBFH's philippic against "Soft Cell":

Neither Marilyn Manson nor the Pussycat Dolls, who both covered the song, could make it palatable, either. 

Click here to watch the Marilyn Manson video.  (Watch the hot-tub scenes and tell me they aren't highly palatable!)

Click here for the Pussycat Dolls cover.  (Nothing "vaguely homoerotic" here.)

The Pussycat Dolls

Coil’s version is the most unusual and interesting of the covers. An industrial music band formed in the early eighties, Coil released “Tainted Love”  in 1984. It was the first musical release to have all of its profits donated to a foundation dedicated to AIDS education and prevention. Coil’s video of the song is on permanent display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

That's all well and good, but one might ask how truly noble it was for a band no one has ever heard of to donate the non-existent profits from a record that nobody bought to a good cause.

Coil's version of "Tainted Love" reminds me of what a 45 rpm record sounded like on my parents' stereo when I accidentally played it at 33 rpm.  And as for the video, my advice is not to view it after a big meal unless you're a bulimic . . . in which case it's perfect.

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I think SBFH may have confused New York City's Museum of Modern Art ("MOMA") with the Museum of Bad Art ("MOBA") in suburban Boston.  MOBA's permanent collection includes 500 pieces of art "too bad to be ignored," according to one critic.

From MOBA's permanent collection, here is an anonymous tribute to the famous pointillist artist Georges Seurat, which the anonymous artist titled "Sunday On The Pot With George":

And here is one more piece from MOBA's collection for those of you who prefer artworks that present the lovely female form rather than anything "vaguely homoerotic."  This painting (also anonymous, not surprisingly) is called "The Itch."  Whether "the itch" is under her right armpit or it is her back that itches isn't clear.

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.  Far be it from me to try to take on the title of arbiter of musical taste.  But, Gary, I’m sorry – “Tainted Love” is just . . . wrong!
 

There certainly is something that's just wrong here, but it ain't "Tainted Love."

(I know, that was kind of a weak ending, but the lawyers wouldn't let me talk about taint.)

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Soft Cell's version of "Tainted Love" ranked #2 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders, but #5 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the Eighties.  Obviously VH1 doesn't take as much care with its lists as it might.  ("Tainted Love" ranks ahead of "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners on the first list, but behind it on the latter list.)

Click here to hear the radio edit of "Tainted Love"/"Where Did Our Love Go?".

Click here to listen to a much longer version that was very popular in the clubs back in the day.

Click below to buy that extended mix on Amazon:

 

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five -- "Freedom" (1980)

"Melle Mel, right on time, 

It's Taurus, the bull, my zodiac sign!"

"I'm Mister Ness and I'm ready to go

And I go by the sign of Scorpio!"

"My name is Raheim, I don't like to fuss

My zodiac sign is Aquarius!"

"The Kidd Creole is the name of mine 

And Pisces is my zodiac sign!"

"And I'm Cowboy and I'm running this show

My zodiac sign is Virgo!"

"And Grandmaster Flash, cuts so on,

His zodiac sign is Capricorn!"

No big surprise this song was released in 1980 -- I think that's about the time all that "What's your sign?" stuff peaked.

Welcome back to "Hip Hop 101," students.  I'm Professor G-Loco.  Did you remember to bring your completed homework assignment to class?  (Just kidding!)

In 2007, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five became the first rappers to be voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Grandmaster Flash at work

Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, the hip hop superstar and entrepreneur -- he grew up in a housing project and shot his brother in the shoulder when he was 12 years old (the brother had stolen some of his jewelry), but now has an estimated net worth of $450 million -- gave the induction speech.  He called them "hip hop's first supergroup," and noted that "what Chuck Berry did for the guitar, Flash did for the turntables."

Grandmaster Flash -- his real name was Joseph Saddler -- was born in Barbados on New Year's Day, 1958, and grew up in the Bronx.  Flash was one of the first generation of New York club DJs, and is credited with inventing several popular DJ techniques.  

