The Slice: Time to pop boomers’ balloon

As a card-carrying baby boomer, it’s my duty to disdain much of modern pop music.

And believe me, I do.

But I also try to be fair. And that’s why I feel the need to admit something.

Not everything I listened to as a kid was all that brilliant either.

You want examples? OK, you asked for it.

Consider the Beach Boys’ classic hit, “I Get Around.”

I loved that song. But it doesn’t make sense.

None of the guys go steady cause it wouldn’t be right

To leave your best girl home now on Saturday night

Huh?

Or consider another fine ‘60s number, Paul Revere and the Raiders’ “Hungry.”

Instead of peace, love and enlightenment, this song advances a theory of situational ethics that makes it sound like “The Ballad of Enron.”

If I break some rules along the way, you gotta understand

It’s my way of gettin’ what I want now, cause I’m hungry

Oh, OK. You broke some rules. But you were hungry.

I can dig it.

And let’s not forget a certain generation’s talent for smug put-downs.

Do you remember “Pleasant Valley Sunday” by The Monkees?

It’s not the most searing attack on suburban blandness ever recorded. But there’s a line in it that has always bugged me.

See Mrs. Gray, she’s proud today

Because her roses are in bloom

So maybe Mrs. Gray likes gardening. Maybe she worked hard on those roses.

That’s a reason to rip her? Should she have spent her time doing the frug or shaking her groove thing instead?

Of course, that’s nothing compared to some of the swell messages embedded in other hits of that era.

Take “Woman Woman” by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

I’ve seen the way men look at you

When they think I don’t see

And it hurts to have them think that you’re that kind

That kind? Excuse me. But what exactly had the young lady in question done to be blamed for guys checking her out? Maybe she’s just hot.

But perhaps my favorite example of lyrical idiocy can be found in Lesley Gore’s “Judy’s Turn to Cry.”

Oh one night I saw them kissing at a party

So I kissed some other guy

Johnny got up and he hit him

Cause he still loved me that’s why

Now I ask you. Is that any way to settle a dispute?

Of course, maybe that song was inspired by The Angels’ haunting, lovely “My Boyfriend’s Back.”

Hey he knows I wasn’t cheatin’

Now you’re gonna get a beatin’

Ah, they don’t write them like that anymore.

“Today’s Slice question: Are people who don’t eat meat impervious to the aromatic lure of bacon frying on a Sunday morning?