So, what do James Brown’s Sex Machine and Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald have in common? Give up? Not even a guess? Well, they’re absolutely two of the most repetitive, monotonous (not literally, but almost), banal and boring songs I’ve ever heard! I listened to them back-to-back on the radio the other day, and I could hardly stand it.
For starters, Brown’s Sex Machine (or, more accurately, Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine – a much better title, ya think?) uses the same one chord guitar lick over and over again (126 times to be exact!) – taking a break only to insert a 16-bar bridge in the middle of the song, which, frankly, is terribly monotonous, as well. Worse still, are the lyrics, which pretty much consist of Brown repeating ad nauseam the phrase, “Get up… stay on the scene… like a sex machine.” (In true James Brown fashion, of course, this is pronounced Get up-uh! Stay on the scene-uh! Like a sex machine-uh!) Finally, to make matters even worse, the song goes on for over five minutes, causing the monotony to stretch into what seems like an eternity! Argh!
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love James Brown – and songs like Hot Pants, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag and Living in America – all great tunes. In fact, when I was a teenager the song I Feel Good was one of my favorites. (Still is, by the way!) But Sex Machine, well, not so much.
I like Gordon Lightfoot, too, and without a doubt hits like If You Could Read My Mind and Sundown are classics. But I’ve wondered for years why in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald he had to shove essentially the same eight bars down our throats for six and a half minutes, without at least a little variation. (Okay, there’s a little interlude in there, but that doesn’t count any more than the bridge in Sex Machine!) Maybe instead of concentrating on the music, Lightfoot was focusing all his compositional energies on creating intriguing rhymes like “…when the skies of November turn gloomy” and “...the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee.” That might explain it.
I don’t know… Do you think I’m being too hard on these guys? Leave a comment!