Traditional DJs -- whether they were on the radio, or at a dance club -- would often utilize two turntables and a mixer so they could smoothly transition between two different records.  (The DJ might talk over the transition, introducing the second song and smoothly papering over the switch from one song to another.)  One song would slowly fade, and before you really knew it, the second song would be underway.

If the two records had been recorded at similar tempos, the transition would be almost seamless -- popular disco DJs could move from record to record without disrupting the dancing for a second.

But DJs like Grandmaster Flash were able to not just spin records but manipulate the records  in order to create something new.  For example, they would use the mixer to cut back and forth between two copies of the same record in order to extend an instrumental passage indefinitely.  These instrumental "breaks" were almost purely rhythmic in nature -- often the only instruments were drums and a bass guitar.

The Furious Five

The DJ might talk over the breaks, engaging in a call-and-response dialogue with the crowd at a dance party.  Eventually, the "rapping" -- the talking over the breaks -- grew in sophistication and significance, becoming the focus of the performance.  Soon there were crews where the DJ stuck to working the turntables while the rapping was left to one or more MCs.

As the Bible says, "There is nothing new under the sun," and rapping is no exception to that rule.  It has its roots in the songs of West African griots, professional singers who "combine[d] the functions of living history book and newspaper with vocal and instrumental virtuosity."  Griots might be hired to sing an abusive song aimed at a villager's enemy, and also satirized the rich and powerful.

In the African-American community, participants in ritualized insult contests -- known in some areas as "the dozens" -- often spoke in rhyming couplets.  We've all heard "Yo' mama" insults (e.g., "Yo' momma's so fat she got baptized at Sea World," or "Yo' momma's so dumb she sold her car to get money for gas").  Here's one such an insult in rhyming couplet form:

I don't play the dozens, the dozens ain't my game
But the way I [bleeped] yo' momma is a god-damn shame!

This video (from the "In Living Color" television show) turned the dozens (also known as "the dirty dozens") into a "Jeopardy"-style game show:

David Toop's book, Rap Attack, discusses the anthropology of hip hop in much more detail.  It's a fascinating story.

Grandmaster Flash eventually teamed up with five rappers, each of whom introduces himself and discloses his zodiac sign in the lyrics quoted above.  (In a song called "Birthday," the Furious Five take turns rapping their birth dates.)  Melle Mel, the most famous of the five, was apparently the first rapper to call himself an "MC."  They signed with Sugar Hill Records, and quickly surpassed the Sugarhill Gang to become the label's biggest stars.

Here's a recording of Grandmaster Flash and four of the "Furious Five" recorded live at a Bronx club in late 1978.  This is compelling stuff.  (If you listen closely, you'll hear the "hotel, motel" line that the Sugarhill Gang used in "Rapper's Delight.")




Here's a video of Grandmaster Flash DJ'ing live on British television in 2009, which will give you a closer look at what DJ'ing involves.  It's hard work:

Here's the 1981 single, "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel"  (i.e., turntables), a live studio recording of Flash using three turntables to  scratch and mix several different records (including Blondie's "Rapture," Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," Chic's "Good Times" -- the song that "Rapper's Delight" was based on -- and "Rapper's Delight" itself).  No MCs here -- just a DJ:

"Freedom" is a delightful song -- even if it doesn't make you get up and dance, it will make you smile.  Listen for all the audience-participation tricks -- including the Furious Five's call for their audience to follow their example by shouting out their names and zodiac signs.  (It's a bit reminiscent of Shirley Ellis's "The Name Game.")

And listen for the kazoo, too.

Here's "Freedom":

Here's a link you can use to buy "Freedom" from iTunes:

Here's a link you use if you prefer to buy it from Amazon:

Iggy and the Stooges -- "Search and Destroy" (1973)

I am the world's forgotten boy!

The one who searches and destroys!

