Your Humble Blogger was in Club Passim on Hallowe'en, listening to Jim's Big Ego performing their song "Lucky", a wonderfully funny and vicious kiss-off song from the album They're Everywhere. This morning, I happened to hear Black Coffee in Bed the magnificent, poignant and melismatic kiss-off song by Squeeze. All of which got me thinking: what's the best kiss-off song?
There are really two categories of kiss-off songs. The lesser (in my ever-so-humble opinion) is the I'm-leaving-you variety, of which my favorite right now is the BoDean's Misery with it's vindictive chorus "I hope I'm givin' back the only thing you ever gave to me—Misery!" The classic in this category, though, is probably Bob Dylan singing "You just kinda wasted my precious time" in Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.
The greater category is the you-left-me version. "Black Coffee in Bed" () and "Lucky" (I'm lucky you left me/please don't come home) are in that category. The joyful images of XTC's "Me and the Wind" (Me and the wind are celebrating your loss/Me and the wind are pulling kites and pushing trees) are wonderful, but if you are only allowing one entry from a band, you would probably go with "Your Dictionary" (S-H-I-T/Is that how you spelt me in your dictionary) for its viciousness.
Hmf. I had lots of others in mind when I started writing this, but now my mind is blank. What are your favorites?
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
There’s sorta kinda the Austin Lounge Lizards’ “Dallas, Texas”: “I’m goin’ back to Dallas, Texas, to see if anything
could be worse than losin’ you.”
There’s sorta kinda Nanci Griffith’s “Never Mind“: “I was hoping you might have the urge to write me / But I don’t believe you will, so never mind.”
And, of course, there’s Weird Al’s “One More Minute.”
Oh, and sorta kinda the Indigo Girls’ “Romeo and Juliet.” What differentiates a kiss-off song from a breakup song, though?
I’m not a huge fan of “kiss-off” songs, so I don’t have much to mention, but I am _very_ fond of Weid Al’s parody of the “kiss-off” song, variety two: “One More Minute.”
That’s right, you ain’t gonna see me crying,
I’m glad that you found someone new
Cause I’d rather spend eternity eating shards of broken glass
Than spend one more minute with you
I guess I might seem kinda bitter
You got me feeling down in the dumps
‘Cause I’m stranded all alone in the gas station of love
And I have to use the self-service pumps
Jed – A kiss-off song is (more or less) about how awful the erstwhile object of devotion turned out to be. The point of a kiss-off is how much better off the guy (usually a guy) is after the breakup.
The Romeo and Juliet doesn’t count, despite being by Mark Knopfler, and if you haven’t heard him sing it, you are missing a whole bunch of heartbreak.
One More Minute is the perfect example of a kiss-off song, despite being a parody and not, you know, the most musical thing to come out of an accordion.
“BJ Don’t Cry”, from the Moxy Früvous quill, is sort of a kiss-off, although there’s other stuff going on there, too. The Cats&Jammers do a magnificent “Meet Me at No Special Place” and a perfectly reasonable “You’re a Good Old Wagon, Daddy, but You Done Broke Down”.
Okay, how about Buddy Holly: “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore“?
Ok, I took the off-hand comment about it usually being guys as a challenge. Turned out to be a hard one. I came up with a Dar Williams song, but that doesn’t have the vitriol that you normally get with a kiss-off song. That one’s more of a “Much later I realize what I jerk you were” type song.
Most of the other stuff I came up with turned out not to exactly fit. For example Lucy Kaplansky’s
Turn the Lights Back On is apparently being sung to a therapist, not an ex, Diedre Flint’s very funny
We Fit Right is basically “You’re a complete jerk, but the sex is good” and Susan Werner’s Much At All looks very much like a kiss-off song, but then sticks in that ironic twist at the end that Jim Infantino was needling.
Favorite kiss-off? Heh. Greg Brown’s “just By Myself”. Excerpt:
http://www.gregbrown.org/gbdream1.html#justby
Would you count the Cowboy Junkies’ “Sun Comes Up, Tuesday Morning” as a kiss-off song? ‘Cause there are some priceless lines in there, so reflective and sweetly sung that it’s easy to miss the cut.