Top Five

Songs About Being Bored

My job sucks, there's nothing to do; I'm bored.
So for my very first (yawn) Top Five list, here are my top five songs about being bored. The trick of course, is to write a song about being bored without being boring. It's strange that it can work. But it can. Ohhhhh yes. It can.

5. Edward, Sandwich Hand - The Lucksmiths
Our sunniest take on tedium. The irrepressibly clever Australian indie-poppers play to my soft-spot for silly wordplay, and apparently they know someone with a job like mine - "nice work if you can forget it." But at least they leave us with hope - "sooner or later he'll pack a suitcase, t-shirts and travel toothpaste."



4. I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
In the 60s, kids started bands because they had something to say. The Ramones issued in an era where kids started bands because they had nothing to do. Their particular brand of boredom is not one of paralysis, but one of twitchy, resltess hyperactivity. I'm so booored! Quick, put me under, before I flip out! This song is too catchy! I can't stop dancing! This sucks!




3. (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
This song takes boredom to an entirely different level - a boredom of the soul. When I first heard it I thought it was just about hanging out and relaxing. But then I listened to the lyrics more closely; the first verse is ambigous, but the second verse knocks the wind out of me: "I left my home in Georgia/ Headed for the 'Frisco bay' / Cause I've had nothing to live for / And looks like nothing's gonna come my way." Suddenly the melancholy in his voice rises to the surface and I am floored. Then I take into account the fact that he recorded this just days before his tragic death. God. One of the greatest songs ever. Seriously.



2. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again- Bob Dylan
"Ohhhh, Mama. Can this really be the end?" Otis Redding's boredom was spiritual; Dylan's is existential. Even when he's hiding from the gun-toting senator under a truck or mixing Texas medicine with railoroad gin, he's still bored out of his mind. You always hear people talking about what they would do differently if they could live their lives over again. Dylan? "[He's] just sitting here so patiently / Waiting to find out what price / You have to pay to get out of / Going through all these things twice." Once is enough.

1.1969 - The Stooges
If not for a self-imposed one-song-per-artist limit, this list could have just been The Stooges self-titled first album. They nailed boredom rock their first time out, and this tune is the best of the bunch. It's 1969 - the year of Woodstock and Abbey Road - a time of excitment and possibilities! Right? Nah, not for Iggy Stooge. It's just "another year with nothing to do." If there was nothing to do in 1969, THERE WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING TO DO.