The worst song ever (runner up) – Feel Like Making Love

I'm sure this assertion will seem heretical to fans of classic rock radio, where Paul Rodgers' popularity continues to defy plausible explanation, but it's time someone spoke up about the bloated emperor's lack of clothes.

If there is a less romantic romance song than Bad Company's "Feel like making love", I've been blessed to have escaped its sonic dispersal. The opening lyric, "Baby, when I think about you, I think about love" is a fumbling overture, articulated with the charm of a drunken bar patron at 2 a.m., and the plodding, leaden beat of the chorus offers the same graceless sexuality that the drunken bar patron would offer if opportunity knocked without knocking him over. The combined allure of primitive lyrics and sludgy music are akin to being seduced by the Hulk---and not the CGI Hulk, but the Lou Ferrigno Hulk of television fame.

Of course, picking on Paul Rodgers for his sophomoric lyrics is like mocking a goat for its inability to do subtraction, but it's hard to resist when he offers up tired tripe such as "if I had the sun and moon/and they were shining/I would give you both night and day/Love satisfying", shite that would get a D in junior high English class along with a red-pen comment, "nice job on the rhyme."

What annoys me most is that the song so embodies the cliche, brutish male, what Bukowski called "unoriginal macho energy." This is Rodgers' paean to hornification, a loutish attempt to seduce a woman to bed by stating, "I feel like makin' love/I feel like makin' love/feel like makin' love to you." Gee, what woman could resist that kind of sweet-talking charm? His lyrical gifts make Gene "they-call-me-doctor-love" Simmons seem cleverly subtle.

Compare this to another song from the era, Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On", in which Marvin croons emphatically, "We're all sensitive people/with so much to give/Understand me, sugar, since we got to be/Let's live." Both songs endeavor to persuade someone to slip between the sheets, but notice how Marvin urges, "Let US get it on" (note the partnership), while Paul bellows, "I feel like making love" (note the desire to satisfy his own pleasure.) I have no doubt that Marvin's method garnered him a whole lot more post-show gratification.

But I'm dissecting too deeply---let's get back to the surface: Boring, bland, and boorish. That's why it's on my list.

For those who are new to this feature, here's the list:
More Than Words
Kokomo
Signs

Lesson learned? Sadly, I doubt it

On Portland's Trimet buses, many of the overhead banners provided as visual distraction for the riders are a series of historic photos called “Traveling through time”, documentation of public transportation through Portland and Oregon's history.

While these photos offer a fascinating glimpse into the region's various transit metamorphoses, they also serve as inadvertent documentation of our society's perpetual lack of foresight.

Look at the examples I have included here, two different streetcar lines running through downtown Portland. Streetcars once covered the city like a web, across the bridges, even up the comically steep SW Vista Avenue--prior to the proliferation of cars, people needed transportation, and streetcars and buses handled the task. (Look at the crowds of people at the trains in many of the photos at the site linked above, evidence of robust use of the system.) As the automobile's ubiquity increased, use of public transit waned, and eventually the tracks were paved over to facilitate easier car traffic. Of course, this was considered a forward-thinking act, as train use was dropping and car use was increasing.

Now circumstances have changed, and the city has gone back to embracing train travel---three Max lines carry passengers to and from surrounding communities with two more max lines coming, a streetcar serpentines through downtown connecting various neighborhoods with another line coming. With heightened attention to pollution and reliance on imported energy, the city has become a model of effective public transportation---with changes that hearken back to a plan used nearly a century ago.

Of course, there was no way for the city planners in 1940 to anticipate the impact that would come from the automobile. (Though I'm sure some citizens suspected as much.) But these aged photos of streetcars prowling downtown Portland ought to serve as a reminder that so-called solutions being offered today are simply a reflection of a contemporaneous mindset, and as the city discusses widening (or replacing) the Interstate bridge between Portland and Vancouver, perhaps we should remember that making expensive accommodations for personal, insulated transportation vehicles has come back to bite us before.