“Girl Crush” aka Quite Possibly THE WORST SONG In The History Of Songs

image courtesy of jezebel.com [text added]

As I was flipping through stations the other day on my way to save someone from something, I encountered a ballad the likes of which the world has never known — so miserably wretched that it should never be heard by anyone.  That song is “Girl Crush” by a band called “Little Big Town.”  Yes, I looked it up.   That is their name.   It began with

I got a girl crush

Hate to admit it but

I got a hard rush

It’s slowing down

It started out okay.  Simple, soothing melody…soon joined by a not-terrible girl voice telling us a little something that we may or may not want to hear about her feelings for other girls — you know, depending on what you’re into.  And I, personally, am into understanding (human behavior, generally, and) the thoughts and feelings of any oppressed persons emerging from the dark, hateful closets of the world — which is EXACTLY what I thought this was about.  But then

I got it real bad

Want everything she has

That smile and that midnight laugh

She’s giving you now

Plot twist:  Nope.  Even bigger plot twist:  It gets worse.

I want to taste her lips

Yeah, ‘cause they taste like you

I want to drown myself

In a bottle of her perfume

I want her long blonde hair

I want her magic touch

Yeah, ‘cause maybe then

You’d want me just as much

I’ve got a girl crush.

Uhhh….

What?

As a Rolling Stone article on the subject states, “…it isn’t long before listeners realize the character…[is full of shit]…because the MAN SHE PINES FOR is sharing a bed with this other woman.” [emphasis/opinion added]

*Sigh*

The article goes on to quote one of the band members saying “It could be a bit of a game changer on country radio right now.  There are not many women on the radio and not many ballads with that kind of lyrical content.”

*Siiiiiigh*

So…much…worse

I don’t get no sleep

I don’t get no peace

Thinking about her

Under your bed sheets

The way she’s whispering

The way that she’s pulling you in

Lord knows I’ve tried

I can’t get her off my mind

Now I don’t know what kind of “game” country radio is playing, or how this is going to “change” it (unless it is The Grammatically Correct Song Lyrics Game) but I do know that what we “got” here is not lyrical genius; far from it.  What we have here is mass *yawn* marketing of sensationalistic attention-whoring at its pity-partying finest; an insult to women (and men — and not just the kind who are hoping to hear some hot lesbian action set to music!) of all walks of life because it is so damned sad.  And no amount of telling us how “cutting edge” and “controversial” it is can [make it so] undo The Sad.

Don’t take my word for it.  Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I almost wrote that.

In addition to my word, which you can literally take to the bank in printed form and trade in for bricks of solid gold, I also submit for your consideration the review of real-life lesbian expert and friend of mine, with whom I consulted, who described this song as “disappointing,” to say the least:

“Like you, I thought it had promise in the beginning,” my expert source stated.  “Then I was like….what in the actual fuck?  No!  Why?” [paraphrased]

We went on to discuss another terrible song by the same bunch talking about how “God made girls to…wear skirts and flirt,” which pretty much made us both want to set fire to this sorry nest of songwriting succubi and make delicious S’mores from the marshmallows we would roast over the charred remains of both their corpses and the mountains of Lisa Frank ™ notebooks in which they compose their “feminine masterpieces.”

Far worse than Katy Perry’s waaay overplayed lipstick-lesbian anthem, “Girl Crush” doesn’t even try to turn anyone on.  At least, I don’t suppose it does.  Does it?  I shudder at the thought.  The lesbianism is the hook.  Or maybe the bait.  Probably the bait, because the hook is the gutwrenching exposure to this woman’s pretense…and self-abasing obsession with her ex-lover and his new lover.  Or the agonizing certainty that there is nothing you can do to get the two minutes of your life back that you spent listening to this terrible song.  Nothing.  They’re just gone.  Forever.  This song doesn’t try to do anything except make sane people wish that girls would just for-Christ’s-sake stop it already with the (lipstick) lesbian innuendo.  Do or do not, as the saying partially goes.  Stop trying to trick people!

I took “Girl Crush” to the streets to ask random men what they thought of it.  “Ahh, God! This song is bullshit!” opined a self-described lover of women at downtown’s gay Macados.  “I mean, at first, you’re all like ‘Yeaaahhh…alright.‘  Then you’re just like, ‘What?  No!  Why is this happening?!‘”

The video would look something like this.

Why, indeed?  Is THIS a video/song you want your 13-year old daughter seeing/singing while getting ready for school, as I used to watch/sing Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me” with the curling iron stretched as far as it would go from the bathroom so I would not miss a moment whilst sculpting my bangs into a ginormous impenetrable puff?  Hell no, it is not.  What would a ‘Girl Crush’ video even LOOK like?  I bet it would look really sad.

It falls to me, naturally, to rewrite this song — to try to undo some of the hurt it has caused.   I do this for you, beloved readers. And for America.

That’s Not A Girl Crush – by Me

That’s not a girl crush

Don’t have a mic but

I’ll sing with my hairbrush

Of how it brought me down

At first I thought, “Not bad…”

And then I was so mad!

‘Cause no one is as sad

As Little Big Town

I want to hit my screen

With my brand new coffee cup

I want to sue this song

For making my brain throw up

I want to tell all girls

This is not how it must be

I want them all to run

From such codependency

That’s not a girl crush

That’s not a girl crush

I don’t get this song

Lyrics are all wrong

Thinking about how

It cannot be long

‘Til radio drops this shit

‘Til people say, “Just stop it.”

I hate these lies

And how hard this song tries

I want to tell all girls

That life is sometimes unfair

And if he’s not the “One”

There’s plenty of “Ones” out there

And to the girls who dream

Of “girl crushes” they’d explore

Don’t do it for men, girls —

That’s just an attention whore

That’s not a “girl” crush

That’s not a girl crush

It’s clearly a straight flush

A farcical gold rush

That brings us all down