Don't Ask Me Where The Flamingos Came From...

(Please note: the following blog was originally posted on my old blog Why Yes I Am Quite Random, Why Do You Ask?, a blog I can no longer access for some unknown reason. This is being put at the start of each blog I'm uploading, in case anyone comes across the blog and accuses me of plagiarism. This is explained further in my introduction blog.

The following was originally posted on Friday, December 16th, 2011 at 8:10 pm)

And now for the second blog of the musical nitpicking theme week. This is a variation on my original idea. When I first thought up the three blogs, I was going to look at stupid lyrics in songs, good or bad, and go into why they don't work. However, with all the Christmas shopping and working I've been doing lately, I haven't had time to think of the songs with questionable lyrics. Or at least, not a decent amount. So, I will instead choose one song and attempt to go over what I find wrong with it.

And the chosen song? Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) by Katy Perry.

Now, I want to preface my choice with this statement: I do not hate Katy Perry. I really, REALLY loved Teenage Dream, Waking Up In Vegas, Firework, Futuristic Lover (E.T), Not Like The Movies and her cover of Black And Gold by Sam Sparro. And I enjoyed seeing her on one of my all time favourite shows, How I Met Your Mother (“Who's YOUR daddy?”)

But, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I thought I Kissed A Girl was overplayed and gimmicky and Ur So Gay doesn't get played much in my rotation either. Last Friday Night is somewhere is somewhere in the middle.

Let me break this down into five components: musically, lyrically, vocally, the clip and the title.

Let's start with the title. It sounds like a trivial thing to focus on but a good title will stand out (Bloodhound Gang's The Inevitable Return Of The Great White Dope, Green Day's American Idiot, Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Murder On The Dancefloor) whereas a bad title is either nonsense (early Panic At The Disco and I refuse to use an exclamation mark because that's stupid) or bland (how many songs with the simple name of Angel are there?) This one... well, really, in the modern times, there are so many variant vocations and working hours, so not everybody's end to the working week is a Friday. But maybe that's just me talking, as I work weekends.

Vocally, I have no complaints. Katy knows how to carry a tune. Musically, nothing really wrong.

Lyrically... yeah, that's where the big problems are.

Now, I won't be commenting on every lyric but I will be going through the song and highlighting the bits that leave me scratching my head.

“I smell like a mini bar
DJ's passed out in the yard”

But in the chorus, you mention getting kicked out of bars and parading boulevards. So, did the DJ follow you? Did you have an after-party? Was he always where you were? Lady, that means you have a stalker. Or you're in a parody movie. Either way, I want answers.

“Pictures of last night ended up online
I'm screwed! Oh well!”
Now, it's not so much the lines themselves but rather the reading. When I hear it, I hear “I'm screwed! LOL” based on the timing. And when I say that, I mean it sounds like "L-O-L" like she's spelling it out for those not in the know. Now, I know that might just be me but even when I know the proper lyric, my mind still can't train itself to think that. So, that leads me to wonder if anyone else has had the same thought.

“And we took too many shots
Think we kissed but I forgot?!”

“Skinny dipping in the dark
Then had a ménage à trois”

Now I know I skipped a bit, but that's not the important thing. Now, I can't say for certain what DOES go on when three people are in the bedroom, but wouldn't kissing be involved? If so, how do you forget? That's like saying “Well, I had some toast but I forgot what I put on it, then I washed my buttered toast down with milk”. Well, clearly, you had butter on it. Or is your memory shot to Hell?

And if she's talking to two different people,

1. She doesn't make that clear and
2. Promiscuity may have been the wrong road to go down, drunkenness or not

“Warrants out for my arrest”

Then it might be a good idea to lay low for a while, find a safehouse. You're probably wanted for being drunk and disorderly. But yet, every Friday, you go out and repeat the pattern. And if there are multiple warrants out, hypothetically speaking, do you travel to different towns? How far do you go if you're able to make it home at night? And also, you say earlier in the song “Yeah, I think we broke the law”. Well, when a warrant is issued, there's your answer.

OK, so it's only a few snippets of the song. But when you look at the film clip, then the song makes even less sense.

In the film clip, Katy plays a teenager who is apparently unpopular and uncool. Her neighbour (played by Rebecca Black, so already the clip has a bad mark against it) invites her in and makes her over so she can be noticed by the boy of her dreams. She then proceeds to become the hit of the party, before waking up in her bed after the party.

So, I have a few questions...

1. The song says she gets kicked out of bars, but she's not even old enough to enter one and she is not shown entering a bar. So, why wouldn't you centre the clip around it?
2. Isn't she a bit young to be having sex in general, not least of all a threesome? And since she's been drinking, doesn't that count as non-consensual, especially since she's possibly a minor? And if the partner was older...
3. How is the DJ passed out in the yard if there's a band playing? (Hanson, no less.)
4. In regards to the first question, when exactly does she visit a park, go skinny-dipping or hit a boulevard?
5. How does she end up in her “geeky” look when she wakes up even though she passes out still in her make-over? Did the geek in love with her undress her? If he did, he is one creepy little bastard. And it might answer the second question...

Now, to be fair, I do like Debbie Gibson's and Corey Feldman's appearance at the end, that was pretty funny. But when you stack the song against the clip, it's clear things don't match. If the clip was thought of first but Katy was lacking a good song to go with it, she should have aimed for a younger feel, like how she may have been in her teenage years. If the lyrics came first, then I don't see how you get a teen party from those lyrics. It sounds more like a typical Friday with her co-workers at a local bar or being with her gal pals.

It may seem like I'm being overly harsh, and I'm sure some of her best stuff has lyrics that don't fit, but at least they don't leave gaping plot holes (or as close to a plot hole as a song has). Like I said earlier, I love her work, but this song just baffles me.

Anyway, there will be other songs/clips I'll get into the future, good or bad. But for now, there's one more blog for my musical nitpicking theme week on the horizon.