MANY songs are heartfelt tributes to people who’ve inspired you. But what if the losers in your life only inspire boredom and indifference? These tunes all become a bit irrelevant…
You Raise Me Up – Westlife
Sample irrelevant lyric:
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders / You raise me up to more than I can be
Who in your life ‘raises you up’? Your boss? He bollocks you for highlighting documents in pink instead of green. Your partner just does everyday partner stuff like loading the dishwasher and sometimes having sex. They’re not Nelson f**king Mandela. Even Westlife’s song is a cover version, suggesting you should play it safe and make money from other people’s talent. Inspirational stuff indeed.
Wind Beneath My Wings – Bette Midler
Sample irrelevant lyric:
Did you ever know that you’re my hero? / And everything I would like to be
Bette’s epic could be dedicated to your ever-supportive partner. That’s assuming they’re in any way supportive. And they might be a coward, not a hero. They could even be a high-maintenance bastard who saps your will to live. That’s not really ‘everything I would like to be’.
The most heroic thing anyone’s done for you recently is that stranger who helpfully held a door open for you, and applying it to them feels like excessive praise. Best to just use it sarcastically, eg. for the driver of that BMW that didn’t stop when you were on a pedestrian crossing.
Hero – Mariah Carey
Sample irrelevant lyric:
Look inside you and be strong / And you’ll finally see the truth / That a hero lies in you
Heroes again. However a hero does not lie inside you. When you see your elderly dad struggling to polish his car you don’t pick up a rag and muck in. It’s boring, you can’t be arsed, and the sneaky old git would just say ‘That’s the spirit’ and f**k off inside.
And that’s not even something particularly heroic. If you were called upon to do something genuinely brave, such as fighting in a war, you’d ‘look inside you’, notice the large number of heroes getting killed, and ‘see the truth’, which is that the army needs admin staff based far away from any fighting.
Proud – Heather Small
Sample irrelevant lyric:
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
Heather reminds us that making a small change could put us on a path to being a less shit version of ourselves. So really it’s advice to set the bar low. Whether it’s not eating food from the bin, not tutting every time someone asks you a question, or simply not saying ‘burp’ when you burp, you can make a difference today. However, there’s no mention of tomorrow in the song, so if Heather can’t keep up the commitment past today, don’t feel obliged yourself.
I Have Nothing – Whitney Houston
Sample irrelevant lyric:
Don’t walk away from me / I have nothing, nothing, nothing / If I don’t have you
Worryingly, if your partner’s singing Whitney’s sorrowful ballad but not making eye contact or holding your hand they may be talking about someone else.
Adulterer or not, your partner knows that if you walk away, you’ll be back from the pub in a couple of hours like a pissed boomerang wobbling its way home. And she won’t ‘have nothing’ if she doesn’t have you, she’ll have a clean loo, no fear of you saying something embarrassing when people visit, and the cat’s unconditional love and support.
