Hey, got a pen? Write down this song title ...
By EDNA GUNDERSEN
USA Today
The emo subgenre, already baffling for its fuzzy boundaries and strangely named bands, now holds title to the longest and looniest song titles in the rock family.
The growing trend finds emo pop-rockers concocting abstract, ungainly song titles that are often clever and self-referential but rarely correspond to lyrics and may have only a peripheral relationship to the song's meaning.
Las Vegas group "Panic! at the Disco," whose "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" is heating up on radio, also drew notice for "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage." And try leaving this one on a request line: "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet," a line never repeated in the song. Other examples:
Emo didn't invent the phenomenon. The Beatles did "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" in 1968, followed by Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict."
Emo's fascination with marathon rubrics may be due to a mood upswing. "Emo is an outgrowth of the earnest singer/songwriters of the 1970s, and it started out sort of self-righteous but has evolved with some humor," says music consultant Tom Vickers. "Humor is a connecting force that resonates with the core audience."
The downside is that casual listeners may not grasp or recall a polysyllabic nonsense title they hear once or twice, he says. "It's harder to remember when it's not a one-word title like Kiss or Faith, but these aren't necessarily bands going for top 40 airplay," Vickers says. "A lot of these songs are designed to show a nutty vibe."
