Whacking Poetic and the Notes to My Future Wife

Chapter 6

"Hold the line," sang Xavier about an octave lower than the original. "Love isn't always on time."

It was the afternoon after Halloween, and Sam, Jeremy and Xavier were standing in the basement of Hill Hall outside the practice rooms where procrastinating music majors liked to congregate when they didn't feel like practicing. Mack had just arrived to join them for a band meeting. Along with the guys, there was a handful of other music majors gathered around an old couch in the hallway, including Penny Jackson and a couple of undergrads that Sam didn't know. Most of them technically didn't need to be practicing anymore – Sam only needed to be in the building once per week when he worked with his advisor on his research – but milling around outside the music building practice rooms was an old habit from their undergraduate days when they practically lived there. Normally it was a chance to catch up on music department gossip or take part in long bull session about the stupidity of the Bush administration, free will versus determinism, or whether Frodo Baggins or Harry Potter was the more understated movie hero. This time they were trying to see who could come up with the stupidest lyrics ever written.

Jeremy squeezed onto the couch next to Penny and pushed the sleeves up on his lumberjack plaid flannel shirt. "Who did that song?"

"I don't know," said Xavier. "But those are stupid lyrics. It was the seventies or eighties. Back then there were lots of stupid songs. How about, I'm hot blooded. Check it and see. I've got a fever of a hundred and three. Come on baby do you do more than dance."

"Bullshit," said Mack. Even though he had just arrived he must have immediately recognized the conversation as one they had fairly regularly. "Toto and Foreigner. Two classic songs loved by millions."

Sam, who was standing in front of the group in the hallway, looked up to find Sarah walking towards the end of the hallway. She looked completely different without her Marge Simpson costume, as she was now wearing an oversized t-shirt and jeans. She had a blue wool coat draped over the books she was pressing up against her chest and the brown leather bag she was carrying last night was now on her back. "Hey, Sarah," he said as he waved her over. "What do you think? We're trying to come up with the stupidest lyrics ever."

Sarah walked over and set her stuff on the floor next to the couch as she thought for a second. Her t-shirt had a print of a close-up view of a lion wearing glasses. "How about And if you're somewhere drunk and passed out on the floor - Oh Joey, I'm not angry anymore. It's like, hey, thanks for telling me now that I am passed out drunk."

"Concrete Blonds?" said Penny. "I love that song. That song's not stupid at all!"

Jeremy waved his hand in the air like he was trying to get a teacher's attention. "How about In an mmm bop they're not there. Until you lose your hair. No, But you don't care."

"Is that Hanson?" said Xavier. "You can quote that? What about Cat Scratch Fever."

"Everyone in the seventies had a fever I guess," said Sam.

Jeremy scoffed. "Ted Nugent is a piece of work. His most offensively bad verse has to be Stranglehold. You ran that night that you left me, you put me in my place, got you in a stranglehold baby, then I crushed your face." He shook his head. "Man, he is one classy character."

Mack waved his arms at them. "All of these are classics. What do you snobs want?"

"Maybe just a little depth?" said Jeremy with a sneer. "Maybe a little bit of integrity? Sam, have you heard Wilco's The Ashes of American Flags? That's a good song." He started singing. "I would like to salute, the ashes of American flags, And all the fallen leaves, filling up shopping bags."