Our inaugural entry comes from David Guetta, some French techno guy about whom I know nothing, and Nicki Minaj, whom I know only from that other song in which she felt it was acceptable to rhyme “And yes I call the shots, I am the umpire” with “I sprinkle holy water on the vampire” and “We done did everything they could think of” with “Greatness is what we on the brink of.” Now I know Ms. Minaj much better. And I hate her for the stupid bizzaro-human that she is.
She's actually not a terrible vocalist, though, for what that's worth, and for what you can actually hear through the auto-tuning. And that's not worth much when it's coupled with a lyricism that would make the graffiti carved into the bark of that tree next to the bus stop at the high school seem like the odes of mother-fucking Horace by comparison.
Here is the video. I still can't figure out why I can't properly drop links onto the Blogger page; if anybody could help me troubleshoot that, I'd be right grateful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVw7eJ0vGfM
Bring on the aural equivalent of softcore medical fetish porno!
Verse 1
Doctor, doctor, need you bad, hold me babe
[Let me stop you right there, Nicki. This seems like a real breach of medical ethics here if you're sexually involved with your doctor. That shit might fly in Grey's Anatomy, but for those of us out here in the non-McDreamy Universe, getting felt up by your doctor is pretty icky.]
Doctor, doctor, where ya at? Give me something
[Wasn't your doctor just there holding you? And now you don't know where he is? So your relationship is unstable in addition to being unethical. Way to go, Nicks. Also, “give me something?” Like you're just straight-up asking him for any and all drugs? “Doctor, I have an unspecified medical ailment, and I'm going to circumvent your diagnosis and tell you that the cure would be physical affection and all of the drugs.” I don't think you understand how medicine works, Nicki.
[I do, of course. I've been watching Star Trek!]
I need your love, I need your love, I need your loving
[This is like Monty Python's “Medical Love Song,” but more weird because it doesn't actually realize that it is weird.]
You got that kind of medicine that keeps me comin'
[Cover your eyes, kids. The following text is only for adults: THIS IS A DOUBLE-ENTENDRE. SHE MEANS “COMING” AS IN GOING TO THE PLACE WHERE THE DOCTOR IS BUT ALSO “CUMMING” AS IN HAVING ORGASMS. IT IS A VERY CLEVER AND SUBTLE PLAY ON WORDS THAT IS TOTALLY ORIGINAL AND NOT USED IN JUST ABOUT ALL PORNOGRAPHY EVER.
[You didn't cover your eyes, did you children? I'm sorry I had to shatter your innocence, kids. But sooner or later, we all have to learn that pop music is full of uncreative and repetitive euphemisms for sex.]
[Also, if any medicine makes you experience spontaneous orgasm, call your doctor...oh, wait.]
My body needs a hero, come and save me
[So first it's this whole doctor thing, and now you're looking for some hero to save you, huh? What is it with these songs where the female characters either abase themselves and actively seek subjugation or else express their absolute power over their suitors? You know what there's not in pop music? Reciprocity, equality, fairness, respect—the kinds of things any actual love ought to be built upon.
[Ha ha. Nobody would ever write a pop song about that crap.]
Something tells me you know how to save me
[From your asymptomatic and unspecified medical condition? That's some doctor who could treat that disease! Maybe we are in the magical realm of McDreamy medicine after all.]
I've been feeling real low, oh I need you
[Oh, so we've got a symptom. Depression! You don't need me, you need regular exercise. Maybe get a dog. Drink more caffeine.]
To come and rescue me
[Man, if I had a dollar for every time a gorgeous pop starlet asked that of me.
[I would have zero dollars.
[And so would you, gentle reader. Don't kid yourself. The Nicki Minajs of the world, dim lyricists that they are, nevertheless have no need of anything you or I could offer. Which is probably for the best. Because I think we have no need of anything they could offer, either.
[Other than the torrid, tawdry, tabloid sex.
[But we don't need that, do we?
[Of course we don't.
[No, really, we don't.
[We don't.]
Chorus
Make me come alive, come on and turn me on
[Let's break this down a bit. “Make me come alive”—so...you're dead? You sing pretty good for a dead person, Nicki. But then you follow that with “come on and turn me on,” as though you were turned off, like a robot (a theme the video certainly runs with).]
Touch me, save my life, come on and turn me on
[You were dead in the last lyric, now you have a life that needs saving. Make up your mind!]
I'm too young to die, come on and turn me on
[Nothing turns me on like a woman telling me that she is going to literally die if she doesn't get my love. Nothing turns me on like that, because that has got to be the most stalkerish, unsettling, unhealthy, unsane thing you could ever possibly tell a person, and it completely turns me off.
[But, hey, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it!]