2 or 3 lines has featured a couple of songs that have been used in Nike television commercials – including "Nobody But Me," which was featured only a few days ago.

This post is about the best song ever featured in a Nike commercial, which just happens to be the best Nike TV commercial ever (which probably means it's the best TV commercial ever).

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I KNOW IT'S ANNOYING WHEN PEOPLE WRITE IN ALL CAPS, BUT "SEARCH AND DESTROY" AND THE 1996 NIKE "AIR" COMMERCIAL IT WAS FEATURED IN DESERVE NOT ONLY ALL CAPS BUT ALSO ITALICS AND BOLD FONT AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! 

Michael Johnson at the 1996 Olympics

THE NIKE SPOT FEATURES A BUNCH OF OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALISTS (CARL LEWIS, MICHAEL JOHNSON, ANDRE AGASSI, SCOTTIE PIPPIN, CHARLES BARKLEY, AND MANY OTHERS)!!!  IT FOCUSES ON ATHLETES IN EXTREMIS, AND HAS BEEN CALLED THE "BLOOD, SWEAT AND VOMIT" COMMERCIAL!!!

SWEAT IS EVERYWHERE IN THE SPOT!!!  THE VOMIT COMES AT ABOUT 0:52 COURTESY OF A DISTANCE RUNNER WHO COLLAPSES TO THE GROUND AND RALPHS!!!  THE BLOOD COMES AT THE VERY END AS A BOXER'S BLOODY MOUTHPIECE IS KNOCKED OUT OF HIS MOUTH AND FLIES ACROSS THE SCREEN IN SLOW MOTION!!!   

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE "SEARCH AND DESTROY" COMMERCIAL.

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One final note.  "Search and destroy" is a term that is probably very familiar to those of you old enough to remember the Vietnam War.  "Search and destroy" was a military strategy that involved the insertion of ground troops into hostile territory, usually through the use of helicopters.  The troops would search out enemy forces, destroy them, and then hop back on their helicopters and return to their base. 

Click here to listen to "Search and Destroy," which was released on the Raw Power album in 1973.

Click below to buy that record from Amazon:

The Human Beinz -- "Nobody But Me" (1967)

No no no no no no no no no

No no no no no no no 
No no no no no no no no no

No no no no no

Nobody can do the shing-a-ling like I do

Very talented people are often envied by less talented people.  I myself have experienced such envy on more than one occasion.

For example, whenever this song comes on the radio, I am able to do something that very others can – namely, sing the very tricky "no-no" parts of this song EXACTLY correctly. 

I'm like a certain baseball player who was such a natural hitter that it was said that if you dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night and started pitching to him, he would immediately start hitting line drives to all fields.

If you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and put on "Nobody But Me," I would duplicate lead singer John "Dick" Belley's performance like we were Siamese twins, putting each and every "no" (there are 30 altogether) in its proper place.  I don't even need to hear the record – I can do it a cappella and on demand.  

Try it sometime.  What the hell – try it right now.  Click on this link, which will take you to the song.  Hit the "start" button and give it a shot.

I'll even give you the sheet music:

*     *     *     *     *

How you'd do?  Pretty bad, huh?  I thought so.

Well, try it one more time – after all, I caught you by surprise, before you had a chance to warm up.  I'm sure you'll do much better the second time . . .

NOT!  You sucked just as badly the second time, didn't you?  (Tell the truth!)

That's the difference between you and me – I nail "Nobody But Me" a hundred times out a hundred, rain or shine.  (Of course, there are other differences between you and me.  For example, you've never created a wildly popular little blog while I have.)

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Click here to listen to the original recorded version of "Nobody But Me" by the Isley Brothers.  That version isn't bad, but it's certainly not as good as the Human Beinz cover.

That cover is used as the soundtrack to a new Nike TV ad.  It's not the best Nike TV commercial ever (I'll be posting about the very best one sometime in the future) but it's a good one – thanks in large part to the use of "Nobody But Me."  Click here to view that Nike ad.

