This Time. I'm Losin' My Mind, This Time: Take Two

If you missed the inaugural installment of this feature, peep it here. The genesis of it is this: Bad songs find their way into my head every day, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out how they get there. After the first post, the reverse effect of trying to make some sense of it occurred, and I spent the next 36 hours with Barenaked Ladies pulsing through my brain, which is to say I spent the next 36 hours using coping skills one might file in a manila folder labeled "How Not to Get Thrown in Jail for Mass Murder." The quirk is that songs that have been recently heard, read, or viewed may not be included, and the asterisk is that, in order to avoid complete insanity, my mind is kind enough to include one song that doesn't suck.

5. "Mr. Charlie" by The Grateful Dead



I have no beef admitting that I love the Dead. Call me a hippie if it makes you feel better about yourself. This song kicks all the tail.

4. "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins



I don't have a beef with Phil Collins, either. Rather, I didn't have a beef with him growing up. In fact, I probably enjoyed his stuff, but never enough to purchase any. I mean, the guy was in Genesis, so he gets a little cred', right? Most of his solo cuts, though, are the embodiment of what this feature epitomizes: garbage that runs through your head for no reason whatsoever, but hangs around long enough to drive you batty. This song gets on my last nerve with that ticky-tacky drumming running through it and for the fact that it's six God-damned minutes long. Phil -- I think we had you about 3:30 in, bro. Let's call it a wrap.

3. "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" by Christopher Cross



There's not a legitimate reason for me to hate Christopher Cross. Oh, wait. Yes there is. It's called his musical career. I mean, what a load of sap-steeped '80s sewage. I'm sorry. I've made a valiant effort not to be negative in the last pile of months, but good lord did this era of music whiten the whiteness of white people. Between this track, and "Sailing," and "Ride Like the Wind" all the poetry I wrote in college sounds like Pulitzer material. I mean, I don't wanna say my verse was bad, but I've tried to build campfires and had mini tepees of tinder spit out crumpled pages of my stanzas. And I don't wanna spend too much more time on Cross, but top chemists in Clorox labs used to sit around in meeting rooms and play Cross' greatest hits as inspiration for projects titled "How Can We Get Clothes to Come out That White."

2. "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin



When the first kernels of my hippiedom felt the heat of the gas burner below, I thought Janis Joplin was pretty cool. Cool as in, You know, this movement needed a woman. Then I bought a copy of Pearl. I don't think I made it through two full listens. She was absolutely atrocious and anyone that says otherwise is high on paint fumes. There's one kind of person in this world that thinks Janis rocked, and that's the kind of person that thinks Stevie Nicks made Fleetwood Mac great. I have ideas for what we should do with those people, but...you know...tryin' to keep it positive here.

1. "Let's Hear it for the Boy" by Deniece Williams



I've probably mentioned this before, but we never had cable growing up. I think that our household was one of, like, one household in a 97-square-mile radius that didn't because the cable company came around and gave us cable free for a month about four times a year. There's that and there's this: We used to travel to Florida to visit my grandparents with mild frequency, and in both the free-cable and grandparent-visit scenarios, I did one thing: try to soak up as much MTV as humanly possible. I've probably seen this video as many times as I've seen the original Star Wars, which is one of the most shameful things I could ever admit, but that's how powerful MTV used to be. Know what's not powerful? Deniece Williams. Or the length of her discography. Or this video. Or whatever the message of having that kid actually wear a dunce cap was supposed to be.

So those are the songs that found their way into my head last week. Weeeeeee.