I’ve been thinking about songs that might be appropriate for a wedding reception, and just now the thought came unbidden: The Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself”.
That would be bizarre, to be standing behind Grandma in the receiving line, shaking hands with the bride, and hearing that cranking over the speakers. I don’t mean just inappropriate, I mean freaking bizarre. I can’t even say just why it would be so.
Have a song and an event ever converged in your mind to make you spew your own coffee like this?
They were using an (instrumental, thank the gods!) version of Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” as the music between segments on the “Chicago Tonight” show last night. Particularly inappropriate because they had a segment on the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels school fire.
I was watching the Back-To-School fashion show on the Today show earlier this fall, and they featured Steely Dan’s “My Old School” as the background music, failing to realize that the subject matter of the song didn’t exactly match the typical atmosphere of an everyday elementary school.
Anyone remember ol’ Ronny Reagan talking about how “Born in the USA” was about American pride? Must not have listened too closely to those lyrics (actually, his speechwriter must not have).
Actually just about anytime a politician tries to latch on to a popular song it seems like they’re desperately trying to be hip.
A rather older woman (upwards of 45) was on stage (ok it was a dive and we only went to that particular place to meet up with some friends) when the DJ started to play “When I’m 64” by The Beatles I nearly lost it.
I am not really sure if it was a song that she requested or the DJ was trying to embarass her. It was a Polish/Russian strip bar so perhaps she didn’t realize that the song didn’t really fit the strip bar scene and given her age only made it worse. Or perhaps she has a great sense of humor. I didn’t stick around long enough to ask her.
Hmmm. I think the thread would have been better served by changing “Bizarro” in the title to simply “bizarre.” Anyone who ever read comic books or watched “The Superfriends” associates “Bizarro” with “Bizarro Superman,” from the Bizarro Universe, where everything is the exact opposite of what it is in our universe (so Bizarro Superman is evil, not good). Anything that is “Bizarro,” then, is the opposie of what it should be, not merely something that’s very wierd.
“Bizarro settings for popular songs,” therefore, would be songs played in a context that is the opposite of the appropriate context. So you’d play “taps” at birth, or when the flag is raised in the morning.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that I found the thread title confusing, if only because I watch too many cartoons.
Also, I now want “I Touch Myself” played at my wedding. Also “Maria’s Wedding” by Black 47, “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen, & “Pardon Me” by Larry Norman.
No, I’m not a professional pessimist. As if anyone could get paid for their pessimism, jeesh!
Years ago. A remote island i Thailand. Me and a couple of friends are backpacking. We notice, in the little villigae, that they’re setting up for some kind of party, so we ask around. Turns out it’s gonna be a wedding. Wow, sez we, and picture in our minds all those temple dancers we’re so familiar with. You know, conical brass hats, finger cymbals, weird masks.
So we ask if we can see it, from a distance. It’s going to be outside, and we don’t want to cram in, but we also want to make shure it’s OK that we’re there, taking pictures.
So we’re really hyped. Traditional Thai wedding and all.
Dam-dam-da-da, dam-dam-da-daaaaaaa. Here domes the groom. In a pink tux. The girl is dressed… ahum… like a Vietnamese whore in a 70’s war movie. All music is western, blaring from a PA. Everybody get really drunk on Mekong and Coke. And here comes the entertainment [bizarre moment coming up].
I don’t know if it was just a guy in drag or one of the infamous ‘lady boys’ of Thailand, but it certainly wasn’t 100% born female. Miming. To Madonna’s Like a Virgin, pointing at the bride and with other lewd gestures.
