So I was sitting around with my kid today (he's six). We were watching some TV and one of the commercials that came on was for one of the shitty popular light beers and featured Mr. Steroid Livestrong himself. No biggie, really, except the tune used for the ad was Blur's "Song 2." I turned to my son and I said, "You know, that might just be the greatest rock song of all time. I don't ever get sick of hearing that, do you?"
He shook his head "no."
"Song 2" has all the great hallmarks of a real rock and roll classic. It's under three minutes (it's barely over two, if that), it has a chorus that explodes in your head the very first time you hear it, and it has really dumb lyrics that don't necessarily need to make much sense. I know I had played my kid the song before on my iPod, but he had recently gotten into it through the LEGO Rock Band game. He knows good rawk when he hears it.
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| Plasticity is what counts, kids. |
Now, for a long time I've claimed that The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" is my all-time fave rock tune, but "Song 2" has that same indelible groove behind it that other goofy rock classics like "Louie, Louie" have. It sounds great anytime, anyplace, anywhere (especially when I've heard it cranked at various amusement parks in the past), it makes you wanna yell "Woo-hoo!" really loudly, and it also makes you want to shake your ass to it. If it's not the best rock song ever, it's certainly well worth placing in a short list of "perfect" rock songs.
Whatever the case, I find it's one of those songs that's impossible to hate and perhaps Blur's greatest moment that they ever recorded. The rest of the album the song is taken from is OK, but doesn't really have the nervy energy "Song 2" does. Now, had they dared to just put out a 10-12 song album of nothing but short, sweet tunes like it, they could possibly have recorded a rock masterpiece. But they didn't, and now we have Gorillaz. Oh well.
