One Random Ten, One Not.

"The Song Is Called What?" Edition

1. “Enjoy,” Bjork
2. “Race for the Prize,” Flaming Lips
3. “Outta Mind (Outta Sight),” Wilco
4. “I Just Want to Have Something to Do,” Ramones
5. “Mama, Won’t You Keep Those Castles in the Air and Burning?” Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
6. “The Yip Song,” Robin Hitchcock and the Egyptians
7. “Please Don’t Go,” Floyd Dixon
8. “Compliments,” Bloc Party
9. “Art Crisis,” Bob Mould
10. “Hotel Illness,” Black Crowes

I admit to a weakness to pretentiously long song titles. There’s an element of too too precious weeniedom in naming your group Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, much less dropping an eleven-word song title on your audience. Some might find it off-putting, but for reasons unexplainable, I’m in.

Also, I like impossibly minimalist titles which are the métier of Bjork among others, but they aren’t as much fun to collect.

I ran through the catalogue on my computer and culled an extra 10 unnecessarily long song titles. We seem to be in something of a heyday for paragraphs standing in for titles, but if my collection is any indication they first appeared on the scene in the late Sixties (no surprise there.) If you have a favorite, drop it in comments. Bonus points if the title relates in no discernable way to the subject matter of the song.

1. “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” Bob Dylan
2. “The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes and Freud,” Blood, Sweat and Tears
3. “Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking,” Ricky Lee Jones.
4. “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” REM
5. “The Sky Is a Poisonous Garden,” Concrete Blonde
6. “The Chome Plated Megaphone of Destiny,” Mothers of Invention
7. “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” Public Enemy
8. “So Tonight that I Might See,” Mazzy Star
9. “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” Mission of Burma
10. “You Probably Couldn’t See for the Lights but You Were Looking Straight at Me.,” Arctic Monkeys