Martin Scorsese used "Nobody But Me" in The Departed.  Click here to see the scene from The Departed where Leonardo DiCaprio goes medieval on a couple of thugs to the accompaniment of "Nobody But Me."

The first episode of the 7th season of The Office featured a cold open with the cast doing a lip dub to "Nobody But Me."  Click here to watch it.

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The Human Beinz are from Youngstown, Ohio, and originally called themselves the Premiers.  In 1966, they changed their named to the Human Beingz, but their record company mispelled their name on "Nobody But Me."  The song became a top-10 hit, which meant they couldn't really change the spelling then.

Turns out it didn't really matter.  They never had another hit (at least not in the United States – the band was very popular in Japan for some reason), and broke up in 1969.

The Human Beinz in Japan

Click here to listen to Human Beinz recording of "Nobody But Me."

 

Click here to order the song from Amazon.

MGMT -- "Time to Pretend" (2005/2007)

Let's make some music, 

Make some money, 

Find some models for wives

That's what every guy who ever played in a garage band was thinking -- we'll put out a big hit record, make a lot of money, and get to sleep with models.  (Hey, it worked for Mick Jagger, and Billy Joel, and Ric Ocasek, and many, many more.)  I know that's what I was hoping for in 8th grade when the Rogues got together.

Ric Ocasek found some model for a wife

March has finally arrived and our long national nightmare -- a/k/a/ "29 POSTS IN 28 DAYS" -- is over.  (Have I used the "long national nightmare" reference in a previous "2 or 3 lines" post?  In case you're not 58 years old and have no idea what the "long national nightmare" reference means, click here and learn all about it.)

The days of my being able to fly 2 or 3 lines by the seat of my pants are long gone.  I can no longer sit down and crank out an off-the-top-of-my-head post about some random song that I've just discovered (or, as the case may be, rediscovered after forgetting all about it for 20 years or so).  

Having a wildly successful blog means pressure every day, boys and girls.  I'm not complaining -- just sayin' . . .  

The bean counters and the marketing types care only about hits and clicks -- the soulless bastards want me to focus on more popular and contemporary songs, even though 99% of that stuff is crap.

"Forget all those one-hit wonders you heard on the 'Mystic Eye' radio show in 1980," they say.  "Give us more Ke$ha!  We want more Lil Wayne!"  

Ke$ha

As 2 or 3 lines has grown into an online phenomenon, there seems to be less and less room for spontaneity.  The appetite for new content is enormous, and you have to plan way ahead to be able to promote that content properly.  I have to keep coming up with new ideas for group of related posts, or posts for special occasions.

For example, we just finished February's "29 POSTS IN 28 DAYS."  But I'm already thinking about next year's February series of posts -- and February 2012 is a LEAP year, for cryin' out loud, so I'll have an extra post to do.  

Plus I have to do special posts in observance of milestones like the 2nd anniversary of 2 or 3 lines (November 1 will be here before you know it) and for the 200th post (which could drop as soon as  late April or early May).  

Not to mention my twice-yearly -- I can never remember if the word for that is biannual or semiannual or both -- Cape Cod bike ride posts.

And let's not forget 2 or 3 lines a day -- that requires a new post every single day, and I'm not exactly getting a lot of help from my readers!

Finally, my wife and kids are not all that supportive of my endeavors.  My wife thinks I'm obsessed, so I have to wait until she goes to bed to write posts -- lucky for me, she's usually in bed by 8 pm or so.  

My 16-year-old is always whining that it's his turn to use the computer so he can post a new video to Facebook that glorifies his basketball abilities -- like dunking on a basket that's been cranked down to 8 feet high (big whoopee).  The less time I have, the harder it is to maintain the quality of 2 or 3 lines.  

