Driving home today I finally got sick of listening to sports-talk radio and flipped the dial until landing on my local classic rock station. I became slightly entranced by the bassline in Bad Company’s “Feel Like Making Love,” a part I’d never focused on before. I’ve gotten many laughs out of “Feel Like Making Love,” once performing it at the end of one of my band’s shows in a drunken duet with my band’s bassist at a frat party in the mid-’80s. Our singer moved behind the drums. Then a song I’ve always hated started up, Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” I decided to listen intently through the big drum fill, to see if there was anything I could ever like about that song. There was not.
To relieve the boredom of trying to listen intently to “In the Air Tonight,” my mind wandered to possibly the most unintentionally hilarious hook in rock, the part in Collins’ “Mama” when he does the rhythmic evil laugh. Does anyone not laugh in anticipation of that part of the song, even fans of Phil Collins?
Has anyone ever done an in-depth interview with Collins to ask him to describe the process behind writing that part of the song? In retrospect, does he find it unintentionally funny?
Another songs with an unintentionally funny hook is that Rush song where Geddy Lee follows up a gentle reggae section by screaming “Salesmen!” Or is it the singular, “Salesman!” Either way, it’s worth my time listening to that ridiculous song just so I can laugh at that part.
What song’s hook makes you giggle, probably unintentionally, as far as the songwriters are concerned?
“Snot running down his nose!”
I’d like to loop that bit.
Slightly off-topic, but since you brought the song up: I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that so many of Bad Company’s songs, the weakest parts are the choruses. The verses to “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” and “Superstar” and even their eponymous title song are all so much more interesting and catchier than their choruses. The same goes for “Can’t Get Enough” and even Free’s barbaric “All Right Now.”
I know a chorus is supposed to be simple and catchy but in all those cases, they missed the exit for “simple and catchy” and kept going down the road several miles until they ran out of gas around “moronic and simple-minded.”
Great observation!
Five Man Electrical Band and “Signs” – the little grunted solo “ugh!” after the a cappella “Sign says you got to have a membership card to get inside”. I can’t help but grin and grimace at that.
As for Bad Company. has there ever been a more boring supergroup?
Foreigner.
Asia
I always laugh when I hear Mellencamp’s “Pop Singer” — I must have had some shitty car speakers, because the first time I heard it, I thought he was singing “Never wanted to be no Bob Seger, never wanted to sing no Bob songs”
https://youtu.be/wLShxXgIK5w
If DLR can be considered the hook, the dry vocals of “Running With the Devil” is worthy of its own X-Files episode, I say
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTXuqNyTAI
The Firm
That is tremendous!
Thanks! That was a real public service. Somewhat related, Led Zep’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine always brings a smile. Do you think that was Page and Plant’s intent? I can’t be 100% sure, but it still cracks me up.
https://youtu.be/esZ15n6_5JY
Amazing! Is this from the upcoming Having Fun with Diamond Dave On Stage album?
Along the same lines as Diamond Dave, here is some wild wailing. Every time the song comes on the radio I stick around for this part. It never fails to crack me up.
I’ve cued the clip up to the good part.
https://youtu.be/OEkWa96pBkw?t=4m22s
Cliff, I don’t even know that song and your moment of cringe made me laugh out loud. Excellent!
I went looking for the clip of David Lee Roth’s American Idol Audition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3rxoBbEbq8), and I found this clip of him singing Baker Street. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3rxoBbEbq8