The Perfect Song

Being the tragically unhip guy that I am, I recently have gotten into a couple of songs that I think the young people were into a year or so ago. First, I heard Modest Mouse's Ocean Breathes Salty about a month ago and started listening to that all of the time. Then, I heard the whole thing of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy for the first time and really got into that. It being an iPod world, I loaded them both onto my little external music brain in an elegantly-designed sliver and now listen to those two songs first when I get in my car or start at the gym.

And those two songs got me thinking about the kind of songs that take over your brain. There's a certain perfection to that kind of song. They're basically three (or six nowadays) minutes of perfectly-executed music. You listen to them eight times in a row. You listen to them whenever you get the chance. What is it that makes a Perfect Song?

Well, in my purportedly humble opinion, here are some things.

You have to have catchy music, of course. I thought Ocean Breathes Salty was catchy, but then I heard Crazy with its beat and the background singing and the crazy Bee-Gee-esque lead vocals. It's really good if you've got some kind of unusual musical hooks like, say, the Irish music in Dexy's Midnight Runners' "Come On Eileen," the Scottish (I think because, you know, the song is not crap and, if it's not Scottish, it's crap) music in Big Country's "In A Big Country" or the really prominent fat bass guitar riff in Cake's "Going the Distance."

You have to have some lyrics that get in your head, like Ocean Breathes Salty's "Well, that is that, and this is this, you tell me what you want and I tell you what you get, you get away from me." Such catchy lyrics, however, do not necessarily have to make much sense for a song to be a Perfect Song. Hell if I know what Ocean Breathes Salty is actually about, other than a guy being mad at a girl who may or may not believe in multiple lives like Shirley Maclaine. Other Perfect Songs are similar. I couldn't get Smashmouth's Walking on the Sun out of my head for days. It has been, I don't know, seven or eight years since that one came out and my best stab at what the lyrics mean is that things were better back in the '60s and '70s when people smoked pot instead of crack. If your lyrics are too elliptical, however, you can't be a Perfect Song. It's been about 19 years and I still have no idea what U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" is about.

The problem with Perfect Songs, however, is that times change and more Perfect Songs come along. For example, I was in the grocery store today waiting (and waiting) at the deli counter for a sandwich and Human League's "Don't You Want Me" came on. Now that was a Perfect Song in 1982 or 1983 when it came out. I mean, you have these great half-way disco beats going over this awesome he-said-she-said exchange where the only thing that the starcrossed lovers can agree on is that he found her working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. But, geez, does that song scream 1982 or 1983 or what? It's in there with Level 42's "There's Something About You" and Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" as Perfect '80s Songs that still sound great, but definitely are of a time.

Now, what you've undoubtedly noticed here is that I'm talking about a lot of one-hit wonders as Perfect Songs. That is no coincidence, I think. I would bet that each of those bands just worked and worked on their babies to make sure that they were Perfect. Eventually, they were polished like a gem stone. But, then, suddenly, it's a big hit and you don't have the time to both make your song perfect and hit the market when you need to do so. Your next song isn't Perfect and someone else's is.

Now, it's very interesting to compare Perfect Songs to songs that most everyone agrees are classics, timeless, Great Songs. It's weird, but Great Songs don't have to be Perfect Songs. Let's take the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." This is a Great Song. It has just layers and layers of music. Mick really outdid himself on the lyrics, weaving in Pontius Pilate (and thus Jesus), Anatasia, Nazis and the Kennedy brothers, among others. Then you overlay all that with the fact that you've got one of the biggest bands ever putting themselves in the shoes of Lucifer. That is one ambitious song, but they pulled if off.

Is Sympathy for the Devil, however, a Perfect Song? No, it is not. The "woo-wooing" toward the end is too loud, goes on too long and is too lame for "The World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band."

You can think of other Imperfect Great Songs. The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" has been exalted in this space, but it is not a Perfect Song because it has that totally superfluous part at the end after the music goes quiet. (The Mermaid says that part is scary and asks us to fast-forward through it every time. You can't be a Perfect Song if you scare my kid.) The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter?" Great Song, but not Perfect because it has that loud, jarring harmonica solo. It just doesn't take much to prevent a song from being a Perfect Song.

In fact, it seems pretty rare that a Great Song is also Perfect. I can't think of too many. Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On? The Rolling Stones' Jumping Jack Flash. U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. (A song's title can't prevent it from being Perfect or else U2 would have gotten dinged for the preposition at the end of that one, which brings me to a totally unrelated point. Have you heard these commercials for orange juice where the slogan is something like "Completely Unfooled Around With?" They make me want to tear large patches of hair out of my head every time I hear them. Read Strunk & White or Eats, Shoots and Leaves, for God's sake. You're college-educated advertising people. Stop dangling your prepositions.) Knowing just enough about rap to be dangerous, I'd say The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" is both a Great and Perfect Song, while Coolio's "Fantastic Voyage" is Perfect, but isn't Great.

There are fence-sitters. Does the weird fact that Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" -- a certified Great Song -- opens with singers you never hear again prevent it from being a Perfect Song? Close one. Is OutKast's Hey Ya -- a pretty damn Perfect Song -- too loopy and cute to be a Great Song? I'd said "yes," partly because I think Gnarls Barkley made a similar and better song.

Now, I know that not everyone -- maybe not anyone -- will agree with this particular musical theory, but, hey, you try to get Crazy out of your head.