Love that song. 
I win this thread - when I was in high school, one of the songs they played at the high school dance was Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy. Which is admittedly a very boppity, danceable tune.
But the lyrics … :eek:
He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom
Excitable boy, they all said
And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he’s just an excitable boy
After ten long years they let him out of the home
Excitable boy, they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he’s just an excitable boy
Needless to say, no-one there apparently noticed how supremely inappropriate that is for a high school dance (except me, who was already familiar with the album).
If not the winner, certainly in the top places! :eek:
Around Veterans’ Day, I often hear “In Flanders Fields” recited or sung by people who think it’s a sad, anti-war poem.
Nope. It’s a jingoistic poem, one that says, in essence, “The Krauts killed us, and now you, our fellow countrymen, have a duty to enlist and kill them, to avenge us.”
Jingoistic? No, it’s a perfect song for Veterans day:
*
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.*
Veterans day is not a day for anti-war protests. Its a day to remember our veterans, esp those that died defending their country.
That last verse is frequently left out- but that’s the jingoistic verse, the one saying, “Don’t mourn us, pick up a gun and avenge us!”
jingoistic? You keep using that word. I do not think you know what that word means.
“Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive foreign policy”.
Honoring our veterans or even continuing a just war is not in any way shape or form “Jingoism”.
There are a number of versions, even of Leonard Cohen’s own. One contains:
“I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”
and that sounds pretty good to me. It’s a contender for the little memorial card to be given out at my funeral. 
She didn’t seem aware of the lyrics (I don’t think she spoke English).
For weddings, I’ve always been surprised by how many couples ask to have “Beauty and the Beast” performed during the ceremony. Also, how many have “Someday My Prince Will Come” as the song for when the couple are leaving the chapel.
I’ve decided that I could never hire a DJ for a wedding, and can push play myself if I need it. I remember one iPod jockey that refused to play requests. And as things were winding down (so people weren’t at least dancing to it) I hear blaring:
Till the sweat drop down my balls (MY BALLS)
To all these bitches crawl (CRAWL)
To all skeet skeet motherfucker (MOTHERFUCKER!)
The full title is “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” which tells you all you need to know.
That’s not surprising. Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan’s campaign managers asked for (and were denied) permission to use Born the U.S.A. for his re-election campaign.
Oh great, another I need to add to my “definitely don’t play” list. My brother once asked me, who can be particular about music, what sort of music I’d like at my hypothetical wedding and I said “well, as long as it’s not one of the stupid always-played songs, and none of the stupid wedding games either” but now I’d have to add that to the list. And by “list” I mean an actual list and the tip would go down or vanish if any of that happened – vanish entirely in the case of stupid wedding tricks.
Maybe I’d just hire a live band, and I guess I’d have to go with a jazz band so they wouldn’t be able to take requests for cheesy vocal pop songs.
Similarly for U2’s “One”:
It’s not just the general cheesiness of the song (And I like it, despite its cheesiness, or maybe because of it) that makes it inappropriate, it’s the girl pushing the boy into a hasty marriage and the general tone of the song set off by the line,
“I’m praying for the end of time,
So I can end my time with you”
which indicates being trapped in a loveless marriage.
In the case of that song, the only cheesy part of it is the clichedness of playing it at a large gathering. I like it enough that I’d enjoy listening to it anyway, except for the inappropriateness at an actual wedding. (Would I have to add Every Breath and every other obviously inappropriate song as well? And I’d have to wonder where I’d draw the line as far as blatant “cheating songs” go cause there has to be thousands of them.)
Actual cheesy songs would be stuff like the chicken dance, line dance, and any pop country.
Gotta do a chicken dance for the kids. The actual kids I mean. They have fun.
This actually makes it *completely appropriate *for most marriages. 
It was long ago and it was far away and
it was SO MUCH BETTER than it is today
When my office mate in grad school was a Mormon, I used to go with him to Stake and Ward dances. One of the songs played was Lady Marmalade, with its chorus of * “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?” **
You’d think that Mormons, with their language lessons required for international missionary work, would realize what this meant.
Or maybe they did, and figured that if you say suggestive things in another language, it doesn’t count. Like calories.
- “Do you want to sleep with me (tonight)?”, for the one or two folks who still don’t know.
Heh. A kid asked our French teacher what that meant. Gullible me, I never suspected maybe he had an idea and set her up to hem and haw and turn red. She did not disappoint. 
Catholic school, as a bonus, but she was a layperson and not a nun at least.