Turn me on, turn me on, turn me on, turn me on
Make me come alive, come on and turn me on
Touch me, save my life, come on and turn me on
[Yes, yes. Etc., etc.]
I'm too young to die, come on and turn me on
Turn me on, turn me on, turn me on, turn me on
Verse 2
Boy, I'm achin' , make it right
[For aches, I prescribe an analgesic, a hot shower, and rest. You're welcome. That'll be $90.]
My temperature is super high
[High enough to cause brain damage, if the lyrics of this song are to be believed. So I'm thinking about 106.]
If I scream, if I cry
It's only cause I feel alive
[Ah, yes. Of course. You know, I feel alive right now, but I can somehow manage to experience that condition of being alive without screaming and crying. Crazy, I know. Hey, gentle reader—when was the last time the experience of being alive, independent of any and all other stimuli, made you howl and weep?]
My body needs a hero
Come and save me
[Oh God, back to this crap again. Heroes save those that save themselves, Nicki. Well, that's not actually true. But if I were a hero, I'd have better things to do than save clingy, codependent girls who cry just because they're alive. I'd be leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and being the darkness that flapped in the night and other such heroic shit.]
Something tells me you know how to save me
I've been feeling real low, oh I need you
[You need something, that's for sure. Whether modern medicine can actually offer you what you need, I would not hazard to guess.]
To come and rescue me
Oooooooooooooo, ohhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhh
Chorus 2
Make me come alive, come on and turn me on
Touch me, save my life, come on and turn me on
I'm too young to die, come on and turn me on
Turn me on, turn me on, turn me on, t-turn me on
[THIS IS ALSO A CLEVER AND SUBTLE DOUBLE ENTENDRE. SHE MEANS TURN HER ON AS THOUGH TO IMBUE HER WITH ANIMATION, BUT ALSO TO AROUSE HER SEXUALLY. THIS IS VERY CLEVER AND SUBTLE.]
Bridge
You've got my life in the palm of your hands
[Oops! Dropped it! Butterfingers! Can we be done now? No? Okay.]
Come save me now I know you can (I know you can)
Uhnh, Uhnh
D-D-D-D-Don't let me die young
I just want you to father my young
[After due consideration, this unit has concluded that an exchange of gametes would be beneficial for both species, resulting in the generation of a hybrid with all the strengths of either genetic material donor but none of his or her weaknesses.
[No, seriously, what the fuck. “I just want you to father my young?” That's the kind of thing Lady Gaga would say right right before she ritualistically bit the head off of her inseminator. You pop stars are responsible for defining sexuality for the rest of us, but you seem to only know about human sexuality from reading the Engrish text of the owner's manual for a discontinued North Korean model of ice cream maker.]
I just want you to be my doctor,
We can get it crackin' chiropractor
[So it's a back problem, then. Glad we cleared that up. I don't think having a maladjusted spine can be responsible for stuttering or fever, though. If you were indeed taking all of the drugs, that might serve as justification for this the worst reggae rap it has ever been my misfortune to hear, but I think even that justification might be a bit thin.
[Note that when she sings this lyric in her Caribbean accent, it sounds like “chiroproctor.” I don't even want to think about how a chiroproctor would get cracking.
[I just looked Nicki Minaj up on Wikipedia to learn whether that Caribbean accent is fake or not—it's not, I suppose, since Minaj lived in Trinidad and Tobago when she was growing up. But apparently when Nicki slips into a different voice like this, it's an “alter-ego” taking over, like “Roman,” who is a “demon inside of [Nicki]” and who is the “boy that lives inside of Nicki; [h]e's a lunatic and he's gay.”
[Oooooooooooooooooookay. Well, now I don't even feel like making fun of this stuff anymore. Now I just feel sorry for her. Maybe she really does need some serious medical attention.]
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I
I know you can save me
[Scratch that. Back to being offended again.]
And make me feel alive
Chorus 3
Make me come alive, come on and turn me on
Touch me, save my life, come on and turn me on
[I would only turn you on if I could turn off your obnoxious auto-tune function. Is that more of the whole Pinocchioette thing—singing like a robot? I almost wish you'd get to be a real girl just so you'd stop singing like a Speak-and-Spell.
[And as long as we're on the subject of robots, is it just me or was the director of the video for this song working from notes he jotted on his hand in the coffee shop after watching Hugo instead of an actual script?]
I'm too young to die, come on and turn me on
Turn me on, turn me on, turn me on, turn me on
[Turn this song off, turn this song off, turn this song off, turn this song off!
[Thank God that's over. Time to go listen to some motherfucking White motherfucking Zombie. Or listen to some of Janelle Monae's stuff. Robot sex is a prominent theme in her work, believe it or not, and it's actually some really good R&B, the kind that shows Nicki Minaj to be a shallow singing head—less of a singing head, really, than singing tits and ass.]
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