The Worst Song Ever - "If You Only Knew" by Shinedown

For the life of me, I cannot understand why Nickelback© has earned followers. I mean, yes, they have sold a ton of albums, they have made some cash partnering with one of the bailed-out banks, and they had one of the most successful rock songs of the 2000s (How You Remind Me), but for all intents and purposes, they are horrible. They are to music what Hallmark is to holidays and Walmart is to small business; they are a conquer all, succeed-by-numbers band who knows their formula and sticks to it. While some groups might rival them (I guess 3 Doors Down is a less trendy "Target" to Nickelback's Walmart in this instance), this much is clear: you cannot out-Nickelback Nickelback©.

Well, it seems the boys over at Shinedown have actually attempted to do just this, while also paying homage to other terrible songs by some famous female singers. Their semi-new single "If You Only Knew" (you might know it as the "it's 4:03 and I can't sleep" song) starts out like any Nickelback song you have heard since 2003: an overly serious, unintentionally hilarious guitar riff, followed by a few Chad Kroeger-y emotional-yet-tough lyrics that lead you to the next 3 minutes and 45 seconds (just about the perfect length of a Nickelback© song - almost all of their singles fall between 3:40 and 4:10). Let's take a look at these emotionally charged, intellectually challenged "lyrics"...

If you only knew

I'm hanging by a thread

The web I spin for you

If you only knew

I'd sacrifice my beating

Heart before I lose you

I still hold onto the letters

You returned

I swear I've lived and learned

This is going to be fun. Where to begin the critique?

Let's look at the storyteller. It seems we have a narrator hanging by a thread that they can spin. "Hanging by a thread" seems to imply they are holding on for dear life. Having the ability to "spin" a "web" indicates this person (arachnid? Peter Parker?) shouldn't be hanging by a thread in any case, since they have the ability to just create additional threads to hold themselves up by. This person spins webs, but can't hold themselves up. Pathetic. Charlotte he is not.

The narrator goes on to inform the listener that they are willing to sacrifice their own heart for the object of their affection, the apple to their eye, the female Shinedown fan in their MySpace profile. Sacrificing organs usually works best when one no longer requires use of them, this especially holds true for those organs we consider vital. Giving an organ away to a loved one is a futile exercise in wooing, the same way ramming cliches down our throats is a futile exercise in writing. Better luck next sentence?

"I still hold onto the letters
You returned
I swear I've lived and learned".

That last sentence sounds familiar... where have I heard this before?

Oh Alanis, any chance I have at bringing the fifth best single off your debut album is a chance I will gladly take.

Regardless, someone has had letters handed back to them, and this has proven to me a good learning opportunity. Seems Shinedown's lead singer has a relationship with his MySpace girl that is comprable to my relationship with Mrs. Cone, my third grade teacher. Writing samples were handed back, margins were corrected, that week's spelling words were underlined, and I knew from that moment on that "a lot" is not spelled "alot". Thank you Mrs. Cone. Back to Shinedown.

The first few lines make no sense. None whatsoever. The chorus is even worse.

It's 4:03 and I can't sleep

Without you next to me I

Toss and turn like the sea

If I drown tonight, bring me

Back to life

Breathe your breath in me...

Excuse me? So far we have a web with one thread, a rehased "Jagged Little Pill" song, and now we are paying respect to Gwen Stefani's third worst song ever. Then they decide to go all Ishmael on us and talk about the sea. They "toss and turn" like the sea. At 4:03. If it is 4:03 and I am in bed, laying awake, I am not tossing and turning, I am either cursing out insomnia or getting pissed about taking that extra line at the bar after last call. I am not tossing and turning, I am seething and/or screaming. Also, I don't get how they make the water reference, but then act as if they will, in fact drown. Shinedown really took all the life out of that metaphor, no breath can be breathed back into it, that thing is dead.

I'll spare you the other two verses, they seem to rehash the first one but spend a lot of time going back to "letters being sent". The last person I sent a letter to was my Grandma. That was 1998. If I am going to bother a girl who wants nothing with me, I simply facebook stalk, tweet, text, or if I am feeling retro, switch AIM names and send late night messages pretending I am someone from her class to find out if she is, in fact, hooking up with that skinny kid who wears girls jeans and still relies on MySpace. I digress.

"If You Only Knew" is a song that hammers a point home to the listener with Playskool tools. The unoriginal lyrics are flanked with meoldies stolen from every corporate rock song for the past five years, and the orchestra in the background seems like they cropped out part of Aerosmith's 1998 "Dont Wanna Miss a Thing". It is cookie-cutter to the core, a sad attempt at a rock song but a grand step towards transforming Shinedown into Shinedown©. They are not Nickelback© quite yet, but no worries Shiniedown, your day as a soulless music-by-numbers corporatae band seems near.

This is why "If You Only Knew" by Shinedown is the WORST SONG EVER.

Welcome

Friends and fellow followers of music, welcome to "The Worst Song Ever". In this blog, I intend to introduce you to some of the worst that current pop, rock, and hip hop music has to offer. Of course, many of the songs you hear on this blog are also going to be played on your local top 40 stations, so in those cases where the terrible attempt at music actually has an audience, I will ridicule artist, composition, and fan. Sound fun?

You might say that this sounds like the work of a pompous, self-righteous jerk who wishes he himself were able to make beautiful music. You would be right. I love music, it is one of the most important aspects of my life. It's been there from the start - I was raised on everything from Simon and Garfunkel to Dylan, to Janis Joplin, to Bruce and Billy, to Zeppelin, to the Motown classics, and in the course of my growing years Nirvana, Green Day, 2Pac and Biggie, and many things pop from the 80's, 90's, and 2000s. I've spent many nights listening to cds of random bands, and over the years I switched mediums to include iTunes, MySpace, youtube, and really just anything under the sun. Maybe not credentials of a classicaly-trained expert, but if I were to follow Gladwell's rule of 10,000 hours, I was an expert by 15.

I love music, especially good music, the types of songs that make you want to hear albums, and the types of albums that make you want to replay over and over again. I love to be tested by musicians, I love bands that push the proverbial envelope, and I love artists that can leave you breathlessly stunned, with only the capacity to murmur "wow". I also love songs that are fun to drink to, but that's a different story.

I am going to allow these horrible songs to revel in their rediculoussness, I am going to gut these songs and show you how ugly their inner depths are (or just point out how terribly depthless most of the crap on the radio actually is). This is not a groundbreaking venture by any means, it is simply the ramblings of a fan who wants to try to laugh about the current state of music.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the blog, and thanks for following!