Fun with classic rock radio

(this column has been rated R, for adult content, language and sheer stupidity)

If you're like me (and all my sympathies if you are), you're stuck listening to classic rock radio. I don't have a CD player in the car, and the cassette player is only for long trips. I'm only 10 minutes from work, so it doesn't make sense to get satellite radio. AM radio skews so far to the right that I'm afraid the car will tip over if I switch it on. That leaves FM, and that leaves me with about 10 stations, two of which are classic rock.

The other FM choices really aren't choices at all. They include:

* Public radio (I can think, and I can drive, but I can't do both at the same time)
* Country music (I like country music, just not the music of this particular country)
* Top 40 (which by the time you turn 40 no longer is your top 40)
* Rap (listening to someone complain about how lousy their life is, how many people they've shot or have shot at them, how much more bling they have than me or how many babes they can bag ain't my bag)

So that leaves classic rock. Yes, the best of the '60s, the '70s and occasionally the '80s. So how come in 30 years, all that seems to have been produced is the same 30 or so songs? That averages 3 songs a year, and I know Springsteen's "Born In The USA" alone is responsible for at leave a third of them.

Literally, I was bouncing through channels and both classic rock stations were playing "Another Brick In The Wall" at the same time. A couple of minutes later, the '80's channel was doing it too.

Sooner or later, someone's going to realize that since most of the song really isn't sung as much as spoken and the major instrument on the track is the bass, it qualifies as a rap song, and it will turn up on the rap station. Then public radio will realize it's part of an opera (OK, a ROCK opera, but still an opera) and it will turn up there.

After hearing it a few hundred times, you start playing with the words, and remembering a long-forgotten dirty version we sang in high school, whenever the song comes on now, the only way I can get through it is to sing it this way:

We don't need no masturbation
We don't need no birth control
No fornication in the classroom
Teacher leave those t*ts alone
Hey, Teacher, leave those t*ts alone

All in all it's just another d**k in a hole

Then at the end when the guy is saying "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding/How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat," substitute the word "Beat" for "Eat."

Instant comedy!

Here, practice:




Another trick I have is whenever "Anyway You Want It" by Journey comes on, I sing along with the guitar riff between lines in the song. This is how it goes (sing the bolded words)

She loves to dance
To dance
She loves to sing
To sing
She does everything
Oh, she does just everything
She loves to move
To move
She loves to groove
To groove
She loves a lot of things
Oh, she does a lot of things

All night
All night
All night
All night
Oh every night
Oh, she does it every night
So hold tight
Hold tight
Hold tight
Hold tight
Oh baby hold tight
Oh, so won't you hold it tight

She said any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it

Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Any way you want it

I was alone
Alone
I never knew
Not knew
What good love could do
Oh, I knew not good love could do
Then we touched
We touched
And we sang
We sang
About the lovely things
Oh, about a lot of things

All night
All night
All night
All night
Oh every night
Oh, she does it every night
So hold tight
Hold tight
Hold tight
Hold tight
Oh baby hold tight
Oh, so won't you hold it tight

You're on your own for the rest of the song. Here, practice:




It's like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in your own car!

One more: Whenever there's a song with a lengthy "Na-na-na" section, at the end of each "na-na" chorus, use the words "Hey Jude" instead of the last "na-na." It works especially well with "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" by Journey and "Cuts Like A Knife" by Bryan Adams.

Here, try it:




So instead of letting your mind being battered into peanut butter by classic rock radio, fight back with comedy!