My trusty iPod Shuffle

But today, I'm putting all those considerations aside, and getting back to the roots of 2 or 3 lines -- back to the days when I would charge up my iPod, hit the bike trail, get an idea for a post from what turned up on "shuffle," and sit down at my computer and just write the damn thing -- without worrying about what the accounting department, and the marketing department, and the stockholders, and my wife and kids would say.

Like Toto, I'm going to pull back the curtain on 2 or 3 lines, and explain just how this post came to be.  

The story begins about a month ago, in the service department of a Toyota dealership in Silver Spring, Maryland.  I was there with my daughter's brand-new Corolla, which was suffering from some electronic gremlin that was causing the radio's display panel to malfunction.  ("Why wasn't your daughter dealing with this problem?" you might ask.  "That's a VERY good question," I might reply.)

I had brought along a library book to help me while away the hours, of course.  (I rarely go anywhere -- and I do mean anywhere -- without a library book.)  But I noticed there was a copy of Spin magazine in the customer waiting area.  

The magazine was an end of the year issue, with lists of the top 40 albums of 2010, the top 20 singles of 2010, and so on.  Most of the names were unfamiliar to me, so I pulled out my Blackberry and started typing abbreviated versions of the names of the artists and albums or songs in an e-mail to myself.

When I got home, I went to the public library's website and started searching the online catalog to see which of these CDs were available.  Quite a few weren't, but a quite a few were -- I promptly reserved as many as I could.

Sitting at #20 on the list of best albums of 2010 was MGMT's Congratulations.  I knew nothing about MGMT -- never heard of them before then.  But the DC Public Library had three CDs by them, and they notified me only a few days later that all three were waiting for me at the main DC library, which is only two blocks from my office.)

Things moved very quickly after that.  I downloaded all three CDs, copied them to my iPod, and started listening to them on my next bike ride -- which happened to be my first bike ride in almost two months, thanks to the fact that it's been freezing here forever, and that there was all this snow on the bike trail until very recently.  (Is it too much to ask that the county government spend a tiny bit of all the taxes I pay them to plow the bike trails?)

A couple of cuts appealed to me right off the bat, and "Time to Pretend" is one of them.  It's not on the Congratulations album, but originally appeared on MGMT's 2005 six-song Time to Pretend EP.  The group then stuck a slightly modified version of the song on its 2007 Oracular Spectacular album.

MGMT was started by two Wesleyan University freshmen about ten years ago.  They originally called themselves "The Management," but another band was using that name, so they started using the abbreviation for management.  They've appeared on all the late-night shows (including "Saturday Night Live"), and have toured in Europe, South America, and Australia as well as in the US, appearing with such notables as Radiohead, M.I.A., the Flaming Lips, Beck, and Paul McCartney.

Here's what MGMT had to say to one interviewer about "Time to Pretend":

We wrote "Time to Pretend" our senior year of college, and the music was inspired by a praying mantis we had in our house.  She laid eggs and it died, and we laid the egg case on this kinda model pirate ship on the mantle piece, and the eggs hatched and all these baby praying mantises were climbing up the rigging of the ship, and it was pretty crazy . . . Mmmm, so the music was inspired by our praying mantis that liked to dance to the Clash and the lyrics are just about us imagining being rock stars . . . . [Y]eah, fantasy rock star life. 

(You might think the boys were pulling the interviewer's leg, but I'm guessing they were perfectly serious.)

By the way, MGMT had no illusions about what might happen to them if they did "make some music, make some money, [and] find some models for wives" after they graduated from Wesleyan.  

The models will have children, 

We'll get a divorce,

We'll find some more models,

Everything must run its course.

That's not quite the end of the story if you're a typical rock star.  Perhaps the boys were thinking of Spinal Tap when they wrote these lines:

We'll choke on our vomit 

And that will be the end.


Here's a link to the MGMT website if you want to learn more about the band.

Here's the official music video.  (67 million-plus views?  Really?)

Here's a link you can use to order "Time to Pretend" from Amazon: