Alexis Strum, "Bad Haircut" (2005)
"You're almost like a bad haircut/That won't grow out/You're almost like a joke candle/That won't blow out."
Like Pink's "Just Like A Pill," except good, "Bad Haircut" is a song with A Metaphor. Alexis seems to like using and examining 'em; hence, in "Addicted," she's a junkie for your lurve, and "Nothing Good About This Goodbye" (now appearing in a debatably inferior version on Rachel Stevens's new album, of course) is nothing if not a consideration of the inherent figurative nature of the word "goodbye."
The specific metaphor in this particular case has to do with hair. An endlessly fascinating subject. There are 120,000 hairs on the average scalp! Of which 50 to 100 fall out every day! 16 km of hair are produced each year! In song, hair often proves popular as a representation of burden or worldly worries. There's South Pacific's "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Out Of My Hair." And Hong Kong songstress Gigi Leung has a lovely Chinese number called "Short Hair" in which she sings of cutting her locks off, and shedding her sorrows. And, um, others (some en francais). I have some way to go to be a historian of hair songs, no doubt, but it wouldn't be a job without charms.
I can't quite work out what the next few lines of Alexis's chorus are, though. I'm 80% sure that she goes on to sing, "I'm going out my head/Trying to work it out/Why I'm still in love with you." But the other 20% of me thinks she could also be singing, "I'm growing out my hair/Trying to work it out/Why I'm still in love with you." One of the excellent things about this song is: both versions work.
Sure, with strong enough googlefu we can probably find the official lyric, but do we really wanna look?
"You're almost like a bad haircut/That won't grow out/You're almost like a joke candle/That won't blow out."
Like Pink's "Just Like A Pill," except good, "Bad Haircut" is a song with A Metaphor. Alexis seems to like using and examining 'em; hence, in "Addicted," she's a junkie for your lurve, and "Nothing Good About This Goodbye" (now appearing in a debatably inferior version on Rachel Stevens's new album, of course) is nothing if not a consideration of the inherent figurative nature of the word "goodbye."
The specific metaphor in this particular case has to do with hair. An endlessly fascinating subject. There are 120,000 hairs on the average scalp! Of which 50 to 100 fall out every day! 16 km of hair are produced each year! In song, hair often proves popular as a representation of burden or worldly worries. There's South Pacific's "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Out Of My Hair." And Hong Kong songstress Gigi Leung has a lovely Chinese number called "Short Hair" in which she sings of cutting her locks off, and shedding her sorrows. And, um, others (some en francais). I have some way to go to be a historian of hair songs, no doubt, but it wouldn't be a job without charms.
I can't quite work out what the next few lines of Alexis's chorus are, though. I'm 80% sure that she goes on to sing, "I'm going out my head/Trying to work it out/Why I'm still in love with you." But the other 20% of me thinks she could also be singing, "I'm growing out my hair/Trying to work it out/Why I'm still in love with you." One of the excellent things about this song is: both versions work.
Sure, with strong enough googlefu we can probably find the official lyric, but do we really wanna look?
posted by Brittle-Lemon at
11:17 AM
2 Comments:
No history of hair songs can omit The Judybats' "All I Wanna Do Is Fuck Your Hair." I no longer own this, but I remember it as being sort of acoustic yet punky -- and I assume, after the song ends, spunky.
By
Anonymous, at 7:46 PM
Ha! Are you a Farrelly brother?
By
Brittle, at 2:49 PM
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